Our algorithms must all be feeding us the same things, I was about to buy one of these yesterday. I've been excited by the various Groovebox firmwares in particular.
I play music by sight (poorly) and can improvise a little bit on guitar, and would love to understand music theory better but so far do not.
Is this a useful device to get a feel for creating music, or is it only really useful if you already understand music theory or improvisation?
In general, all synthesizers are distractions from the essentials of music: listening and performing. They replace that with poking around at knobs and setting modes and it does give results, but it can feel really ungrounded when you haven't trained to get any of it to go through your hands directly. I have an FM-1 and yes, it's fun. But I would say the grooveboxes are roughly equal to DJing as a practice, which is to say, they definitely can inspire ideas and awareness, they just don't lead you to go really deep most of the time.
The thing to do for theory is basically to work on paper more, take careful notes and look for connections between one kind of theory and another, because often something that seems complex one way is simple in another. A groovebox can do this by presenting you with a palette of stuff that sounds good, and then you can go about breaking it down and studying it by hand.
I have an FM-1, and it's definitely a fun device for the price and worth having just to putz around while sitting on the couch. However, I don't think it's the easiest way to get started creating music. I personally have gotten much more value out of a DAW like FL Studio. I've tried to go DAWless (groove boxes, samplers, trackers, etc), but I always end up back in FL Studio.
If the OP is a software developer it's actually helpful to download a custom firmware's source code and have an LLM teach you how to use the firmware to play music and learn music theory at the same time, on one of the groove boxes.
E.g. it'll tell you how to activate the arpeggiator, as well as what an arpeggio is, what notes comprise each chord, scales, etc, which are all programmed into the firmware.
Was kinda planning the same and I feel instead of buying a synth, I would be better off buying a starter MIDI keyboard to learn music theory and then emulate the FM-1 software
I have one, too. I think the groovebox firmwares are fun for sketching out ideas. Some people create fully developed songs, but I don’t know, I think the more targeted firmwares are more interesting.
Firmware like Obervave, Hortator, X0X, and FMini-1, with their limited scope and greater depth I find to be more useful, at least as part of a bigger workflow.
Even without all the alternate firmware, they can be pretty inspiring because the DX7 can make awesome sounds and the FM1 has a better interface (a very very low bar).
There are more beginner friendly grooveboxes. The original Novation Circuit for example. But there aren’t (m)any cheaper ones.
Grooveboxes can't really do anything that you haven't been able to do for 15 years with internet resources and pirated FL Studio (other DAWs are available). The main value is having a break from the computer & physical knobs to twiddle. If you value time away from the computer, something like Korg M01[D] on the [3]DS might be worth trying since you can't spend hours tweaking synth parameters (and I imagine it's much easier to sequence on).
A good groovebox doesn't have to be crippled. Yamaha did an excellent job with their QY-series, the QY-70 and QY-100 being completely fully fledged sequencers with many advanced features in addition to having very groovebox-like functionality. I feel that we have actually gone backwards in the last 20 years especially. Grooveboxes are easier to use and get going with than they used to be but lack a lot of features they used to have. Why not at least throw in a MIDI event list editor these days? But they often don't. Peak groovebox was the Yamaha RS7000, it has never been improved upon. Same basic software roots that they had in the QY series and the Yamaha sequencers you used to get in their flagship workstations before the color touch-screen era.
I'm not your demographic - committed amateur muso mostly acoustic (saxophone) with a side interest in electronic music. My seemingly sudden better understanding of the structure and uses of the diminished scale (have been looking into it on and off for a couple of years) may well coincide with the ease with which the Sloop firmware allows me to easily make interesting-to-me musical sequences. However most of my musical activities involves playing sax in medium sized or big bands. Mind you I can not understand song mode and how to save stuff yet, but that's a permanent problem I've had with every groovebox type thing I've tried.
I haven't used an FM-1, so I can't speak to the specifics of it, but you absolutely do not need to understand music theory and improvisation to make music on something like this.
Additionally, understanding theory and improvisation is certainly a great thing to know if you're trying to make music, but you can understand a ton of things in the abstract and also be pretty terrible at applying it in the moment.
So if you want to get a device you can throw some hacked firmware on and have some fun, I'd say don't let your lack of theory hold you back.
> Is this a useful device to get a feel for creating music, or is it only really useful if you already understand music theory or improvisation?
"Useful" is a really subjective word when it comes to making music in general. Some template groove on a shit keyboard could be the base for a hit song (like Gorillaz' Clint Eastwood) while others don't make stuff unless in front of a modular synth with 100% control of everything.
Any instrument can be fun without knowing music theory, as long as you're willing to trial and error for a bit, until you find what sounds good :)
My first FM-1 is out for delivery. I once assisted in a 2" tape studio, I have played with many synths, and yet I am so excited for this little thing.
This is such a cool hardware meme/software/ai dev thing that makes me very happy for the world.
I am just about to start learning. If anyone could drop firmware knowledge aside from Baud Girl (cool af) ... I would appreciate it. I am mostly excited about Obervave, but I will have two FM-1's shortly... what is the best step sequencer firmware at the moment?
It was rare pre-LLMs, post-LLM seems more and more go this way actually. Just few hours I wrote this in a comment about established brands embracing the new user-firmware world:
My personal guess (and hope I suppose) is that all of them go in this direction cough Elektron cough, which judging by the current wave, doesn't seem impossible.
Downsides immediately jump out at me, it lacks real DIN MIDI ports, having those irritating 1/8" jacks instead which require an adapter. Built in battery, hopefully not too difficult to replace. I vastly prefer AAs for this use case like the Volcas use. It has a fan, that's not good at all. It looks cheap (look at the bottom photo here https://www.m-vave.com/product?id=fm-1) and not sturdy. Similar to my Elektron Moden Cycles and my Polyend Tracker, a bit flimsy and cheap.
I feel like the Chinese have made and sold enough music gear on behalf of other manufacturers over time that they can technically make the products, but I don't think they understand the market so they will be flawed and toy-grade for a while until they hire some consultants and carefully study the various portable MIDI gear that has succeeded over time. I'm not sure what the electronic music scene looks like in China but I would suspect most of the people involved still use non-Chinese gear and software.
