Polly

Polly 0.5 runs on fm1-base, the platform the other FM-1 firmwares share. Polly plays as it did, and from now on it gets the platform's fixes and new parts along with them.

• Your songs stay. Updating from 0.4 keeps your songs, grooves, melodies, settings and QY70 styles. Backups made with 0.4 restore.
• The lights. The buttons' glow and the dim keys use the platform's smoother glow.
• Installer. The installer has a "Report a problem" button. It reads what the FM-1 last logged and puts it in an issue for you.
• Mirror. The host's MASTER now sets the sound too, not only the readout. The Mirror and Backup pages are now fm1-base's, shared by every firmware that has them.
• The site works with a screen reader and the keyboard (WCAG 2.2 AA). The School's videos have captions and transcripts. The emulator can be played from the keyboard and reads its screen aloud.

Polly is still GPL-3.0. fm1-base and felucca-bsp are MPL-2.0 (see LICENSING.md).

Install: open the installer in Chrome or Edge. Your songs stay when you update.

Please report problems in the issues.

Polly 0.4.3 works with a screen reader.

• Screen reader. Plug the FM-1 into a computer and open the FM-1 Screen Reader in Chrome or Edge. It speaks what Polly's screen shows, with its own voice or through your computer's screen reader: the page and its knobs, a knob's new value as you turn it, the chord your keys play, list rows, help cards, questions with how to answer them, play and stop, and every message. Chords and notes are said in full, such as "F sharp minor seven flat five" or "B flat 3". While a song plays, the bars and sections going by stay quiet. Read the whole screen also reads the progression's chords or the song's sections, and what the keys and encoders do on the page. See Screen reader in the manual.

Polly sends nothing until the reader asks, so a DAW on the same cable doesn't see a thing.

Install: open the installer in Chrome or Edge. Your songs stay when you update.

Please report problems in the issues.

Polly 0.4.2 adds one setting.

• USB audio at full level (#2). On Setup, press SEL, turn SELECT down to USB AUDIO, and turn ALGO to full. USB audio then stays at full level whatever the MASTER knob says, so you can record over the cable with the speaker turned down. follows knob (the default) is as before.

Install: open the installer in Chrome or Edge. Your songs stay when you update.

Please report problems in the issues.

Polly 0.4.1 fixes one thing on the Home page.

• The right chords after a song stops. When a song stopped, Home showed section 1's chords moved by the last section's transpose. For example, Am F C G showed as Bm G D A if the last section was set to +2. Home now shows section 1 as it will play.

The lessons' videos also have a new look, with the caption above the FM-1.

Install: open the installer in Chrome or Edge. Your songs stay when you update.

Please report problems in the issues.

Polly 0.4 fixes the Ending and gives melodies a voice.

• The Ending is in tune. If you asked for the Ending partway through a section (hold HOME and press black key 5), the rest of that section's melody kept playing over the Ending's held chord. Melodies now stop when the Intro or the Ending plays.
• Melodies start as a choir. M1's sound on a new song is Choir Aahs instead of a square lead, because most melodies are sung. Songs you've already saved keep their sounds.

Install: open the installer in Chrome or Edge. Your songs stay when you update.

New to Polly? Start with 101 in the School. Please report problems in the issues.

Polly 0.3 changes one word, which matters: a groove you've changed is now marked "(edited)" instead of "(yours)".

When you record into a style's groove, or change its sound, mix or length, Polly edits a copy and leaves the style as it was. "Yours" made that sound like ownership. Now the screen says what happens:

• The first edit shows "EDITING A COPY · GROOVE A".
• The groove's pill reads "Groove A (edited)", and so do the Style knob, the Style page and Memory.
• When you change styles, Polly asks "KEEP YOUR EDITED GROOVE A?". Press SEL to keep it, or HOME to play the new style's groove.

Install: open the installer in Chrome or Edge. Your songs stay when you update.

For the rest, see Edited grooves in the manual. Please report problems in the issues.

Polly 0.2 is a small update to the 0.1 test release. Polly's words on the screen are clearer, two help cards are fixed, and the docs are rewritten.

Install: open the installer in Chrome or Edge. Your songs stay when you update from 0.1.

Learn it: start with 101 in the School. There are ten short lessons, and each has a video. For every detail, see the manual.

What's new

• "Follow" instead of "free". When no progression is playing, the band follows the chords you play. Home's Prog knob now says "follow", and so does the line above the knobs. "Free" is now used only for freeing a place in Memory.
• Clearer questions and messages. For example, "KEEP YOUR GROOVE A?" when you change styles, "PLAY THIS BASS AS WRITTEN?" in Notes, and "RECORD OFF · NEW SECTION" when the band moves on while you record.
• Plainer help cards and Setup texts. Hold any button for a second to read them.
• Two help cards fit again. The cards for REC on the Song page and on a melody were one line too long.
• Fixes. A melody copy no longer looks like a refusal, and SEQ stays lit on the Notes page.

The docs

• The School's lessons now follow on from each other, so each one starts where the one before ended.
• The manual is rewritten in plain sentences, and was checked against the firmware.
• On a wide screen, the manual's contents open to the chapter you're reading.
• Backup and the screen mirror now come first as web pages: Backup and Mirror.

Please report problems in the issues.

Polly 0.1 is the first public test release: a pocket arranger for the M-VAVE FM-1, inspired by the Yamaha QY70. Play chords and a band of eight instruments follows.

Install: open the installer in Chrome or Edge. Charge the FM-1 first, and keep the computer awake and the cable in until it finishes.

Learn it: the School has ten short lessons with a video each. Start with 101. The manual has every page, knob and setting.

What's in it

• 16 styles (Pop, Funk, Rock, Ballad, Bossa, Swing, Shuffle, Reggae, Hip hop, House, Disco, Country, Gospel, Waltz, Latin, Ambient). Each has an Intro, Groove A and B, fills and an Ending. Their drums are real drummers' performances from the Groove MIDI Dataset.
• Chords: play three keys or more and the band follows. Over 25 chord types, slash basses and inversions.
• Progressions: P1–P8 ready-made, P9–P16 yours. Record them live or write them on a grid.
• Songs: four songs of up to 32 sections. Each section has a progression, a groove, a fill choice (A, A + fill, A no fill…), repeats, a transpose and its own mutes. Insert and remove sections as you go. Clocks show how far each section has played.
• Your own grooves: record any instrument into a style's groove. It becomes yours, kept in memory.
• Melodies: two melody tracks, M1 and M2, recorded along the whole song.
• Notes: a note editor for melodies and the band's instruments: change, move, delete and enter single notes.
• Sound: the 128 General MIDI sounds and a drum kit (Sonivox EAS), a mixer, reverb and chorus.
• Keeping your work: undo and redo, a count-in, four songs, a memory gauge, backup and restore in the browser, factory reset.
• With other gear: MIDI out and clock, play from a keyboard, and a screen mirror in the browser.
• Your own QY70 styles: if you own a QY70, Polly can play its 128 preset styles from your ROM. Polly ships no Yamaha data.

Try it without the hardware in the browser emulator.

Credits

Built on the platform of Felucca (Hügelton Instruments, GPL-3.0). Sounds by Sonivox EAS (Apache-2.0). Drums from Google Magenta's Groove MIDI Dataset (CC BY 4.0). The note editor follows the design of Melodee. The browser emulator follows Groove OS's idea. Polly is GPL-3.0.

This is a test release: please report problems in the issues.