Finton

A six-track trance machine for the M-VAVE FM-1, after Rollwerk.

KICK, 909, BASS, ROLL, LEAD and PAD play over Rollwerk's harmony: its 66-progression library in five moods (Epic, Emotive, Melodic, Dark, Major), eight bars that can split at the half, sus and 7th chords, and its 16th roller with figures, top notes, the bar-8 sus turn, the register across the phrase and the build over 8 bars. Every knob can be p-locked per step or recorded as motion, and one knob, LIFT, runs the build and the drop. The screen is ORBIT: a bar is a revolution, the six tracks are sinusoidal rings whose ripples are their filter cutoff and whose breathing is their level, and a hand sweeps the notes; HOME's knobs perform the whole mix (FILTER, RES, SPACE, PUMP).

Everything is synthesised in fixed point on the FM-1's JieLi AC791N (no FPU): supersaws, the 909 kick and kit, a ping-pong delay, a hall and a riser. Measured in the emulator, the whole mix uses about 30 % of the audio budget, and 34 % at the top of a build.

Free and open source (GPL-3.0). Unofficial: this is not M-VAVE's firmware, and you install it at your own risk.

The tracks

Track	Sound	What the generator writes
KICK	909-style kick: swept sine, click, drive, boom tail, tone	four on the floor, sometimes a breath before the turnaround
909	closed and open hat, clap, snare, ride (metallic oscillator bank and noise)	offbeat open hats, 16th closed-hat grooves, claps on 2 and 4, a fill
BASS	saw/square with a sub, mono, slides	Rollwerk's ROLL, OFFBEAT or DRAG on the chord root
ROLL	7-saw supersaw or pluck (Rollwerk VOICE)	Rollwerk's roller: figure AUTO, LIFT, 1-5-8, CLIMB or CYCLE over the chord tones, voice-led; ARP rerolls
LEAD	7-saw supersaw, mono with slides	four bars of call and response that climb and land on the root
PAD	7-saw supersaw triads, trance gate	a chord a bar, gated

BASS, ROLL and LEAD are derived from the chords: change a chord, the key, the mode or the roller settings and they are written again, unless you have edited that track by hand (ARP regenerates it either way). PAD voices the chord sounding as it plays.

Controls

Control	Does
PLAY	start / stop (SCL+PLAY: from the top)
REC	arm: knob moves record as motion, keys record steps, LIFT writes its lane
HOME	ORBIT, with the PERFORM knobs; hold for ABOUT
SEQ	steps: white keys are the 16 steps, black keys pick tracks 1-6, then bar pages 1-4
GLO	global, five pages: HARMONY (key, mode, mood, progression; the chord tiles), ROLLER (figure, top, sus turn, voice), BUILD (build, amount, register, register amount), GROOVE (bass, pump, drive, hall), ECHO+HALL (delay, feedback, tone, damp), SYSTEM (tempo, slot, motion)
EDIT / ENV / LFO / FX	the track's knob page: SOUND / SHAPE / FILTER / SEND (HOME returns to PERFORM)
ARP	generate this track again; on ROLL it is Rollwerk's reroll; on GLOBAL HARMONY a progression from any mood (SCL+ARP: a whole new song)
SAVE	save the song to the slot (while stopped); SCL+SAVE loads the slot
SCL	shift; held, it shows CPU load. SCL + a black track key mutes the track
SELECT	track; with a step held, its note; in GLOBAL, the selected bar's chord (white keys 1-8 pick the bar)
ALGORITHM	LIFT, the live build: filters open, a riser climbs, the snare rolls, the kick and bass fall away. Take it back to 0 from the top and the drop lands. The BUILD lane (Rollwerk's build over 8 bars) runs underneath on its own
PRESETS	CUTOFF of the selected track (ROLL when a drum track is selected), on every screen, recordable as motion with REC. SCL+PRESETS: the track's sound presets (below). With a step held: its length; in GLOBAL HARMONY: the bar's second-half chord (a split)
KNOB 1-4	on HOME: PERFORM macros FILTER, RES, SPACE, PUMP over the whole mix (SCL+turn: neutral). On a track page: its four parameters; with a step held, a p-lock; SCL+turn clears that parameter's motion
keys (HOME)	play the selected track (909: the five voices on the first white keys)
OCT- / OCT+	octave of the keys; in SEQ, the bar page 1-8 (on 909, black keys 7-11 pick the voice)

In SEQ, tap a step to toggle it. Hold it to edit: SELECT changes the note, PRESETS the length, and the knobs set p-locks. The bottom strip marks a locked value in the accent colour.