You are out of touch. All sorts of compact gear (even very expensive sequencers like the Oxi One) use 1/8" MIDI jacks because modern consumers prefer compact. People are also used to charging with their laptop via USB, not easily done with AAs, which are also more bulky. It looks cheap because it is cheap, it costs about $60-80, which is half the price of a Volca.
There's a lot of excellent gear coming out of China. Behringer has their factories there, Donner has a range of recreations (not clones) of various classic Roland analog synths, and also make a wide variety of controllers, pedals, and other gear. Ashun Sound Machines makes the Hydrasynth and a few others, one of the most highly regarded digital synths on the market.
It has Blutooth Midi…use it as a controller. And it has Bluetooth audio…use it as a speaker…for example you can play a synth on you iPhone and monitor the output with an FM-1.
The battery lasts a reasonable time and it can be powered by USB…you don’t need a special wall-wart (or you can stay unplugged with an ordinary power bank).
In terms of build, I’d say its about as roadworthy as a Volca. At worst it’s no more fiddly. And the display is much much less cryptic.
It looks cheap because it is cheap—something like $60 US. As for understanding the market, they appear to be doing an okay job of it; lots of people are buying three or more of these.
No comment on the general criticisms, but jacks for MIDI is unfair, I think. I probably get more annoyed at connecting DIN MIDI with the mix of equipment I’ve got since most of it uses jacks, not DINs, especially the things I’d connect to a M-Vave. I’m resisting the temptation to buy one right now.
It's not unfair. Looking at my home studio here I have nine different MIDI synths all set up, two require adapters, and for some reason one set of these sets of identical-looking adapters doesn't even work properly on one of my synths that needs 'em. The other takes both, one only likes one pair. It's a huge pain in the ass. Other issue is they come out easily, DIN has a very solid connection and it takes quite some force to remove the connector. Also I'm not entirely sure how good the isolation is on those little 1/8" jacks, proper DIN MIDI connectors are all opto-isolated so you don't get ground loops.
Literally what are you talking about. the device is barely thick enough to fit a 3.5mm jack, DIN connectors were never on the table. frankly it's a bonus it has MIDI at all. who cares what your $2000 'proper' synths have.
The ass part about jacks is that there is apparently 2 standards for midi over jack, with various gear manufacturers split over which one to use. You can make device accept either but it's pretty rare sight.
There are actually 4 ways manufacturers do it. Something like the Disaster Area Designs[1] MIDI Box is a necessity once you start dealing with guitar effects pedals.
I solder two TRS jacks back to back, squirt hot snot into the gap, and shrink some shrink tube around it…it’s about $0.20 of materials and five minutes work.
Feels like studio setups are personal and individual enough that you can't say it's fair or unfair for someone else to care about specific features. Everything I own, including my own modular synth, has MIDI DIN ports on them, so I too look for that in new gear, but friend of mine too don't use MIDI for anything, obviously he doesn't look for that :)
USB MIDI seems tempting, you can send a giant virtual MIDI cable snake down one wire, but the connector issue rears its head again. It'd be cool if there was a more robust standard for USB connectors. I bet industry, the military, scientists, professional audio people etc. would all love such a thing.
You are criticizing a piece of equipment that created a minor revolution in the music market. Think about that. Sure it has flaws, but it brought vibe music firmware to the masses.
Korg, Behringer, they revived the cheap and cheerful modern MIDI music device market. We'll have to wait and see what kind of musical impact this has, so far Equipboard is showing one guy with a pic of it.
It is not the device itself. It is the rush of gear companies that are announcing their new gear will be open source/sdk available/1st class custom firmware writing support.
I feel like Synthstrom deserves some credit for open sourcing their deluge firmware and supporting a community version, showing us what was possible. FM-1 and vibe coding was the tipping point, granted.
This thing is absolutely worth the $$$ once you install Sloop on it but I regret having bought one only because I'm getting way more mileage out of using a small game pad to drive the iOS port of Dirtywave M8 (and am probably going to buy a hardware unit when they restock). Personally I enjoy the tracker workflow and chopping samples infinitely more than doing the sequencer thing on a tiny screen but I can't argue that this unit is very powerful for how cheap it is.
I bought a Polyend Tracker and it also has a toy-grade build. I love the instrument itself, they just open-sourced the whole software stack as it's going discontinued. But the device itself is cheap and the rubbery coating on the top panel is already starting to wear under the knob where I rest my hand. I want to build a custom enclosure that has a tilted screen, real MIDI ports, and a wooden top with a palm rest when the plastic eventually gives out or gets too gross, quite a few people have done custom enclosures even with internal batteries already.
But yeah the cheapness is an issue. Even older entry-grade gear, while often entirely plastic, is much more robust and with real ports, they often have one of those little plastic rakes that retains your power cable too. A three cent addition I'm sure but one which is great to have.
I already have some groove boxes, what does this one bring to the table? Every groove box is annoying in its own way even the really good ones. I have yet to find something that does it all better than the good old MPC. I need a MIDI event list editor, very very few grooveboxes offer this. Only Emu/Ensoniq, Akai and Yamaha's did. Akai still offers it but I don't think their newer mini-MPC has this.
Buy an old Thinkpad, put NixOS + Renoise on it (without a browser and with a very primitive WM), and build a QMK/Vial keyboard with encoders. It'll cost you $200 and get you everything it sounds like you want.
That's a relief. The only thing I have in my studio with a fan is my ancient Roland Virtual Studio which I love and which still can not be replaced by anything newer because of the lack of full MIDI control over all features.
It has exactly one Midi port because it is a cheap device. You're in a tiny minority who would prefer changing batteries to plugging in a charging cable. And it absolutely does not have a fan.
FM-1 is an interesting case study. From what I understand, M-Vave saw what the community was doing with their device, and decided to go along with the flow by releasing an official SDK and a new "open" groovebox firmware, in addition to this Workbench tool.
Right now, designing and mass-producing hardware is still a bit specialized, but creating software isn't. They have decided to embrace life as a creative hardware platform.
I think that's what happened, but follow-up.. if one orders an "FM-1" from AliExpress, does the China-based company M-Vave make any money from the sale?
