LOOM-8

• Acid's filter goes much darker: the cutoff now reaches down to 60 Hz (a 303 stops at 314 Hz). The top half of the knob is the stock 303's, unchanged; the bottom half is the new dark range. The factory acid presets and the house demo sound as before (their cutoffs moved to the new knob). In your own projects, an acid track with its cutoff below the middle will now sound darker: turn it up a little to get the old sound back.
• The delay's ping width: on a delay, FX I's or FX II's SEL list has PING WIDTH, how far apart the echoes bounce, from hard left and right (127, as before) to the centre (0). Projects from earlier versions keep their full bounce. Projects saved by 0.12.1 don't open in 0.12 or earlier.
• The manual says what acid's shaper does: it shapes the square wave only (wave on square), most of it in the bottom third of the knob.
• Fixed: the install page stopped with "PORT_NAMES is not defined".

• New engine: acid, a TB-303 (X0X's, from Open303), with the Devilfish controls, Soft and RAT drive, and its own picture of the drive.
• New kit models: the 909 kick, snare, tom, rim and clap (9W9's circuits), and the 909 closed hat, open hat, ride and crash, played from ER-99's samples. The cymbals' samples come with the installer: install with the web installer so they are written too.
• Harmony: a track can follow the conductor's chord, not just its scale (follow modes harmony and chord deg). Thanks to darosh.
• A new player, random: each step draws a note from a pool of pitches you pick (hold a step, SEQ), with chances for notes, pitch, rhythm, timing, velocity and gate, and octaves down and up. Thanks to darosh.
• Large type (Setup › SEL › LARGE TYPE): bigger labels, values and header on every page; the hints stay as they were.
• On a kit's EDIT pages, the white keys now write steps: pick a sound with its black key, tap a white key to put it on that step. Hold a step and turn a knob to lock it. Hold EDIT to play the kit as before.
• CC IN (Setup › SEL): endless, for endless encoders sending relative values, such as a Launchkey's. Absolute stays the default.
• Menus follow one rule: names in capitals, values in bold, ↵ where SEL confirms, ▸ where ALGO changes it at once.
• Fixed: USB audio on macOS 15.
• The acid engine and the 909 cymbals use less CPU (after Optimist).
• The samples page can leave LOOM-8's own sounds out, to make room for yours.
• Projects are stored more compactly, so a small project takes less room. Projects and backups from 0.11 load as they were.

• Fixed: changing the sample on a looping sample track could silence everything until a restart.
• Mix: tap a track's black key twice to keep it soloed. Tap again to end the solo.
• Mix: muted tracks still show their meter, in grey.
• REC's COUNT has "on note": recording waits for your first note, which lands on step 1.
• On Steps or Bar, SEQ + PLAY starts from the bar on screen.
• b/w is now the default theme.

Thanks to Phyton, der_gegenwart and Maltese.

• Each drum sound on a step now has its own chance and tricks. Flam the snare while the kick on the same step hits once, put the hat at 50 % beside a kick that always plays, or multiply the hat in fours while the snare flams. Hold a kit step: KNOB 3 and ARP reach the sound shown, the header names it, and PRESETS steps through the sounds on the step.
• On a drum track, chance, A:B cycles, skip trigger, velocity, multiply, flam, pulse and hold are each sound's own. A jump still moves the whole track and a bend the whole kit, when their sound plays.
• Projects from earlier versions load as they were: a drum step's chance and tricks stay on all its sounds together until you give one of them its own.
• A sound taken off a step, or recorded back onto it, starts plain there.
• The browser emulator shows the dim lights (set steps, the buttons' glow), and Shift-click or right-click holds a key down (click again to let go). Esc is HOME.

• Edit several steps at once. On Steps, hold a step, then press others: turn a knob, press a black key on a kit, or open a lock page (EDIT, ENV, FX, LFO) or the tricks (ARP), and every held step changes. Each knob moves each step from its own value; the screen shows how many steps are held.
• Stretching a note still works as before: hold a step and tap a later one. The length is now set when you let go of the later step, so if you turn a knob while holding both, you edit the pair instead.

• On a kit, COPY KEY and PASTE KEY are now called COPY DRUM and PASTE DRUM.

