About this manual

PT/FM is a firmware for the M-VAVE FM-1. It turns the FM-1 into a tracker: you write music as patterns of notes, play them as songs, stack live loops, mix two songs like a DJ, and play six kinds of instrument from its keys.

Read chapters 1 to 5 first: they install PT/FM, show the panel, explain the few rules every screen follows, and walk you through your first hour. Chapters 6 to 15 explain each screen in detail. The rest of the manual is for looking things up: every shortcut, every message, troubleshooting, the instruments that come with PT/FM, the specifications, and a glossary of the words used (appendix G).

PT/FM's home is hitosu.github.io/ptfm: the latest version, its pages (the install page, the EDITOR page), the demo disk and this manual. Its source, free software, is at github.com/hitosu/ptfm.

In a hurry? Install PT/FM and the demo disk (chapter 2), then go straight to chapter 5: it plays a song in a minute, and names every key it uses.

The FM-1 also has its own help on every screen: press HOME + LFO. Its pages are short reminders of what this manual explains.

How this manual writes things

On the web page on a computer, point at a key in the text and it lights on the FM-1 drawn beside the text; a row of a key table lights all its keys. Point at a key or knob of the drawing and its screen names it.

What it does

• A tracker. Music is written as patterns: a grid of up to 16 tracks across and up to 128 rows down, each row a step in time. A cell holds a note, the instrument that plays it, a volume and up to 4 commands (a slide, an arpeggio, a tempo change ...). A song plays patterns in an order of your choice. The EDITOR writes patterns; SONGS arranges them.
• Six kinds of instrument, sharing one pool of voices; INSTRUMENTS picks, tries and edits them:
  • DX7: 6-operator FM, the classic digital synth.
  • JUNO-106: the classic analogue polysynth.
  • TB-303: the acid bass line, with slide and accent.
  • CHIP: the sound chips of 8-bit computers and consoles.
  • Sampler: recorded sounds, with loops and an envelope.
  • FUSION: an instrument made of a pattern, where one note is one pattern row. Each key plays its own row of the pattern (C-4 plays row 3C), every note written in that row at once, each on its own instrument: one key can play a chord, a layered sound, or a different drum on every key, a kit. The row's commands play as well, so a key can also start an arpeggio or a short riff (chapter 8).
• Up to 16 notes at once (SETTINGS' VOICES: 8, 12 or 16), from the songs, the loops and the keys together.
• Effects: GATE, FILTER, DRIVE, LO-FI, CHORUS, DELAY, REVERB, LIMITER and DUCK, each song with its own setup, plus a METRONOME. Held on the white keys, sixteen punch-in effects play over everything for as long as a key is down (FX).
• LOOPS, a loop station: record up to 16 loops of one length on top of each other, mute and solo them from the keys, and record the whole performance as a new song (RECORD LIVE).
• DJ: two songs on two decks, kept in time, mixed with a crossfader, with filters, pads and an LFO.
• MIDI: play PT/FM from a keyboard or a computer (USB, or the TRS MIDI IN jack), learn an outside controller's knobs and pads onto the FM-1's own, send the keys and everything that plays out over USB, or make the FM-1 a controller for the computer (MIDI CONTROLLER).
• Sync with other gear, three ways (chapter 16):
  • MIDI clock in (SETTINGS' SYNC EXTERNAL): PT/FM follows a sequencer's or a drum machine's clock, from USB or the MIDI IN jack, with its START, STOP, CONTINUE and song position, locked to it so nothing drifts.
  • MIDI clock out (CLOCK OUT ON): PT/FM leads, sending the clock, START / STOP / CONTINUE and the song position over USB.
  • Audio sync pulse (SETTINGS' OUTPUT SYNC PULSE L or R): a click on one side of the output every half beat, for instruments that follow a sync pulse, the music in mono on the other side. It works while PT/FM leads (SYNC INTERNAL).
• USB audio: a computer connected by USB hears PT/FM as a sound card and can record it.
• Everything stays on the FM-1: SAVE writes your songs, patterns, instruments and settings into its own memory, where they survive power-off and firmware updates.

What comes with it

Built into the firmware are 11 synth cartridges, numbered F0 to FA: eight DX7 cartridges (F0 KEYS/ORGANS to F7 PERC/FX), F8 JUNO-106 (128 sounds), F9 CHIPTUNE (128 sounds) and FA TB-303 (64 sounds). They are always there, even on an empty FM-1. You can edit them like anything else; SAVE keeps your changes, and the originals come back with BACK TO BUILT-IN.

The demo disk is uploaded from the install page (chapter 2). It adds five sampler cartridges (a drum kit, percussion, band and orchestra instruments, voices, basses), the FUSION cartridge, six demo songs and twelve DJ loops. Appendix D lists them all.

The screens

PT/FM has ten screens. Each black key opens one (press HOME, then the black key), and FX has a button of its own:

The black key OP6 and the blank key have no screen yet.

Before you start

• Open install.html in Chrome or Edge, on a computer or an Android phone. Safari and iPhones cannot talk MIDI from a web page.
• Connect the FM-1 by USB and switch it on. Keep it connected until the page says it is done.
• When the browser asks, allow MIDI devices, SysEx included: the whole install goes through MIDI.

INSTALL FIRMWARE

Writes PT/FM over whatever firmware the FM-1 runs.