I would really like to go down this rabbit hole. There are so many sellers of FM-1 on Ali. Meanwhile, there are so many USA-based companies who get their manufacturing cloned in China... For things like FM-1, are they actually respecting intellectual property over there, internally?
I got one for my kid's obsessed with music composition. What would you use this with so they can compose multitrack tunes, something like Chrome Music Lab or Beepbox? Anything in Android so they can compose on the go, such on an aeroplane?
Yes, it's all software, and FM synthesis is using the same engine as dexed. It's a Blackfin chip, which has pretty good throughput for DSP (digital signal processing). A ton more detail is at [1], including the operating system, which is a FreeRTOS-derived SMP kernel.
It seems they also have the SMK-37, which is not that much more expensive, but has actual keys so probably more useful for actually playing music, and apparently most alternative firmware support it too.
They will also be releasing a FM-2 (a slightly larger version but details are slim) later this year. No details on pricing either but assume it will be priced in similar respects to the FM-1 (little bit more for a little bit extra stuff)
I have purchased one and it has been a whole lot of fun.
Just want to share a warning that you should be careful when playing with custom firmwares. https://thefirmwarehub.com for instance makes it super easy to flash the device straight from your web browser and try a bunch of new exciting stuff...
... however it also makes it extremely easy to brick your FM-1. Just mistakenly close the browser tab while firmware flashing is going on and poof, the poor thing is gone.
Apparently I managed to put it in a state where soft recovery (some key combination to put the device in re ouvert mode) is not available and it requires special hardware methods (the FM-1 Transporter method).
Not gonna lie, that is another kind of fun, and I got the hardware delivered today so I'll be at it soon, but in the meantime not much music was done.
FM-1 is really nice because it's basically a platform with Bluetooth, WiFi, screen, speaker, audio out, usb, rechargeable battery, knobs and buttons in ready to use package. You can build anything with it (considering small CPU and ram).
What is the right way of thinking about frequency modulation for musicians? I know some of the maths but I can't operate the bitwig FM-4 synth. Do you just screw around with the thing until you can operate it?
I find it essential to have a MIDI CC knob box of some kind with FM. My MPC works in this capacity, I also bought an external one. Most FM synths support a huge number of MIDI CCs and FM really comes alive if you twiddle with the knobs during patch design, same as with other synths.
This link is a great practical guide, which has you look at waveforms in an audio editor and clone them using FM, one operator at a time. He walks you through making clones of several real life instruments, 6 operators is enough to sound quite good and 8 is even better. FM has a reputation for being computer-y sounding but it doesn't need to be. A lot of that is just baggage from default patches introduced decades ago with that fresh '80s sound, those patches from the DX-7 are still on the newest Yamaha flagship workstations. And as everybody knows the grand majority of sounds you hear in music are barely- or not-tweaked presets.
I imagine you are vaguely familiar with subtractive synthesis; oscillators, filters, envelopes, modulation. It wouldn't hurt, although the building blocks are laid out differently in an FM synth.
Anyway, I found these hands-on demos on the DX1 to be some of the most "aha" moments I've had trying to understand how FM patches are made.
TLDR, an FM "operator" is an oscillator. A carrier is the oscillator you hear, its modulator is an oscillator that wiggles the carrier and brings out different harmonics. You can stack more modulators and you can have multiple carriers going in parallel, the various combinations of operators available in a synth being the different algorithms.
My mental model is : each carrier is a sound (a harmonic). I can stack the sounds by chosing an algorithm with multiple carriers. So I start with one carrier and sculpt it by chosing frequency and envelope. This is the time I also activate it's modulators and try to tweak them to make the sound better. Modulators have very complex effects on the sound and I don't try to have a mental model of what they do, just empirical outlines. The next step is to add another carrier to the sound and continue tweaking the current and all the previous carriers.
This device is really cool. Started to get into music production with a dawless setup and with an FM-1 you can use DX7 patches and with some firmware choices you can turn a $50 machine into a groove box.
Think this bodes well for the future of Chinese consumer electronics. They have really been punching above their weight. Even the "cheap" guitar pedals are better than what you'd find with American/EU equivalent companies while being 60-80% cheaper.
Just a shame that Chinese workers are too often exploited.
In terms of guitars, you can actually get better guitars for substantially cheaper from China. Should I pay more for less quality? Being "Made in USA" used to mean quality, but it doesn't anymore
You do understand that costs of making something in the West is different than in China? Some companies unfortunately have to compromise on quality to maintain price that is not outrageous when you compare to Chinese.
The FM-1 is the hardware version of the millions of slop VSTs flooding the market and social media.
Everything comes at a cost. The entshitification of everything, the total lack of intention.
I’ve developed boutique hardware instruments and sold them to retailers around the world, so this affects me directly.
It removes financial incentives to do research and development in these areas because overnight someone can just duplicate or imitate your work.
And its the height of hypocrisy from artists to call out for copyright protections of music, but then simultaneously support vibe coded software thats been trained on data thats probably stolen.
I get the world is changing fast, but what its taught me is that people are ravenous and are willing to watch entire industries and maybe even society itself collapse if they think they can get a free short-term meal from it.
Pretty disheartening
I'm not sure this webpage replaces owning the FM-1 itself though? If you're interested in this page you're most likely interested in the FM-1 and/or already have one. There are millions of online samplers you can already use, the purpose of these devices isn't to do something necessarily unique, it's making music creation more tactile and constrained, and that's not something this webpage can do IMO.
I'm surprised there isn't a sturdy generic VST-runner box with an interface to configure the MIDI in / out and which VSTs will run. A sort of headless generic synth. My Roland VariOS synth from ages ago which I got for like $50 works like this, you use a WIN32 or Classic Mac computer to load and configure the various synths (it has a couple emulators or workalikes for older synths, plus a crazy synth that chops up and munges incoming audio under MIDI control) and then you only need to power the 1U rack mounted module unless you're designing patches, in which case you have to attach a computer.