• The SEL lists are easier to get around. Each list opens on the row you used last, the actions come first and the knobs after, and long lists are split into sections with a small heading.
• COPY TO EMPTY (Steps' list) copies the pattern into the track's next empty pattern and switches to it. Make a new scene, use COPY TO EMPTY on the tracks you want to change, and the scene you started from keeps the original: variations and builds in a few presses.
• SHIFT NOTES moves a whole pattern up or down by semitones, and ROTATE moves its steps left or right. Turn ALGORITHM for how far (+4, L2), then press SEL.
• CLEAR BAR clears just the bar shown.
• COPY SOUND and PASTE SOUND put one track's sound on another. On a kit, COPY KEY and PASTE KEY copy one drum sound onto another key.
• COPY SCENE and PASTE SCENE on HOME, and DUPLICATE SLOT on the Song page.
• Setup has its own list (Bluetooth, USB and MIDI, LOOM-8). Its settings and the theme now belong to the FM-1: loading a project or starting a new one keeps them.
• A kit's ENV list has the key's filter and the kit's filter on every page.

• LOOM-8 plays through Bluetooth headphones and speakers. Yes, there's a delay (150-300 ms). Yes, it's still fun.
• Connect LOOM-8 to a Bluetooth MIDI keyboard, controller or app, or connect your computer or phone to LOOM-8. If a device asks for a code, LOOM-8 shows it.
• Setup has BT MIDI and BT AUDIO, each with its own on/off and device list.
• Updating from 0.8: if your phone or computer was paired with LOOM-8, forget it there and pair again. The same goes for a speaker or headphones that knew another FM-1 firmware.
• One Bluetooth MIDI connection at a time: a computer or a device, not both.
• Bluetooth now runs on Optimist's open stack by Henri David, with no JieLi Bluetooth code inside, and LOOM-8 has about 20 KB more RAM to grow into.
• More macOS versions show LOOM-8 as a USB audio device (the audio interface is now listed first).

Fixed

• Two FM-1s on Bluetooth: each FM-1 now has a Bluetooth name of its own, "FM-1" plus four letters and digits ("FM-1 5132"), the same every time. Before, every FM-1 was just "FM-1", so with two around, a computer or app could not tell which was which. (A Mac that already knew your FM-1 may keep showing "FM-1" until you remove it in Audio MIDI Setup's Bluetooth window and connect again.)
• Samples page: finds the FM-1 the way the installer and backup page do, including on Windows and when another app holds a MIDI port. A tester saw "No FM-1 running LOOM-8 found" with LOOM-8 running.

Install (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 plugged in): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/install/ — or download loom-0.8.1.fwsc below. Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/manual/ · Your own samples: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/

New

• Bluetooth MIDI: LOOM-8 shows up as a MIDI device ("FM-1") for you to pair with your phone, tablet or computer. MIDI goes both ways, and a clock over Bluetooth plays steady (set your DAW's clock delay to about 75 ms early to line it up).
• USB MIDI host: set USB PORT to MIDI host (GLO's SEL list on Setup) and plug a USB MIDI keyboard, controller or synth in through a powered USB hub. It plays LOOM-8, and LOOM-8's MIDI out plays it, no computer needed. USB PORT goes back to computer at every start.
• New engine: MIDI, a silent track for playing other gear over MIDI, with eight knobs you can assign to any CCs (KNOB 1..8 CC on its SEL list); they lock and move with motion like any knob.
• New step trick: flam, a softer grace hit just before the step's own.
• Move a pattern an octave: on Steps, hold SEQ and press OCT- or OCT+.
• Clock: internal, receive or send (Setup's CLOCK). Receive follows a MIDI clock coming in (and its start and stop) and plays at its own tempo when none comes; send keeps time and sends the clock; internal does neither. New projects receive; your projects keep sending if they sent.

LOOM-8's sounds: the installer now also puts LOOM-8's own sounds (the kits' drums and the instruments) in the sample bank, after your samples. If they don't fit, it asks first: make your samples smaller to fit, install without them, or stop.

Install (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 plugged in): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/install/ — or download loom-0.8.fwsc below. Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/manual/ · Your own samples: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/

New

• Ten new drum models for the kit's keys: the x models (x kick, x snare, x hat, x clap, x tom, x rim, x fm, x noise, after MACHINEDRUM), sophie (Sophie's FM percussion: fuse, stack, split, shard, pipe, boom, kick) and clang (digisophie). Any key can use any model.
• Nine new factory kits after Loom, named for fibers like the engines: Nylon, Elastane, Wire, Burlap, Sequin, Frayed, Denim, Linen and Velvet. They all keep the default kit's layout (kick, snare, closed and open hat, clap, two toms, conga, shaker, string, fm), so a pattern plays the same parts on every kit. A kit track's SEL list on Engine: KIT.
• Eight user kits instead of four (SAVE KIT: K1 to K8).
• The battery level beside the tempo.
• knit's oscillator 2 has a fine tune (hold HOME on the Sub page, ±50 cents).
• Hold a scene's key to clear it.
• The backup page keeps your sample bank in the .loom8 file too, and puts it back on restore.
• Update mode from the keys on every FM-1: hold REC while switching on (also in safe mode).
• More headroom: the second core and the drums take less CPU, so busy songs play more smoothly.

