clipper-pro

Clipper Pro 1.3: a bug-fix release (cleaner fades, knobs, unison, tuning, faders)

A bug-fix release. Thanks to everyone who reported issues on GitHub: every fix below has its own test, and the whole firmware was checked again (the editor's protocol, MIDI in and a damaged flash fuzzed, every engine, sound and key measured).

Cleaner sound

• No more distortion at the end of notes. The mix rounded every part down to 16 steps of the 16-bit output, so a fading note carried a buzz that followed it, on the 3.5 mm output and on USB. The mix now rounds properly: about 10 times less error, the quiet tails are clean.
• UNISON no longer stacks its voices in phase. Most engines started every unison voice at the same phase, up to +18 dB louder than POLY on some sounds, and FMX and MACRO peaked far over full scale. Each voice now starts apart, as a unison should, and the level matches POLY.
• PHYS strings are in tune. They played sharp, by up to a semitone on the low notes of HARPSICH (STR PLUCK, BANJO, PLUCK BASS, the guitars). Now within 2 cents; KOTO, SITAR and TANPURA bend with their curved bridge, as designed.
• The top of the keyboard follows the keys. NOISE's NZ ARCADE, SAMPLE and GRAIN played one pitch over the upper keys (SAMPLE CHOIR from A6, VOX CLOUD from G6); they now go on rising. A GRAIN note played while the one before is fading out is no longer almost silent.
• VECTOR: changing the FILTER MODEL while a note plays no longer gives a loud click.
• FMX: a voice taken back from another note now starts clean (before, it kept the old note's state: a DC offset and a changing timbre).

Controls

• A firm press on a layer button (GLO, EDIT, ARP, SEQ, SEL) opens its pages. Before, a press longer than 0.45 s opened nothing; now up to one second counts as a tap.
• On REC READY, a knob changes only its own value: KNOB 3 (START) no longer moves the loop LENGTH too. The same fix covers every page: a knob turned alone changes one value.
• The faders follow a real volume curve: silent at the bottom, the power-on level at the middle, full at the top. Before, the whole lower half sounded muted.
• The sustain pedal can be held as long as you like: after two minutes it was let go, and then worked the wrong way round.
• TRS MIDI OUT: no more note left hanging on the other synth when many controls move at once.
• The pad and button lights no longer freeze after 25 days switched on.

Your data

• Projects loaded from SLOOP keep Clipper's own values (SPREAD, LFO 3, ENV 2 LOOP, the macros, matrix slots 7 to 12, the delay MODE) across a power cycle.
• Editor backups now include your user wavetables (WAVE USR1..4), which a restore used to erase, and every value of your user presets.
• Safer loading: a user drum kit with an odd root note, or a project file with out-of-range velocities, plays normally.

Install and go back

• Installing from Chrome on Windows no longer freezes the browser: the page releases the keyboard's MIDI while it restarts. Thanks to ChanceTheMaker, whose sloop-smk showed the way.
• Return to the official firmware accepts M-VAVE's new V16 (and V15). M-VAVE now offers only V16, which the installer refused.

Compatibility

• Projects, presets, samples and settings are kept when you update, and the project format is unchanged.
• A few sounds change a little on purpose: the PHYS strings (now in tune), the unison sounds, NZ ARCADE.

Install from the browser: https://isod89.github.io/clipper-pro/ (Chrome or Edge, the SMK-37 on USB).

Clipper Pro 1.2: the Clipper synthesizer on the M-VAVE SMK-37

Clipper Pro is Clipper 1.1, the open-source synthesizer firmware first written for the FM-1, ported to the M-VAVE SMK-37, with the fixes of SLOOP 2.8.3. It runs on the SMK-37 Pro (and the Starrykey 37 Play), the SMK-37 Elite and the MKE-P37.

Install from the browser: https://isod89.github.io/clipper-pro/ (Chrome or Edge). The keyboard must run M-VAVE's V016 first; the page picks the package for your model.

New in 1.2

• A held note keeps sounding under the notes you play over it, live and when recording (a free take, an overdub), in POLY and in UNI2 / UNI4. SEQ > NOTES LEN runs on under later notes.
• A sample played again starts from silence with its ATK (no click). No note stuck when MIDI comes in too fast.
• No crash on FM KICK (FMX) when ALG is turned past 32.
• The second core hardened: a USB backup no longer crashes it; if core 1 fails, one core goes on.
• Pads triggered as a drum module's (PADS > PAD THRESHOLD, PAD SCOPE), a hit pad flashes white; the hold pages no longer flash on a quick tap.
• The pad lights no longer take wrong colours (a longer reset before each LED frame: newer LED parts shifted the colours along the pads).

What you get

• 23 engines and 407 sounds: HYBRID, FMX, FM6, WAVE, VECTOR, JUNO, ACID, MACRO and more. Each sound has four macros. There are effects, an arpeggiator, a step sequencer and MPE.

• 37 velocity keys, read through your unit's factory curves.

• 16 RGB pads:

  • NOTES: the pads play the sound, lit in the colour of its kind.
  • SOUNDS (KNOB BANK): the sounds of one kind on the pads; tap a pad to load one.
  • While a layer is held: the steps and the tiles.

• 4 faders in 4 banks:

  • A: MACROS
  • B: ENV (ADSR)
  • C: TONE (cutoff, resonance, LFO rate, glide)
  • D: MIX (chorus, delay, reverb, level)

  A fader move shows its value on the screen.

• Pitch and mod wheels, a sustain pedal, and the TRS MIDI OUT jack.

Files

• clipper-pro-1.2.fwsc: SMK-37 Pro and Starrykey 37 Play
• clipper-pro-elite-1.2.fwsc: SMK-37 Elite
• clipper-pro-mke-1.2.fwsc: MKE-P37
• clipper-pro-editor-1.2.html: the editor, for offline use (open it in Chrome or Edge)

Each package refuses another model before anything is erased. The factory calibration is never written. M-VAVE's own updater (M-UPGRADE) takes the keyboard back to the stock firmware at any time.

Credits

• Felucca: Leo Kuroshita (@kurogedelic), Hügelton Instruments.
• SLOOP and Clipper: isod89.
• The SMK-37 board layer and the installer library: M. Geisler (@genkigenki), fm1-to-smk37.
• Ideas: @ChanceTheMaker (sloop-smk).
• The second core: @andrerezemini, Charles Vestal, @keremimo.
• Also: @juanjiant-bit, AL-255, kagaimiq.

Everyone is listed in CREDITS.md.

Firmware with no warranty. M-VAVE, SMK-37, MKE-P37 and Starrykey are trademarks of their owners; Clipper Pro is not affiliated with them. Licence: GPL-3.0.