Friends of mine are making sndstation, I was going to mention it. That's Baconpaul, and that's the demo that got me to buy a cheap linux handheld :)
It's not so much for CLAP, as it is 'make little synths and games and grooveboxes and toys that will run on a little game-box which has D-pads and joysticks'. In a sense this will be even more fun than an FM-1, plus more of a fun platform to work with. You just have to be able to run on a little Linux machine. There'll be a dev kit and everything. It's kind of new :)
There have been a whole bunch of them, and most of them fail because they spend so much effort on getting the box and the screen running with low-no latency that the actual control surface is usually an afterthought. Touchscreens are absolute ass for performance but most engineers don't appreciate that you need some sort of note input, at least 16 buttons to function as a sequencer, and at least rotary encoders, and they have to be good encoders because musicians get carried away when they're jamming.
You can pick them up, often fully loaded with plugins, for a few hundred dollars. I wrote parts of the system. They were running Linux and fun to hack on.
I currently work in the professional audio industry and know of a few modern efforts underway to produce modern version of this, but I am not convinced there is market for such a device anymore.
That's a really cool. It doesn't look overly-complicated, just perfect actually. I might keep my eyes peeled for one of these things, I love scrounging around for old MIDI gear. Used to be a lot cheaper than it is these days, ironically. Build quality on most everything was top notch too.
I'm sure a lot of professional musicians would probably prefer to use something less fragile than a laptop, something you can rack up, with no pesky desktop OS niggles to worry about during a show. As you know many instruments today are simply dedicated VST runners with a handy physical interface, see Roland's Boutique and Aira synths. I have an MPC One which I love, it can run proprietary VSTs. Maybe such convergences have killed the need for a dedicated box.
They are super cool! Look on Reverb. As I said, you sometimes end up with some fully licensed, expensive plugins as well. A lot of us can probably survive being a couple of versions behind.
I know for a fact new devices like this are on the horizon, but it just might not be the form factor that you are looking for.
For me the main issue is the VST-as-a-service model which is already taking over. I don't sub or micro-transact. The Roland VariOS thing I have had very expensive instruments too, luckily mine came with the CF card with all the ones which exist. I've never hooked my MPC up to the Internet to get VSTs either, I'm quite happy with what I have actually. I have been fiddling with electronic music for a long long time, and I remember when VSTs hit the scene, I got VST-itis and must have pirated everything under the sun but that leads to choice paralysis (same as getting all the MAME ROMs back in the day). Now I'm happier getting more out of what I have by using my brain a bit. Having generic USB MIDI on the MPC has been amazing though, everything is so much tighter without having to daisy-chain and even Roger Linn is impressed by how tight the timing is. 9 ins and outs is incredible, if I need more I just attach another generic USB MIDI interface.
It's actually a golden age for the MIDI fan but there's a lot of complaining to be done too about aspects of it. Cheapness and hooking you to a store being two big ones.
Well, of course. They're able to get the stuff they want to run off of the computer, and onto the device. Not everyone hates working in the box, but a lot of people do.
> This also got companies like Behringer an idea that they can just release the hardware and people will create firmware for free. Genius.
Honestly, this is great. Getting viable hardware with annoying shit like buttons and knobs is beyond the reach of a lot of developers, but writing software is not.
Our algorithms must all be feeding us the same things, I was about to buy one of these yesterday. I've been excited by the various Groovebox firmwares in particular.
I play music by sight (poorly) and can improvise a little bit on guitar, and would love to understand music theory better but so far do not.
Is this a useful device to get a feel for creating music, or is it only really useful if you already understand music theory or improvisation?
In general, all synthesizers are distractions from the essentials of music: listening and performing. They replace that with poking around at knobs and setting modes and it does give results, but it can feel really ungrounded when you haven't trained to get any of it to go through your hands directly. I have an FM-1 and yes, it's fun. But I would say the grooveboxes are roughly equal to DJing as a practice, which is to say, they definitely can inspire ideas and awareness, they just don't lead you to go really deep most of the time.
The thing to do for theory is basically to work on paper more, take careful notes and look for connections between one kind of theory and another, because often something that seems complex one way is simple in another. A groovebox can do this by presenting you with a palette of stuff that sounds good, and then you can go about breaking it down and studying it by hand.
I have an FM-1, and it's definitely a fun device for the price and worth having just to putz around while sitting on the couch. However, I don't think it's the easiest way to get started creating music. I personally have gotten much more value out of a DAW like FL Studio. I've tried to go DAWless (groove boxes, samplers, trackers, etc), but I always end up back in FL Studio.
If the OP is a software developer it's actually helpful to download a custom firmware's source code and have an LLM teach you how to use the firmware to play music and learn music theory at the same time, on one of the groove boxes.
E.g. it'll tell you how to activate the arpeggiator, as well as what an arpeggio is, what notes comprise each chord, scales, etc, which are all programmed into the firmware.
Was kinda planning the same and I feel instead of buying a synth, I would be better off buying a starter MIDI keyboard to learn music theory and then emulate the FM-1 software
I have one, too. I think the groovebox firmwares are fun for sketching out ideas. Some people create fully developed songs, but I don’t know, I think the more targeted firmwares are more interesting.
Firmware like Obervave, Hortator, X0X, and FMini-1, with their limited scope and greater depth I find to be more useful, at least as part of a bigger workflow.
If you want to buy one, use Ali Express.
Everyone else is just drop shipping them.
Even without all the alternate firmware, they can be pretty inspiring because the DX7 can make awesome sounds and the FM1 has a better interface (a very very low bar).
There are more beginner friendly grooveboxes. The original Novation Circuit for example. But there aren’t (m)any cheaper ones.
Grooveboxes can't really do anything that you haven't been able to do for 15 years with internet resources and pirated FL Studio (other DAWs are available). The main value is having a break from the computer & physical knobs to twiddle. If you value time away from the computer, something like Korg M01[D] on the [3]DS might be worth trying since you can't spend hours tweaking synth parameters (and I imagine it's much easier to sequence on).