The breaks have moved. The four factory breaks (classic, heat, choke, ecstasy) are no longer built into the firmware, which freed room for the new drums. Add them back in one click on the samples page ("Add the breaks"): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/ — until then, projects that use them keep their names and play silence there.

Fixes

• Arrange: KNOB 4 on the THROW track read "THROW P" (cut off); it now reads PATTERN.

Your projects: projects, user presets and user kits from 0.5-beta on open and are converted; your four user kits become K1 to K4. Projects, presets and kits saved by 0.7 don't open in 0.6.1 or older.

Install (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 plugged in): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/install/ — or download loom-0.7.fwsc below. Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/manual/ · Your own samples: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/

New

• Chord entry on Steps: hold a step, tap SEQ to write its chord with the keys instead of toggling steps. Changes only the notes — length, tricks and locks stay. Let go of the step and keep playing — chord mode stays on until SEQ is tapped again. OCT+/OCT- change the keyboard's octave while it's on.
• A third theme, b/w: the original black background, white text and red accents, with the same eight track inks.

Fixes

• A drum pad on the Engine page's drumline stayed lit after one hit; it now fades out again.
• The footer's first-boot hint no longer covers up a held step's own footer, or chord mode's.
• Arrange and Mix: a track's mute key now lights off when muted, full for the selected track, and dimmer for the rest — it used to be backwards (muted tracks lit, everyone else dark), and Mix had no mute lighting at all.
• A melodic track's filter-type list had a confusing entry named "dynamic" (it meant "no filter") sitting out of order in the middle of the list; it's renamed to "off" and moved to the end, after bp12.

Your projects: projects and user presets from 0.5-beta on open and are converted. Projects and presets saved by 0.6.1 don't open in 0.6-beta or older.

Install (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 plugged in): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/install/ — or download loom-0.6.1.fwsc below. Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/manual/ · Your own samples: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/

Your projects: projects from 0.5-beta to 0.5.4-beta open and are converted. Projects saved by 0.6 don't open in older versions.

Changes (things that work differently now)

• MIDI channels are fixed: T1-T8 listen on channels 1-8. A keyboard on channel 1 now always plays T1. Set it to channel 12-16 to play whichever track is selected.
• A track's MIDI CHANNEL row is now MIDI OUT: on or off.
• Notes that come in over MIDI are no longer sent back out.
• SAVE with a step held no longer clears that step's locks. Hold the step, press SEL, pick CLEAR LOCKS.
• Arrange's KNOB 4 now picks the selected track's pattern. The metronome is still on REC's knobs.
• When a kit track drives the pump, only the melodic tracks duck; the drums keep their punch.

Scenes and song

• 32 scenes instead of 16. On Arrange and Song, OCT switches the white keys between scenes 1-16 and 17-32.
• Arrange shows a level meter beside each track. COND and THROW light when one of their steps plays.
• Every page's header shows the scene playing.
• Mute single drum sounds in a scene: on Arrange, hold a kit track's black key and tap white keys 1-11.
• Jump or loop bars: on the Bar page, hold SEQ and press black keys 1-4 (the pattern's bars). One key jumps to that bar at the next bar line; two held loop that range; one tapped twice loops that bar. The loop is saved with the pattern.
• DOUBLE PATTERN (Steps' SEL list) doubles the pattern's length and copies it, locks included, into the new half.

Sound

• Shared LFO, on GLO's new LFO page: one LFO that moves several tracks at once, synced from 16 bars to 1/16, or free. Targets: cutoff, resonance, pitch, pan, volume, sends or character. Black keys 1-8 pick the tracks. On a kit, white keys 1-11 pick one sound, 12 all of them.
• Sample engine: a Loop page with loop start and loop length. The loop point is crossfaded, so it doesn't click.
• Strum builds each key's chord in the conductor's scale: in C major the white keys give C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim. Hold several keys to set your own chord; it then moves along the scale (a C7 gives Dm7 on D, G7 on G).
• Kits: each sound on a step has its own velocity. Hold the step and turn KNOB 1.
• knit's detune now detunes oscillator 2 too (up to 20 cents).
• Weave shows every bar (OCT) and has a new rule, "pitch".