Sound presets

SCL+PRESETS steps through the selected track's bank, and the strip shows the preset's name. A preset sets the track's sixteen knobs; p-locks and recorded motion stay.

Track	Presets
KICK	909, HARD, LONG, PUNCH, DEEP
909	CLASSIC, TIGHT, OPEN, LOFI
BASS	ROLLER, SUB, ACID, REESE, PLUCKY, SQUARE
ROLL	SUPERSAW, PLUCK (Rollwerk's two voices), GLASS, HOOVER, ACID, CHIME, DEEP, SHIMMER
LEAD	SOAR, HOOVER, SAW, PIPE, BRIGHT, DARK
PAD	WARM, STRINGS, GLASS, DARK, GATED, AIR

Build

You need Python 3 with Pillow, Docker (on macOS the JieLi toolchain runs in a linux/amd64 container), JieLi's toolchain and three files from the AC79 SDK:

tools/get_toolchain.sh                    # ~/.jieli/toolchain
# the SDK: gitee.com/Jieli-Tech/fw-AC79_AIoT_SDK at AC79NN_SDK_V1.2.1_2023-12-13 in ~/fw-AC79_AIoT_SDK
# (build.py checks the SHA-256 of uboot.boot, cfg_tool.bin and cfg/eq_cfg_hw.bin)
./build.sh                                # -> build/finton.fwsc (identity FM-1_950)
./build.sh --release 0.1                  # -> build/finton-0.1.fwsc

python3 tools/gen_assets.py regenerates firmware/gen/apex_font.h (Azeret Mono), finton_logo.h (the dog, from assets/logo.png), finton_harmony.h (Rollwerk's vocabulary and progressions) and apex_tables.h.

Try it without an FM-1

tests/run_host.sh                         # on this computer: build/host/finton.wav and two screens as PNG
tests/run_host.sh tests/demo.txt          # a scripted run (keys, buttons, encoders over time)
build/host/finton build/demo/f tests/demo.txt 30   # a film: a frame every 1/30 s, plus the WAV
FINTON_SOLO=4 build/host/finton build/host/lead      # one track alone
tools/emu.sh                              # the device build in fm1-emu: the AC791N emulated at 240 MHz
FM1_BENCH_KEYS="300:PLAY,400:PLAY^,6000:SCL" tools/emu.sh --shot 6500    # headless, a screenshot with the CPU load

tools/emu.sh expects fm1-emu built next to this project (cargo build --release -p fm1-live). In its window, A to ' play the keys, Space is PLAY, R is REC, 1-0 are the other buttons, and the mouse turns the knobs.

Web flasher

web/ is a one-page installer in the Finton look (digital rain, the dog, a terminal log): connect, check, flash, in Chrome or Edge over Web MIDI with SysEx. It speaks the same USB-MIDI update as tools/fm1_install.py (web/fm1ota.js is a port of it, checked byte for byte against it), installs the firmware bundled next to it, or any .fwsc you drop on it, and finishes an update that was cut off.

./build.sh --release 0.1 && tools/make_web.sh build/finton-0.1.fwsc   # web/firmware/finton.fwsc + manifest.json
python3 -m http.server -d web 8913                                    # http://localhost:8913

On GitHub, .github/workflows/pages.yml publishes web/ to Pages on every push that touches it (Settings > Pages > Source: GitHub Actions). Web MIDI needs https or localhost, which both are.

Install

pip3 install mido python-rtmidi
python3 tools/fm1_install.py --info               # what the connected FM-1 runs now
python3 tools/fm1_install.py build/finton.fwsc      # asks before writing

To go back, use M-VAVE's updater or any FM-1 web installer's "return to official" option. If a firmware ever fails to start, hold OCT- while powering on: that is the USB rescue mode, and the installer still works from there.

Finton keeps six song slots of 16 KB at flash 0xC8000-0xDFFFF, inside the area Felucca uses for its own projects. Going back to Felucca after APEX may show that space as damaged projects there.

Credits

Finton is APEX's engine and six tracks with Rollwerk's harmony and roller, in the Matrix's green. The platform under it (platform.c, hal/, loader/, usb.c, ota.c, lcd.c, gfx.c, tools/ except gen_assets.py and emu.sh) is Dinghy by zvenson, which is Felucca's platform by Leo Kuroshita (Hügelton Instruments) as SLOOP (isod89) carries it. The type and the rain are M PLUS 1 Code (SIL OFL 1.1). The supersaw's detune and mix curves follow Adam Szabo's measurements of the JP-8000. See LICENSING.md.

Made by FintonLabs.