A good groovebox doesn't have to be crippled. Yamaha did an excellent job with their QY-series, the QY-70 and QY-100 being completely fully fledged sequencers with many advanced features in addition to having very groovebox-like functionality. I feel that we have actually gone backwards in the last 20 years especially. Grooveboxes are easier to use and get going with than they used to be but lack a lot of features they used to have. Why not at least throw in a MIDI event list editor these days? But they often don't. Peak groovebox was the Yamaha RS7000, it has never been improved upon. Same basic software roots that they had in the QY series and the Yamaha sequencers you used to get in their flagship workstations before the color touch-screen era.
It's all over YouTube for me too. The firmware hacking for this thing has got people hyped.
https://thefirmwarehub.com/
This looks great.
How long until we get that with a native support for changing firmware?
As in: preload ten firmware versions and switch between them, with persisted state?
not enough space on device
but hook your FM1 to your phone and flash from there (the firmware hub)... very portable.
i like m-pyre a lot right now - https://historyofsky.github.io/m-pyre/
I'm not your demographic - committed amateur muso mostly acoustic (saxophone) with a side interest in electronic music. My seemingly sudden better understanding of the structure and uses of the diminished scale (have been looking into it on and off for a couple of years) may well coincide with the ease with which the Sloop firmware allows me to easily make interesting-to-me musical sequences. However most of my musical activities involves playing sax in medium sized or big bands. Mind you I can not understand song mode and how to save stuff yet, but that's a permanent problem I've had with every groovebox type thing I've tried.
I haven't used an FM-1, so I can't speak to the specifics of it, but you absolutely do not need to understand music theory and improvisation to make music on something like this.
Additionally, understanding theory and improvisation is certainly a great thing to know if you're trying to make music, but you can understand a ton of things in the abstract and also be pretty terrible at applying it in the moment.
So if you want to get a device you can throw some hacked firmware on and have some fun, I'd say don't let your lack of theory hold you back.
Just bought one last week of Aliexpress, totally worth the $70! Very hackable too!
> Is this a useful device to get a feel for creating music, or is it only really useful if you already understand music theory or improvisation?
"Useful" is a really subjective word when it comes to making music in general. Some template groove on a shit keyboard could be the base for a hit song (like Gorillaz' Clint Eastwood) while others don't make stuff unless in front of a modular synth with 100% control of everything.
Any instrument can be fun without knowing music theory, as long as you're willing to trial and error for a bit, until you find what sounds good :)
hello fellow youtube addict.
It's been a great little toy, I install a new firmware every couple of days. I especially enjoy the various generative firmwares.
Many of them work in browser too, which is essential for choosing what to try next!
Some faves:
NACHTFART: https://fartypants.github.io/fm1-nachtfahrt/emu/
DUB-1: https://sbegueria.github.io/fm1-dub/emu/
idk whats going on here but just fooling around with NACHTFART was so relaxing
My first FM-1 is out for delivery. I once assisted in a 2" tape studio, I have played with many synths, and yet I am so excited for this little thing.
This is such a cool hardware meme/software/ai dev thing that makes me very happy for the world.
I am just about to start learning. If anyone could drop firmware knowledge aside from Baud Girl (cool af) ... I would appreciate it. I am mostly excited about Obervave, but I will have two FM-1's shortly... what is the best step sequencer firmware at the moment?
I've found this to be a good resource for discovering fun custom firmwares!
https://thefirmwarehub.com/
I’ve tried a few, I liked Jiant’s workflow the best so far (I also tried sloop and skiff)
I just wish it had proper 909 & 303 emulation
I've used sloop for a groove box firmware. Pretty nifty, like it more than the other groove box firmwares.
The explosion of firmwares for this device, and the manufacturers embrace thereof, is a rare bright spot in post-LLM music tech
> is a rare bright spot in post-LLM music tech
It was rare pre-LLMs, post-LLM seems more and more go this way actually. Just few hours I wrote this in a comment about established brands embracing the new user-firmware world:
> [...] Erica Synths (big in both desktop gear and modular synths), Polyend, Akai/MPC, Moog and more. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50482555
My personal guess (and hope I suppose) is that all of them go in this direction cough Elektron cough, which judging by the current wave, doesn't seem impossible.
Downsides immediately jump out at me, it lacks real DIN MIDI ports, having those irritating 1/8" jacks instead which require an adapter. Built in battery, hopefully not too difficult to replace. I vastly prefer AAs for this use case like the Volcas use. It has a fan, that's not good at all. It looks cheap (look at the bottom photo here https://www.m-vave.com/product?id=fm-1) and not sturdy. Similar to my Elektron Moden Cycles and my Polyend Tracker, a bit flimsy and cheap.
I feel like the Chinese have made and sold enough music gear on behalf of other manufacturers over time that they can technically make the products, but I don't think they understand the market so they will be flawed and toy-grade for a while until they hire some consultants and carefully study the various portable MIDI gear that has succeeded over time. I'm not sure what the electronic music scene looks like in China but I would suspect most of the people involved still use non-Chinese gear and software.
You are out of touch. All sorts of compact gear (even very expensive sequencers like the Oxi One) use 1/8" MIDI jacks because modern consumers prefer compact. People are also used to charging with their laptop via USB, not easily done with AAs, which are also more bulky. It looks cheap because it is cheap, it costs about $60-80, which is half the price of a Volca.
There's a lot of excellent gear coming out of China. Behringer has their factories there, Donner has a range of recreations (not clones) of various classic Roland analog synths, and also make a wide variety of controllers, pedals, and other gear. Ashun Sound Machines makes the Hydrasynth and a few others, one of the most highly regarded digital synths on the market.
It has a speaker not a fan.
It has audio out and Midi over USB.
It has Blutooth Midi…use it as a controller. And it has Bluetooth audio…use it as a speaker…for example you can play a synth on you iPhone and monitor the output with an FM-1.
The battery lasts a reasonable time and it can be powered by USB…you don’t need a special wall-wart (or you can stay unplugged with an ordinary power bank).
In terms of build, I’d say its about as roadworthy as a Volca. At worst it’s no more fiddly. And the display is much much less cryptic.
It looks cheap because it is cheap—something like $60 US. As for understanding the market, they appear to be doing an okay job of it; lots of people are buying three or more of these.
> It looks cheap because it is cheap—something like $60 US
I just got one for $48 on aliexpress.
Are you in the US? How much did it come to including shipping and taxes?