Editing

• Copy and paste a bar, a step, or only its locks. Steps' SEL list has COPY BAR, PASTE BAR and PASTE LOCKS ONLY. A held step's SEL list has COPY STEP and PASTE STEP.
• Hold SEL and turn a knob to erase that knob's automation in the pattern (or only on the steps you hold).
• Mix: hold several black keys to solo several tracks.
• On Steps, hold SEQ: OCT moves the keys' octave and PRESETS changes the track's sound, so you can try notes before writing them.
• LOOP THROWS (GLO's SEL list): "drift" leaves the pattern where the loop throw ended instead of jumping back in time.
• The drawings on the sound pages (envelopes, filter, waveform, LFO, the faders on Mix) now move with automation and locks while the pattern plays.
• On Steps, steps with notes light their LEDs brighter than empty steps.
• HOME's SEL list opens LOAD PROJECT and SAVE TO on the project you have open, marked "(open)".

MIDI

• Channels: T1-T8 on 1-8, FX I on 9, FX II on 10, the master and the scenes on 11, the selected track on 12-16.
• CC control of each track's level, pan, sends, cutoff, resonance, attack, decay, release, glide and LFO amount; a kit's sounds (mute, pan, level); FX I and II; the master (EQ, color, pump, level). The full table is in the manual. While recording, incoming CCs are written into the pattern's automation.
• CC OUT (GLO's SEL list, on by default): turning a mapped knob sends its CC, so a DAW can record your moves. CCs that came in, locks and automation aren't sent.
• Scenes: Program Change 0-31 or notes 36-67 on channel 11 select scenes 1-32, timed like Arrange's white keys. SCENES OUT (GLO's SEL list, off by default) sends a Program Change when you change scenes.
• Notes out are on by default (Setup's NOTES) in new projects and in projects from 0.5-beta. Each track has MIDI OUT on its EDIT pages' SEL list.
• A kit hit's MIDI note now ends when the hit does.
• No stuck notes: a note played again while it's still sounding gets its own note-off, and ALL NOTES OFF ends every note LOOM-8 sent.

Fixes

• Clearing the scene that's playing hands over to the nearest scene.
• Inserting or deleting song slots while the song plays keeps its place.
• CLEAR LOCKS can be undone and keeps a kit's tunings.
• PASTE brings the locks with the steps, and refuses to paste a kit pattern onto a synth track or the reverse.
• A refused paste no longer writes the held step when you let go.
• A mono sample retriggered no longer clicks.
• Slices play to the note's gate, however short.
• The curves drawn on the pages no longer show notches.
• The REC strip on the kit pages shows the steps written.
• SAVE with no slot saves to the slot SAVE TO shows.
• No empty Players page when the player is off.
• A repeated MIDI note is no longer cut short.
• A removed step comes back plain when you write it again.

Built on GitHub: this release was built and tested from its source on GitHub and signed with build provenance. BUILDING.md shows how to check it.

Install (Chrome or Edge, FM-1 plugged in): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/install/ — or download loom-0.6-beta.fwsc below. Your projects, presets and samples stay. Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/manual/ · Your own samples: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/

Undo covers everything. HOME + REC undoes and HOME + PLAY redoes: a track's sound (knobs, PRESETS, Randomize presets, scramble, reset), the master, the song, scenes and weave, and a record take, as well as pattern edits and step locks.

Playing and editing

• Jump (HOME) goes past step 16 on longer patterns, to the downbeat of every bar.
• Hold a page's own button (EDIT, ENV, FX, LFO, ARP) while the sequencer plays and a kit's black keys play the hits instead of only picking the key to edit.
• Hold EDIT and turn ALGORITHM to change the track's engine.
• ARP is shown as disabled on a kit.

Fixes

• Steps recorded during the count-in now land on step 1.
• Early steps in live recording no longer play twice (the live trigger, then the step).
• Letting go of a loop throw (stutter on a slice track, for example) puts the pattern back at the right step, in sync with the other tracks.
• The filter resonance display no longer squares off at high resonance; the peak rounds into the top.
• The help cards for ARP, FX, ENV, EDIT and GLO fit the screen.

Known: a pan throw reported as about 20 times too loud is not reproduced yet.

