fm1-aisling

AISLING 0.4, the fourth test version: a generative Irish ambient firmware for the M-VAVE FM-1. Harps in a jig's threes over a held drone, and a flute, a fiddle or a voice leading, in the old modes, with the weather of the west coast behind; eight pieces from Skellig to Tir na nOg play themselves for ever, each opening on an old air, and the white keys play the Lead, which answers you.

Install: the web installer (Chrome or Edge; the FM-1 on USB), or python3 tools/fm1_install.py aisling-0.4.fwsc. Try it first in the browser emulator. The manual and the cheat sheet are on the site.

New in 0.4

• MIDI in plays the Lead. A note on any channel, over USB or the TRS jack, plays the Lead as a white key does, on whatever page you're on: the scale's nearest note, one at a time, the newest taking over. Velocity is ignored. After NACHTFAHRT, by FartyPants. Channel 1's scale toggle is gone: the scale is set on the Key page. If a computer sends the FM-1's own MIDI out straight back (a DAW's thru, say), every layer's notes play the Lead, so turn thru off, or MIDI out off on GLO's Setup page.
• TRS MIDI in now takes what it has received only on a receive event, after Felucca's #264.
• Density drifts in Carolan: the harps fill out and thin over a minute or two, a slow wander about the knob's value. Motion sets how far, and 0 holds it; so does a knob right up or right down. After NACHTFAHRT.
• USB audio now lists the audio streaming interface first, after Felucca's #67, for macOS 15 and earlier. It didn't bring USB audio to the one older Mac tried: see below.

About this release

• Package identity FM-1_353000400; the USB MIDI port is named "DUB-1 FM-1", as in NACHTFAHRT and DUB-1.
• Tested on a real FM-1: installed over a test build of this firmware, and it boots and plays. The tests below were on that test build, whose code differs only in its version. The installer and the update code are unchanged since 0.3; only the order and version in the USB descriptor differ. The test build could be left for this release through the installer; this release itself hasn't been left yet.
• MIDI in: over TRS, slow notes, long notes, fast playing and an arp from a Korg nanoKEY Fold (Type A), and its tempo followed as clock, with EXT on the screen. Type B hasn't been tried. Over USB, from a MacBook on macOS 26.6.2: notes, and clock with EXT. MIDI Start, Continue and Stop weren't part of these tests.
• USB audio: on macOS 26.6.2 the FM-1 appears as a sound device, 2 channels at 44.1 kHz. On macOS 13.7.8 (an Intel iMac), in a simple test, its MIDI appeared but no sound device did, so expect no USB sound or recording there. macOS 14 and 15 haven't been tried.
• USB level: USB audio comes after MASTER, as in 0.3, so MASTER sets the recording's level, and a recording made at a comfortable headphone level comes out very quiet. The level was read only up to about 15% of MASTER, where it peaks near -41 dB.
• Still open: the Setup page's dropout counter (!n) can climb while it plays. It read 4 while Carolan played on the test build, with the load (now/peak) at 65/87, 57/77 and 76/81, and nothing wrong heard.
• Saved pieces: AISLING saves in the same place as NACHTFAHRT, DUB-1 and AMB-1. It doesn't read what they saved, and its first save replaces it; they treat AISLING's the same way. 0.4 saves in the same format as 0.2 and 0.3, so it should read what they saved, though that hasn't been tried on a device. It doesn't read what 0.1 saved: it starts from its eight recipes. No samples.
• Back to stock: M-VAVE's own updater, M-UPGRADE. It shows AISLING as v14; that's expected.

A fork of NACHTFAHRT by FartyPants (itself from DUB-1 and Charles Vestal's AMB-1, on Leo Kuroshita's Felucca platform); the full credits are in the README. By CU_STE (www.stephen8n.com). GPL-3.0-only: this release's source is the v0.4 tag. Installing is at your own risk.

AISLING 0.3, the third test version: a generative Irish ambient firmware for the M-VAVE FM-1. Harps in a jig's threes over a held drone, and a flute, a fiddle or a voice leading, in the old modes, with the weather of the west coast behind; eight pieces from Skellig to Tir na nOg play themselves for ever, each opening on an old air, and the white keys play the Lead, which answers you.

Install: the web installer (Chrome or Edge; the FM-1 on USB), or python3 tools/fm1_install.py aisling-0.3.fwsc. Try it first in the browser emulator. The manual and the cheat sheet are on the site.

New in 0.3

• The Lead's Voice no longer jumps suddenly in level. The Lead's notes lie high and the Voice's resonances are narrow, so a glide or an ornament could move a harmonic onto a resonance while the level follower still had its gain up. Alone and dry over 300 s, the Voice's peak over its level falls from 18.4 to 8.6 dB in Blasket and from 11.8 to 8.7 dB in Samhain, the two pieces it sings in; the Flute reads 14.7 and 13.5.
• The visualiser (aisling.stephen8n.com): Sea is now the Atlantic from above, under a storm, Space is in a space telescope's colours, and the buttons are simpler.