Yes. $49.44 was the total price including shipping.
That's really a good price. Thanks
No comment on the general criticisms, but jacks for MIDI is unfair, I think. I probably get more annoyed at connecting DIN MIDI with the mix of equipment I’ve got since most of it uses jacks, not DINs, especially the things I’d connect to a M-Vave. I’m resisting the temptation to buy one right now.
It's not unfair. Looking at my home studio here I have nine different MIDI synths all set up, two require adapters, and for some reason one set of these sets of identical-looking adapters doesn't even work properly on one of my synths that needs 'em. The other takes both, one only likes one pair. It's a huge pain in the ass. Other issue is they come out easily, DIN has a very solid connection and it takes quite some force to remove the connector. Also I'm not entirely sure how good the isolation is on those little 1/8" jacks, proper DIN MIDI connectors are all opto-isolated so you don't get ground loops.
Literally what are you talking about. the device is barely thick enough to fit a 3.5mm jack, DIN connectors were never on the table. frankly it's a bonus it has MIDI at all. who cares what your $2000 'proper' synths have.
The ass part about jacks is that there is apparently 2 standards for midi over jack, with various gear manufacturers split over which one to use. You can make device accept either but it's pretty rare sight.
Connector wise, far superior to DIN midi
There are actually 4 ways manufacturers do it. Something like the Disaster Area Designs[1] MIDI Box is a necessity once you start dealing with guitar effects pedals.
[1]: https://www.disasterareadesigns.com/shop/p/midi-box-4
I've had A/B solved by just schottky rectifier and low enough current optocoupler, but damn ,didn't knew there is even more to that mess
I solder two TRS jacks back to back, squirt hot snot into the gap, and shrink some shrink tube around it…it’s about $0.20 of materials and five minutes work.
> but jacks for MIDI is unfair, I think.
Feels like studio setups are personal and individual enough that you can't say it's fair or unfair for someone else to care about specific features. Everything I own, including my own modular synth, has MIDI DIN ports on them, so I too look for that in new gear, but friend of mine too don't use MIDI for anything, obviously he doesn't look for that :)
USB MIDI seems tempting, you can send a giant virtual MIDI cable snake down one wire, but the connector issue rears its head again. It'd be cool if there was a more robust standard for USB connectors. I bet industry, the military, scientists, professional audio people etc. would all love such a thing.
[delayed]
> but jacks for MIDI is unfair
not the person you're replying to, but -
I would be ok w/ the 1/8" jacks if there weren't TWO STANDARDS to keep up with. madness!
You are criticizing a piece of equipment that created a minor revolution in the music market. Think about that. Sure it has flaws, but it brought vibe music firmware to the masses.
Korg, Behringer, they revived the cheap and cheerful modern MIDI music device market. We'll have to wait and see what kind of musical impact this has, so far Equipboard is showing one guy with a pic of it.
It is not the device itself. It is the rush of gear companies that are announcing their new gear will be open source/sdk available/1st class custom firmware writing support.
The FM1 has started a revolution.
I feel like Synthstrom deserves some credit for open sourcing their deluge firmware and supporting a community version, showing us what was possible. FM-1 and vibe coding was the tipping point, granted.
> toy-grade
This thing is absolutely worth the $$$ once you install Sloop on it but I regret having bought one only because I'm getting way more mileage out of using a small game pad to drive the iOS port of Dirtywave M8 (and am probably going to buy a hardware unit when they restock). Personally I enjoy the tracker workflow and chopping samples infinitely more than doing the sequencer thing on a tiny screen but I can't argue that this unit is very powerful for how cheap it is.
I bought a Polyend Tracker and it also has a toy-grade build. I love the instrument itself, they just open-sourced the whole software stack as it's going discontinued. But the device itself is cheap and the rubbery coating on the top panel is already starting to wear under the knob where I rest my hand. I want to build a custom enclosure that has a tilted screen, real MIDI ports, and a wooden top with a palm rest when the plastic eventually gives out or gets too gross, quite a few people have done custom enclosures even with internal batteries already.
But yeah the cheapness is an issue. Even older entry-grade gear, while often entirely plastic, is much more robust and with real ports, they often have one of those little plastic rakes that retains your power cable too. A three cent addition I'm sure but one which is great to have.
I already have some groove boxes, what does this one bring to the table? Every groove box is annoying in its own way even the really good ones. I have yet to find something that does it all better than the good old MPC. I need a MIDI event list editor, very very few grooveboxes offer this. Only Emu/Ensoniq, Akai and Yamaha's did. Akai still offers it but I don't think their newer mini-MPC has this.
Buy an old Thinkpad, put NixOS + Renoise on it (without a browser and with a very primitive WM), and build a QMK/Vial keyboard with encoders. It'll cost you $200 and get you everything it sounds like you want.
I've been using my M8 and the FM-1 together, they make a good combo.
> It has a fan, that's not good at all.
I think that's actually the built-in speaker?
Correct, it does not have a fan
That's a relief. The only thing I have in my studio with a fan is my ancient Roland Virtual Studio which I love and which still can not be replaced by anything newer because of the lack of full MIDI control over all features.
It has exactly one Midi port because it is a cheap device. You're in a tiny minority who would prefer changing batteries to plugging in a charging cable. And it absolutely does not have a fan.
FM-1 is an interesting case study. From what I understand, M-Vave saw what the community was doing with their device, and decided to go along with the flow by releasing an official SDK and a new "open" groovebox firmware, in addition to this Workbench tool.
Right now, designing and mass-producing hardware is still a bit specialized, but creating software isn't. They have decided to embrace life as a creative hardware platform.
[delayed]
I think that's what happened, but follow-up.. if one orders an "FM-1" from AliExpress, does the China-based company M-Vave make any money from the sale?
I think they must. The "where to buy" button on their product pages just goes to a "contact us" page.
I would really like to go down this rabbit hole. There are so many sellers of FM-1 on Ali. Meanwhile, there are so many USA-based companies who get their manufacturing cloned in China... For things like FM-1, are they actually respecting intellectual property over there, internally?
I got one for my kid's obsessed with music composition. What would you use this with so they can compose multitrack tunes, something like Chrome Music Lab or Beepbox? Anything in Android so they can compose on the go, such on an aeroplane?
