Eight Bells 3.1.0 adds the Stage: a full-screen animation overlay with 320 scenes that move to your live tracks and patterns.

What's new

• The Stage has 320 scenes, from cars, animals, food and funfairs to everyday objects like umbrellas, compasses, balloons and garden tools.
• Each scene reacts to the eight tracks: kick, snare, hat, perc, bass, chord, lead and sample.
• It holds still when nothing is playing, and winds down smoothly when you press Stop.
• Full screen fits without cropping or black edges. On phones and tablets it starts on its own when you turn the device sideways.
• Full screen has a Play/Stop button and Previous/Next scene buttons.

Fixes

• The marble maze can now be completed.
• The bobsleigh no longer takes off.
• Santa's sleigh and reindeer are the right way round.
• The LCD scene now shows the BPM correctly.

Downloads

• Windows: Eight-Bells-3.1.0-portable.exe runs with no install. Eight-Bells-Setup-3.1.0.exe installs it.
• Mac: Eight-Bells-3.1.0-x64.dmg is for Intel Macs. Eight-Bells-3.1.0-arm64.dmg is for Apple silicon (M1 and newer).

The apps are not code-signed. On Windows, click More info, then Run anyway. On Mac, right-click the app and choose Open the first time.

Nothing touches the MIDI bytes.

Eight Bells V3

Preview sounds you can play with no FM-1, plus a Sample track and tools around it. Nothing here changes what is sent to the FM-1: with an FM-1 connected the MIDI is byte-for-byte the same as V2.

New

• 142 preview instruments in 8 groups (basses, keys and organs, stabs, brass and reeds, pads, leads, strings, plucks and bells, world) and 20 drum kits that follow the genre.
• Your own sounds: add audio files of any length, play them from on-screen keys or a MIDI keyboard, give any track or drum lane a sample, and Slice a long recording into parts.
• Sample track: a floating 9th track, up to four voices, 204 sounds (vowels, ad-libs, scat, styles, 146 spoken-style words), male / female / deep / child voices, pitch, pitch patterns, humanise, held notes that glide, and reverb. Saved with your patterns. Never sent to the FM-1 as MIDI.
• Device voices: say the words with your device's own male and female voices (clearer than the built-in synth).
• Mix in the FM-1's sound through a sound input, so one speaker plays the FM-1 and the samples together.
• Record to WAV, preview volume with a limiter, performance view, and a delay-the-FM-1 slider.
• iPhone and iPad: works through the Web MIDI Browser app.
• Live view: a one-screen performance page for phones (upright) and tablets (either way). Now/Next box, every track as a strip with Mute, Solo and Lock, tap a track (Sample included) to edit one bar with big steps, queue the next pattern, 16 punch effects, tempo, swing, volume, Record, and all ten dice.
• Recordings button: the last 10 recordings stay in your browser with Play, Download and Delete.
• Solo dice picks all tracks or 1, 2 or 3 tracks; Split drums lets Kick, Snare, Hat and Perc be soloed one by one.
• Fixes: iPhone/iPad tap-jump, even column heights, sample track colour, Live view fills tall Android screens.

Honest limits

• The built-in voices and words are synthesised and robotic. For natural words, load real recordings.
• Preview sounds are approximations, not the real FM-1 sounds.
• Not yet tested on hardware: Mac app, FM-1 sound input from line-in, Auto song over MIDI.

Eight Bells V2: 28 engines, 126 genres, a song builder, and Auto song that keeps your locked tracks.

• Windows: Eight-Bells-2.0.0-portable.exe runs with no install. Delete the file to remove it. Eight-Bells-Setup-2.0.0.exe is the installer, and Windows Settings > Apps removes it.
• Mac: Eight-Bells-2.0.0-x64.dmg for Intel Macs, Eight-Bells-2.0.0-arm64.dmg for Apple silicon.
• Or use it in the browser, with nothing to install: https://discodave-glitch.github.io/eight-bells/

The apps aren't code-signed, so Windows or macOS may warn you the first time you open them.

First release of Eight Bells.

Windows: download "Eight-Bells-1.0.0.exe" to run it with no install, or "Eight-Bells-Setup-1.0.0.exe" to install it. The app isn't code-signed, so Windows may show a warning. Choose More info, then Run anyway.

Mac: download "Eight-Bells-1.0.0.dmg" for Intel Macs or "Eight-Bells-1.0.0-arm64.dmg" for Apple silicon (M1 and newer). The app isn't code-signed, so the first time, right-click it and choose Open. If macOS still refuses, go to System Settings, then Privacy & Security, and choose Open Anyway.

You can also use it straight in Chrome or Edge: https://discodave-glitch.github.io/eight-bells/

Portable: no install needed. To remove it, delete the file. Installer: adds Eight Bells to Settings > Apps, where you can uninstall it. Saved seeds and colours are stored in a folder called "Eight Bells" or "eight-bells" inside %AppData%. Delete that folder to clear them.