alt Hacker NewsFM-1 Workbench
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It's been a great little toy, I install a new firmware every couple of days. I especially enjoy the various generative firmwares.
Many of them work in browser too, which is essential for choosing what to try next!
Some faves:
Downsides immediately jump out at me, it lacks real DIN MIDI ports, having those irritating 1/8" jacks instead which require an adapter. Built in battery, hopefully not too difficult to replace. I vastly prefer AAs for this use case like the Volcas use. It has a fan, that's not good at all. It looks cheap (look at the bottom photo here https://www.m-vave.com/product?id=fm-1) and not sturdy. Similar to my Elektron Moden Cycles and my Polyend Tracker, a bit flimsy and cheap.
I feel like the Chinese have made and sold enough music gear on behalf of other manufacturers over time that they can technically make the products, but I don't think they understand the market so they will be flawed and toy-grade for a while until they hire some consultants and carefully study the various portable MIDI gear that has succeeded over time. I'm not sure what the electronic music scene looks like in China but I would suspect most of the people involved still use non-Chinese gear and software.
The explosion of firmwares for this device, and the manufacturers embrace thereof, is a rare bright spot in post-LLM music tech
My first FM-1 is out for delivery. I once assisted in a 2" tape studio, I have played with many synths, and yet I am so excited for this little thing.
This is such a cool hardware meme/software/ai dev thing that makes me very happy for the world.
I am just about to start learning. If anyone could drop firmware knowledge aside from Baud Girl (cool af) ... I would appreciate it. I am mostly excited about Obervave, but I will have two FM-1's shortly... what is the best step sequencer firmware at the moment?
I got one for my kid's obsessed with music composition. What would you use this with so they can compose multitrack tunes, something like Chrome Music Lab or Beepbox? Anything in Android so they can compose on the go, such on an aeroplane?
Was just looking at this teardown https://www.reddit.com/r/synth/comments/1vgotkd/mvave_fm1_te...
I don't know anything about synthesisers, but would I be right in thinking the FM modulation would be done via software on the MCU?
FM-1 is an interesting case study. From what I understand, M-Vave saw what the community was doing with their device, and decided to go along with the flow by releasing an official SDK and a new "open" groovebox firmware, in addition to this Workbench tool.
Right now, designing and mass-producing hardware is still a bit specialized, but creating software isn't. They have decided to embrace life as a creative hardware platform.
It seems they also have the SMK-37, which is not that much more expensive, but has actual keys so probably more useful for actually playing music, and apparently most alternative firmware support it too.
They will also be releasing a FM-2 (a slightly larger version but details are slim) later this year. No details on pricing either but assume it will be priced in similar respects to the FM-1 (little bit more for a little bit extra stuff)
I've seen "FM-1" floating around lately, but didn't know what it was.
Where do I get one of these?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if when you clicked “about” on a website, it would tell you about the website .
FM-1 is really nice because it's basically a platform with Bluetooth, WiFi, screen, speaker, audio out, usb, rechargeable battery, knobs and buttons in ready to use package. You can build anything with it (considering small CPU and ram).
What API does this use that isn't available in Firefox?
What is the right way of thinking about frequency modulation for musicians? I know some of the maths but I can't operate the bitwig FM-4 synth. Do you just screw around with the thing until you can operate it?
I bought two, one to try firmwares and one to stick with the one I prefer : at the time, it's the mighty OBERVAVE. Sounds huge !
The FM-1 is the hardware version of the millions of slop VSTs flooding the market and social media.
Everything comes at a cost. The entshitification of everything, the total lack of intention.
I’ve developed boutique hardware instruments and sold them to retailers around the world, so this affects me directly.
It removes financial incentives to do research and development in these areas because overnight someone can just duplicate or imitate your work.
And its the height of hypocrisy from artists to call out for copyright protections of music, but then simultaneously support vibe coded software thats been trained on data thats probably stolen.
I get the world is changing fast, but what its taught me is that people are ravenous and are willing to watch entire industries and maybe even society itself collapse if they think they can get a free short-term meal from it. Pretty disheartening
This device is really cool. Started to get into music production with a dawless setup and with an FM-1 you can use DX7 patches and with some firmware choices you can turn a $50 machine into a groove box.
Think this bodes well for the future of Chinese consumer electronics. They have really been punching above their weight. Even the "cheap" guitar pedals are better than what you'd find with American/EU equivalent companies while being 60-80% cheaper.
Just a shame that Chinese workers are too often exploited.
Completely off topic, but if you are a boomer with an iOS device, there are PLENTY of electronic music apps [and emulators] on that platform too.
PS: and I mean PLENTY !
I find it fascinating. Basically people get ability to run AI made crap vst plugins in a calculator sized box and yet they go crazy about it.
I wonder how long this will last.
This also got companies like Behringer an idea that they can just release the hardware and people will create firmware for free. Genius.
edit: that reminds me I actually bought one too, but forgot about it. Still unopened.
Is this an ad?
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Our algorithms must all be feeding us the same things, I was about to buy one of these yesterday. I've been excited by the various Groovebox firmwares in particular.
I play music by sight (poorly) and can improvise a little bit on guitar, and would love to understand music theory better but so far do not.
Is this a useful device to get a feel for creating music, or is it only really useful if you already understand music theory or improvisation?