There is multitrack firmware you can download for this, like Sloop.
https://thefirmwarehub.com/
currently watching this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2puO1fV6Wi4
seems theres a few in there that make it more a DAW
I’ve found that hugeltons felucca is the way to go. The rest aren’t as good.
Koala Sampler is great for that.
Was just looking at this teardown https://www.reddit.com/r/synth/comments/1vgotkd/mvave_fm1_te...
I don't know anything about synthesisers, but would I be right in thinking the FM modulation would be done via software on the MCU?
Yes, it's all software, and FM synthesis is using the same engine as dexed. It's a Blackfin chip, which has pretty good throughput for DSP (digital signal processing). A ton more detail is at [1], including the operating system, which is a FreeRTOS-derived SMP kernel.
[1]: https://github.com/AL-255/FM-1-RE
This thing runs Linux and dexed (an open source dx7 player/emulator) - or any of the myriad vibecoded alt firmwares.
It seems they also have the SMK-37, which is not that much more expensive, but has actual keys so probably more useful for actually playing music, and apparently most alternative firmware support it too.
You're generally better off with just getting separate MIDI keyboard if you want to use other gear too.
Mine is coming in the mail soon! Looking forward to playing around with it :)
They will also be releasing a FM-2 (a slightly larger version but details are slim) later this year. No details on pricing either but assume it will be priced in similar respects to the FM-1 (little bit more for a little bit extra stuff)
I'd like to see velocity sensitive/aftertouch keys on this.
I have purchased one and it has been a whole lot of fun.
Just want to share a warning that you should be careful when playing with custom firmwares. https://thefirmwarehub.com for instance makes it super easy to flash the device straight from your web browser and try a bunch of new exciting stuff...
... however it also makes it extremely easy to brick your FM-1. Just mistakenly close the browser tab while firmware flashing is going on and poof, the poor thing is gone.
Apparently I managed to put it in a state where soft recovery (some key combination to put the device in re ouvert mode) is not available and it requires special hardware methods (the FM-1 Transporter method).
Not gonna lie, that is another kind of fun, and I got the hardware delivered today so I'll be at it soon, but in the meantime not much music was done.
Caveat emptor!
FM-1 is really nice because it's basically a platform with Bluetooth, WiFi, screen, speaker, audio out, usb, rechargeable battery, knobs and buttons in ready to use package. You can build anything with it (considering small CPU and ram).
Is there Doom already ?
Of course :)
https://doom.deadlockinteractive.com/
I'll just wait until the Behringer Kick comes out.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if when you clicked “about” on a website, it would tell you about the website .
I've seen "FM-1" floating around lately, but didn't know what it was.
Where do I get one of these?
I got 3 on Amazon. So far no counterfeits!
Bought mine from AliExpress for $64
What is the right way of thinking about frequency modulation for musicians? I know some of the maths but I can't operate the bitwig FM-4 synth. Do you just screw around with the thing until you can operate it?
I find it essential to have a MIDI CC knob box of some kind with FM. My MPC works in this capacity, I also bought an external one. Most FM synths support a huge number of MIDI CCs and FM really comes alive if you twiddle with the knobs during patch design, same as with other synths.
This link is a great practical guide, which has you look at waveforms in an audio editor and clone them using FM, one operator at a time. He walks you through making clones of several real life instruments, 6 operators is enough to sound quite good and 8 is even better. FM has a reputation for being computer-y sounding but it doesn't need to be. A lot of that is just baggage from default patches introduced decades ago with that fresh '80s sound, those patches from the DX-7 are still on the newest Yamaha flagship workstations. And as everybody knows the grand majority of sounds you hear in music are barely- or not-tweaked presets.
https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~pbarfuss/FM_Synthesis_of_Real_I...
I recommend this video from mixed signals, it shows how a few commonly used and known fm sounds are made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S6NXIe_NyA
This is great! Thanks!
I imagine you are vaguely familiar with subtractive synthesis; oscillators, filters, envelopes, modulation. It wouldn't hurt, although the building blocks are laid out differently in an FM synth.
Anyway, I found these hands-on demos on the DX1 to be some of the most "aha" moments I've had trying to understand how FM patches are made.
TLDR, an FM "operator" is an oscillator. A carrier is the oscillator you hear, its modulator is an oscillator that wiggles the carrier and brings out different harmonics. You can stack more modulators and you can have multiple carriers going in parallel, the various combinations of operators available in a synth being the different algorithms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV9vQGqoO5c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0xGyR_lKoM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-boGIxRZ_s
There was also one from Venus Theory about how to get musically useful stuff out of frequency/phase modulation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqc8rZnzTVI
My mental model is : each carrier is a sound (a harmonic). I can stack the sounds by chosing an algorithm with multiple carriers. So I start with one carrier and sculpt it by chosing frequency and envelope. This is the time I also activate it's modulators and try to tweak them to make the sound better. Modulators have very complex effects on the sound and I don't try to have a mental model of what they do, just empirical outlines. The next step is to add another carrier to the sound and continue tweaking the current and all the previous carriers.
What API does this use that isn't available in Firefox?
Judging from the "Connect Device" button in the upper right corner, probably WebMIDI.
This device is really cool. Started to get into music production with a dawless setup and with an FM-1 you can use DX7 patches and with some firmware choices you can turn a $50 machine into a groove box.
Think this bodes well for the future of Chinese consumer electronics. They have really been punching above their weight. Even the "cheap" guitar pedals are better than what you'd find with American/EU equivalent companies while being 60-80% cheaper.
Just a shame that Chinese workers are too often exploited.
In the EU/US there are different costs of living, running a business and standards for employment. That is reflected in the price.
But as long it is cheap and you'll never visit China, then who cares that someone might be exploited there.
In terms of guitars, you can actually get better guitars for substantially cheaper from China. Should I pay more for less quality? Being "Made in USA" used to mean quality, but it doesn't anymore
And?
You do understand that costs of making something in the West is different than in China? Some companies unfortunately have to compromise on quality to maintain price that is not outrageous when you compare to Chinese.