About this release

• Package identity FM-1_353000300; the USB MIDI port is named "DUB-1 FM-1", as in NACHTFAHRT and DUB-1.
• Tested on a real FM-1: installed over 0.2, and it boots and plays. The Voice is the only firmware change since 0.2, so the loader and the installer are unchanged. Leaving it and installing it again were tested on 0.2 and have not been repeated on 0.3.
• Still open: the Setup page's dropout counter (!n) can climb while it plays. It read 67 after one listening session on the test FM-1, with no clipping heard.
• Saved pieces: AISLING saves in the same place as NACHTFAHRT, DUB-1 and AMB-1. It doesn't read what they saved, and its first save replaces it; they treat AISLING's the same way. 0.3 saves in 0.2's format, so it should read what 0.2 saved, though that hasn't been tried on a device. It doesn't read what 0.1 saved: it starts from its eight recipes. No samples.
• Back to stock: M-VAVE's own updater, M-UPGRADE. It shows AISLING as v14; that's expected.

A fork of NACHTFAHRT by FartyPants (itself from DUB-1 and Charles Vestal's AMB-1, on Leo Kuroshita's Felucca platform); the full credits are in the README. By CU_STE (www.stephen8n.com). GPL-3.0-only: this release's source is the v0.3 tag. Installing is at your own risk.

AISLING 0.2, the second test version: a generative Irish ambient firmware for the M-VAVE FM-1. Harps in a jig's threes over a held drone, and a flute, a fiddle or a voice leading, in the old modes, with the weather of the west coast behind; eight pieces from Skellig to Tir na nOg play themselves for ever, each opening on an old air, and the white keys play the Lead, which answers you.

Install: the web installer (Chrome or Edge; the FM-1 on USB), or python3 tools/fm1_install.py aisling-0.2.fwsc. Try it first in the browser emulator. The manual and the cheat sheet are on the site.

New in 0.2

• The airs: each piece's Lead opens on the first phrase of a public-domain air from O'Neill's Music of Ireland (Chicago, 1903), played as written, and grows its own ideas from it. The manual lists the eight.
• The Lead's new voices: a fiddle, a chanter and a voice beside the flute. Burren's slow air is the fiddle's, Blasket's and Samhain's are sung, and Skellig, Aran and Connemara keep the flute (Connemara's low, in a long echo).
• Ornament: the Lead's notes are cut, tapped, rolled, slid and turned, as trad players do, each voice in its own way (the chanter's low notes cranned, the voice's turned).
• More voices: the Sequences' bouzouki, dulcimer and bodhrán; the Drone's pipes (a piper's chord over three drones) and harmonium; two new Atmospheres, a turf fire and a curlew.
• Macalla (the black key's echo) rings on and builds at any tempo; at AISLING's slow ones 0.1's was too quiet to hear.
• Lighter on the FM-1: the harmonium and the plucked strings cost less, so the busiest pieces play with room to spare.
• Two clicks fixed in NACHTFAHRT's engine: PERFORM Shut's filter coming in, and the widener reading past its end.
• The visualiser (aisling.stephen8n.com) paints the Atlantic under the Cliffs of Moher and deep space as well as the landscape, and its Demo plays a recording of Skellig.
• tools/fm1_rescue.sh handles V16's bootloader as well as V15's.

About this release

• Package identity FM-1_353000200; the USB MIDI port is named "DUB-1 FM-1", as in NACHTFAHRT and DUB-1.
• Tested on a real FM-1: installed over a test build, left again for AISLING 0.1 and installed again. The loader and the installer are 0.1's unchanged, which was tested from the official V15 and V16 and from NACHTFAHRT 0.9.5.
• Saved pieces: AISLING saves in the same place as NACHTFAHRT, DUB-1 and AMB-1. It doesn't read what they saved, and its first save replaces it; they treat AISLING's the same way. 0.2 doesn't read what 0.1 saved either: it starts from its eight recipes. No samples.
• Back to stock: M-VAVE's own updater, M-UPGRADE. It shows AISLING as v14; that's expected.

A fork of NACHTFAHRT by FartyPants (itself from DUB-1 and Charles Vestal's AMB-1, on Leo Kuroshita's Felucca platform); the full credits are in the README. By CU_STE (www.stephen8n.com). GPL-3.0-only: this release's source is the v0.2 tag. Installing is at your own risk.

AISLING 0.1, the first test version: a generative Irish ambient firmware for the M-VAVE FM-1. Harps in a jig's threes and a flute over a held drone, in the old modes, with surf, wind and rain behind; eight pieces from Skellig to Tir na nOg play themselves for ever, and the white keys play the flute, which answers you.

Install: the web installer (Chrome or Edge; the FM-1 on USB), or python3 tools/fm1_install.py aisling-0.1.fwsc. Try it first in the browser emulator. The manual and the cheat sheet are on the site.

• Package identity FM-1_353000100; the USB MIDI port is named "DUB-1 FM-1", as in NACHTFAHRT and DUB-1.
• Tested on a real FM-1: installed from the official V15 and V16 and from NACHTFAHRT 0.9.5; left again for NACHTFAHRT 0.9.5; an install interrupted by pulling the USB cable while writing carries on when the cable goes back in.
• Saved pieces: AISLING saves in the same place as NACHTFAHRT, DUB-1 and AMB-1. It doesn't read what they saved, and its first save replaces it; they treat AISLING's the same way. No samples.
• Back to stock: M-VAVE's own updater, M-UPGRADE (tested). It shows AISLING as v14; that's expected.

A fork of NACHTFAHRT by FartyPants (itself from DUB-1 and Charles Vestal's AMB-1, on Leo Kuroshita's Felucca platform); the full credits are in the README. By CU_STE (www.stephen8n.com). GPL-3.0-only: this release's source is the v0.1 tag. Installing is at your own risk.