Install (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 plugged in): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/install/ — or download loom-0.5.4-beta.fwsc below. Your projects, presets and samples stay as they are. Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/manual/ · Your own samples: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/

Punch in knob motion: while it plays, on a sound page (Engine, Envelope, Filter, Character, Sends, LFO ...), hold REC and turn a knob. It is written onto the steps while you hold REC, as the keys punch in notes; let go and it plays back. The footer says "KNOBS record motion · KEYS record notes". The record settings (click, count-in, quantise, mode) are still on REC held while stopped, and on Steps and Bar. The Sends page now records motion too.

Install (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 plugged in): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/install/ — or download loom-0.5.3-beta.fwsc below. Your projects, presets and samples stay as they are. Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/manual/ · Your own samples: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/

A new kit is drier: only the clap and the fm key send to the reverb. The snare, toms, conga and string start dry (the kick and hats always did). Kits in projects you already have keep their sends as they are; send any key to the effects on FX, Sends.

Install (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 plugged in): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/install/ — or download loom-0.5.2-beta.fwsc below. Your projects, presets and samples stay as they are. Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/manual/ · Your own samples: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/

A fix release: no text is cut off on the FM-1's screen any more.

• The strum player's description ran off the screen; now it fits.
• Messages in the header kept losing their ends ("STEP RECORD keys write steps", "NO EFFECT YET play a key on EDIT", "NEW PROJECT no free slot: SAVE TO" and others): a long one now steps down to a smaller font instead.
• The tricks on the knob strip: "ramp down" and the skips take two lines instead of being cut. The portamento trick is now called glide.
• Shorter lines for the throws page, an empty song, a track with no steps, and the conga's pad.

Install (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 plugged in): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/install/ — or download loom-0.5.1-beta.fwsc below. Your projects, presets and samples stay as they are. Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/manual/ · Your own samples: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/

LOOM-8's first public release, a beta: a pocket groovebox for the M-VAVE FM-1, inspired by the OP-XY's way of working.

Install (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 plugged in): https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/install/ — or download loom-0.5-beta.fwsc below. The installer can always put M-VAVE's firmware back. Try it in your browser first: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/emu/ Manual: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/manual/ Your own samples: https://charlesvestal.github.io/fm1-loom/samples/

What's in it

• Eight tracks, nine engines: knit (subtractive, with a supersaw unison), rayon (two-operator FM), jacquard (wavetables), bellows (organ), cane (physical models: pluck, bow, reed, flute, bell, drum) and voile (voices: vosim, vowel, choir, whisper), both from Mutable Instruments' Braids; a sample player, a break slicer and an eleven-key drum kit (kick, snare, hats, clap, toms, conga, shaker, string, fm, or any sample).
• 85 factory presets, plus 16 slots of your own. Real samples built in: 909 drums, four breaks, piano, pizzicato bass, strings, brass, flute and an orchestra hit; put up to 32 of your own on it from the samples page in the browser: add, replace, rename, reorder and remove them, the ones already there kept as they are.
• A 64-step sequencer: chords on a step, fourteen step tricks (multiply, ramps, random, portamento, bend, jump, skips...), chances and A:B cycles, parameter locks on any knob, nudge, live and step recording, motion recording. The Bar page writes steps as well as Steps does.
• Kits: each key its own envelope, filter, drive, pan, play mode and sends; the kit's own bus filter (low cut, compressor, drive, hi cut) and a character stage on the whole kit.
• Shaping every track: two envelopes, a filter (lp24, ladder, lp12, hp, bp), a character stage (drive, fold, crush, ring, tilt, tape, sampler) and an LFO (wave, wobble, drift, pump).
• Players: arp (with styles, glide and stereo), strum and hold.
• Weave: cross two patterns into a third, bar by bar, step by step, or one's rhythm with the other's notes.
• The conductor: a track that moves the song through a progression, or follows one of your tracks' notes.
• Throws: twelve momentary effects on the keys (stutter, repeat, echo, build, jumble, warble, chop, ring...), on the drums, the melodic tracks or one track.
• Two send effects: chorus, delay, lofi, phaser or reverb (eleven modes, among them the PlayStation's own).
• Mix and master: per-track meters, mute and solo, a master EQ, master colour (tape, sampler...), compressor and a pump on the kick.
• Sixteen scenes and a song; three project slots; backup and restore from the site.
• USB: class-compliant MIDI in and out (clock and notes), and the FM-1 recordable as a USB audio input.
• Screen reader support through fm1-reader.
• Runs on both of the FM-1's cores.

Built on fm1-base and felucca-bsp, from Felucca by Leo Kuroshita (Hügelton Instruments). GPL-3.0-only; see LICENSING.md for every source and sample. Not affiliated with teenage engineering.