> In the EU/US there are different costs of living, running a business and standards for employment. That is reflected in the price.
...the price of made in china device that is just branded with EU/US brand ?
I was not talking about resellers. Sure you can commission product in China with your own branding. That is like buying from Temu with extra steps.
The FM-1 is the hardware version of the millions of slop VSTs flooding the market and social media.
Everything comes at a cost. The entshitification of everything, the total lack of intention.
I’ve developed boutique hardware instruments and sold them to retailers around the world, so this affects me directly.
It removes financial incentives to do research and development in these areas because overnight someone can just duplicate or imitate your work.
And its the height of hypocrisy from artists to call out for copyright protections of music, but then simultaneously support vibe coded software thats been trained on data thats probably stolen.
I get the world is changing fast, but what its taught me is that people are ravenous and are willing to watch entire industries and maybe even society itself collapse if they think they can get a free short-term meal from it. Pretty disheartening
I'm not sure this webpage replaces owning the FM-1 itself though? If you're interested in this page you're most likely interested in the FM-1 and/or already have one. There are millions of online samplers you can already use, the purpose of these devices isn't to do something necessarily unique, it's making music creation more tactile and constrained, and that's not something this webpage can do IMO.
I bought two, one to try firmwares and one to stick with the one I prefer : at the time, it's the mighty OBERVAVE. Sounds huge !
Completely off topic, but if you are a boomer with an iOS device, there are PLENTY of electronic music apps [and emulators] on that platform too.
PS: and I mean PLENTY !
I find it fascinating. Basically people get ability to run AI made crap vst plugins in a calculator sized box and yet they go crazy about it.
I wonder how long this will last.
This also got companies like Behringer an idea that they can just release the hardware and people will create firmware for free. Genius.
edit: that reminds me I actually bought one too, but forgot about it. Still unopened.
I'm surprised there isn't a sturdy generic VST-runner box with an interface to configure the MIDI in / out and which VSTs will run. A sort of headless generic synth. My Roland VariOS synth from ages ago which I got for like $50 works like this, you use a WIN32 or Classic Mac computer to load and configure the various synths (it has a couple emulators or workalikes for older synths, plus a crazy synth that chops up and munges incoming audio under MIDI control) and then you only need to power the 1U rack mounted module unless you're designing patches, in which case you have to attach a computer.
Something like this but for VSTs would be killer.
This exists for CLAP: https://cdm.link/sndstation-linux-distro-for-game-handhelds/; you can watch a preview of what one of the authors created for it here: https://youtu.be/0cHvzRsJg-A.
A couple of these exist in guitar pedal form for lv2 (which is a dead format): Mod Audio Dwarf, and pistomp.
Nothing for VST3 that I'm aware of. Maybe the new Akai stuff?
Friends of mine are making sndstation, I was going to mention it. That's Baconpaul, and that's the demo that got me to buy a cheap linux handheld :)
It's not so much for CLAP, as it is 'make little synths and games and grooveboxes and toys that will run on a little game-box which has D-pads and joysticks'. In a sense this will be even more fun than an FM-1, plus more of a fun platform to work with. You just have to be able to run on a little Linux machine. There'll be a dev kit and everything. It's kind of new :)
There have been a whole bunch of them, and most of them fail because they spend so much effort on getting the box and the screen running with low-no latency that the actual control surface is usually an afterthought. Touchscreens are absolute ass for performance but most engineers don't appreciate that you need some sort of note input, at least 16 buttons to function as a sequencer, and at least rotary encoders, and they have to be good encoders because musicians get carried away when they're jamming.
There is/was; the Muse Research Receptor. It might be overly complex for what you are thinking of, but it existed.
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/muse-research-receptor
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/muse-research-receptor-...
You can pick them up, often fully loaded with plugins, for a few hundred dollars. I wrote parts of the system. They were running Linux and fun to hack on.
I currently work in the professional audio industry and know of a few modern efforts underway to produce modern version of this, but I am not convinced there is market for such a device anymore.
That's a really cool. It doesn't look overly-complicated, just perfect actually. I might keep my eyes peeled for one of these things, I love scrounging around for old MIDI gear. Used to be a lot cheaper than it is these days, ironically. Build quality on most everything was top notch too.
I'm sure a lot of professional musicians would probably prefer to use something less fragile than a laptop, something you can rack up, with no pesky desktop OS niggles to worry about during a show. As you know many instruments today are simply dedicated VST runners with a handy physical interface, see Roland's Boutique and Aira synths. I have an MPC One which I love, it can run proprietary VSTs. Maybe such convergences have killed the need for a dedicated box.
They are super cool! Look on Reverb. As I said, you sometimes end up with some fully licensed, expensive plugins as well. A lot of us can probably survive being a couple of versions behind.
I know for a fact new devices like this are on the horizon, but it just might not be the form factor that you are looking for.
For me the main issue is the VST-as-a-service model which is already taking over. I don't sub or micro-transact. The Roland VariOS thing I have had very expensive instruments too, luckily mine came with the CF card with all the ones which exist. I've never hooked my MPC up to the Internet to get VSTs either, I'm quite happy with what I have actually. I have been fiddling with electronic music for a long long time, and I remember when VSTs hit the scene, I got VST-itis and must have pirated everything under the sun but that leads to choice paralysis (same as getting all the MAME ROMs back in the day). Now I'm happier getting more out of what I have by using my brain a bit. Having generic USB MIDI on the MPC has been amazing though, everything is so much tighter without having to daisy-chain and even Roger Linn is impressed by how tight the timing is. 9 ins and outs is incredible, if I need more I just attach another generic USB MIDI interface.
It's actually a golden age for the MIDI fan but there's a lot of complaining to be done too about aspects of it. Cheapness and hooking you to a store being two big ones.
> yet they go crazy about it.
Well, of course. They're able to get the stuff they want to run off of the computer, and onto the device. Not everyone hates working in the box, but a lot of people do.
> This also got companies like Behringer an idea that they can just release the hardware and people will create firmware for free. Genius.
Honestly, this is great. Getting viable hardware with annoying shit like buttons and knobs is beyond the reach of a lot of developers, but writing software is not.
Is this an ad?