AMB-1

AMB-1 is now free software under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, built on fm1-base and felucca-bsp. The music is the same: the same pieces, played the same way.

• Report a problem: if your FM-1 crashes, the install page can now read what happened. Connect it by USB without switching it off, open the install page in Chrome or Edge, and press Read the crash report. Copy what appears and send it along.

• The screen reader says "controller" where the screen shows CC.

• The site's pages work with a screen reader and the keyboard.

• Try it in the browser: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/emu/

• Install (Chrome or Edge, FM-1 on USB): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/install/

• Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/manual/

Install from the command line: python3 base/tools/fm1_install.py amb-1.3.fwsc (see the manual). Your pieces' settings carry over. Installing is at your own risk; the web installer can put M-VAVE's own firmware back. AMB-1 1.2 and earlier stay under the GPL-3.0.

AMB-1 now works with a screen reader.

• The FM-1 Screen Reader reads out what the screen shows, over USB: the page you're on and its knobs, a knob's value as you turn it, the piece with its key and tempo, the notes you add or take out, help cards, every message, and the chord each time the garden moves on. It says it all in words ("E flat pentatonic minor", not "Eb Pent min"), with its own voice or through your computer's screen reader (VoiceOver, NVDA, JAWS, TalkBack). Press W to hear the whole screen again: the page, the piece, the chord and the scale.

• The FM-1 says nothing until the page connects, so a DAW on the same cable never sees it.

• The web app is back, at https://charles.pizza/amb, and plays properly on the iPhone: straight to the speakers, without crackles when the screen locks.

• Try it in the browser: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/emu/

• Install (Chrome or Edge, FM-1 on USB): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/install/

• Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/manual/

Install from the command line: python3 tools/fm1_install.py amb-1.2.fwsc (see the manual). Your pieces' settings carry over. Installing is at your own risk; the web installer can put M-VAVE's own firmware back.

The echo now evolves in stereo.

• The tape loop's two heads wander across the stereo field with Motion, and the feedback leans now on one head, now on the other, so the repeats fall in changing patterns, left and right.

• The second head slides: now and then it moves to another part of the loop (three quarters, two thirds, five eighths, a half or three eighths), bending the repeats a little in pitch on the way, as a tape head moved by hand.

• The short echo (the Echoplex) is stereo too: a second tap for the right.

• At Motion 0 the echo stays put, one head left and one right, as before.

• Try it in the browser: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/emu/

• Install (Chrome or Edge, FM-1 on USB): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/install/

• Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/manual/

Install from the command line: python3 tools/fm1_install.py amb-1.1.fwsc (see the manual). Your pieces' settings carry over. Installing is at your own risk; the web installer can put M-VAVE's own firmware back.

The first public release of AMB-1, a generative ambient machine for the M-VAVE FM-1, inspired by Brian Eno's Music for Airports. It plays itself from the moment it's switched on: breathing voices, soft FM bells on tape loops 13, 17, 23 and 29 beats long, a gliding bass and quiet Euclidean percussion, through a tape echo, a long tape loop and a plate reverb.

• Try it in the browser: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/emu/
• Install (Chrome or Edge, FM-1 on USB): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/install/
• Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-amb/manual/

What's in it:

• Eight pieces on PRESETS (Garden, Departures, Voices, Afternoon, Night Bus, Shoreline, Glass, Tides), each remembering how you left it; hold SAVE to put one back to its recipe.
• The keys are the scale: press one to take its note out or put it back. ALGORITHM picks the mode.
• One page per layer, a layer's level always on KNOB 1: HOME Garden (tempo, evolve, motion, drift), ENV Pad, ARP Bells, LFO Bass, SEQ Pulse, FX Space, GLO Setup. SELECT steps through the pages; HOME + SELECT sets the tempo.
• PLAY grows and rests, REC freezes the chord while the reverb rings on, EDIT moves to the next chord.
• A slow arc between sparse and full, and rests now and then, keep it moving for hours.
• Hold any button for a second and a card says what it does.
• MIDI in (USB and TRS: notes edit the scale, clock and start / stop) and out over USB (pad, bells, bass and pulse on their own channels, clock).

Install from the command line: python3 tools/fm1_install.py amb-0.9.fwsc (see the manual). Installing is at your own risk; the web installer can put M-VAVE's own firmware back.

Built on Felucca by Leo Kuroshita (Hügelton Instruments), by way of X0X and FoMni-1. GPL-3.0-only.