1. Open install.html and connect the FM-1.
2. Press INSTALL FIRMWARE. The page shows its progress, the kilobytes written of the firmware's; the FM-1 restarts by itself.
3. When the page says it is done, the FM-1 starts PT/FM on its STATUS screen.

Over PT/FM (an update), your songs, patterns, instruments, samples and settings stay where they are: the install writes nothing into PT/FM's own memory, the user area. Over another firmware, keep a copy of your work first: other firmwares erase that memory when they are installed. The EDITOR page saves the FM-1's whole library to a file (chapter 17).

Updates: a new version comes as a new install page, on PT/FM's home. Install it as above; STATUS shows the version the FM-1 runs.

CLEAN INSTALL

A fresh start. With the CLEAN INSTALL switch on, INSTALL FIRMWARE writes PT/FM and then erases everything the FM-1 holds: your work, the settings, and any damaged records. The FM-1 then starts with an empty user area and only the built-in cartridges. Upload the demo disk after it if you want the demo songs.

The FM-1 can do the same erase on its own, without a computer: SETTINGS, TOOLS, FACTORY RESET (chapter 13).

UPLOAD DEMO DISK

Needs PT/FM running on the FM-1. Afterwards the FM-1 holds exactly the demo disk: its songs, patterns, cartridges and samples take the place of yours, and what of yours is not on it is gone.

It is a fresh start with the demo disk: everything you saved goes, your settings, MIDI mappings, loops, DJ's decks and your changes to the built-in cartridges included. Only the built-in cartridges themselves stay.

• To keep your work, back it up first on the EDITOR page: READ, then DOWNLOAD DISK (chapter 17).
• To add the demo songs to your own work instead of replacing it, drop demo.ptfmdsk on the EDITOR page's TABLE, drag what you want onto its FM-1 panel, and WRITE.

• If the FM-1 has edits not saved, the upload is refused: press SAVE on the FM-1 (or revert them), then upload again.
• An upload cut short leaves what was there whole, unless the upload was replacing a nearly full FM-1's library: then part of it may be left. Either way, upload again. The FM-1 says what it found when it starts.

UPLOAD CUSTOM DISK

The same with a disk file you pick (.ptfmdsk): a backup the EDITOR page's DOWNLOAD DISK saved (chapter 17), or a disk someone gave you. Afterwards the FM-1 holds exactly that disk, everything else gone, as with the demo disk. A file that is no disk, or a disk holding nothing, is refused before anything is sent. A disk that leaves the FM-1 less than 64 KB free still goes in, and the page says what that costs its own saves: under 40 KB free, it saves nothing new until you delete something.

A disk that does not fit around what the FM-1 holds, but would fit it empty, is not written: the page offers REPLACE ALL, which erases everything the FM-1 holds and then writes the disk. Cut short, it leaves part of the disk: upload again.

USB RESCUE

If the FM-1 does not start, or does not answer the install page:

1. Switch the FM-1 off.
2. Hold OCT- and switch it on. The screen says USB RESCUE.
3. Press INSTALL FIRMWARE on the install page.

The FM-1 also starts in USB RESCUE by itself after two failed starts in a row.

If something goes wrong

• No FM-1 found: close what else uses its MIDI port (a music program, another installer, another browser tab), then try again.
• Back to another firmware: PT/FM keeps the FM-1's update path, so another FM-1 firmware's installer replaces it, from USB RESCUE if need be.

Knobs and buttons

The keys

The 27 keys play notes, F-3 to G-5 at octave 0; OCT- and OCT+ shift them down to C-0 or up to G-9. At octave -4 the seven lowest keys, which would be below C-0, are silent. Many screens give the keys other jobs:

• The 16 white keys are 16 tracks, 16 loops, 16 steps or 16 punch-in effects, depending on the screen. White key 1 is the leftmost.
• The 11 black keys open the screens (with HOME): OP1 to OP5, PIT, GLO, MONO and POLY. OP6 and the last, unprinted key, the blank key, have no screen yet.

Without HOME, some screens give the black keys jobs of their own: on DJ they work the two decks, on FX LIVE each picks an effect (and the blank key is BYPASS), on LOOPS' CONTROL mode they set the quantize and the next loops' mode. Each screen's chapter lists them.

The lights

Every button and key has a light, and the lights tell you what works:

• dim: it does something on this screen;
• off: it does nothing here;
• on: its mode or its list is open (REC on: writing; ARP on: the arpeggiator runs).

PLAY has two lights. Green means playing (brighter on each beat); red means paused. Green with a dim red means a loop is playing (the EDITOR's pattern or the loops), not a song. Red dim alone: nothing to resume yet. Both dark: PLAY has nothing to play here.

Some lights have rules of their own:

• SAVE is dim while something is not saved yet, dark when everything is saved, and blinks dim while a save waits for the music to pause.
• OCT- and OCT+ show the octave. Both are dark at octave 0; OCT- lights for the octaves below, OCT+ for those above: dim at 1, full at 2, blinking slowly at 3 and fast at 4.
• A fast blink on a button means it cannot act just now: PLAY with no song to play, for example.
• HOME breathes (dim to full and back) while HOME's combination is open; then the black keys show the screens (the current one bright, the others dim, OP6 and the blank key dark) and the white keys show the tracks: dim while a track plays, dark while it is muted, bright while it is soloed.
• REC is on while the EDITOR writes, and blinks during a take.
• The keys light with their notes: full while a note is loud, dim as it fades, dark once it is quiet. A plucked sound flashes and fades, a held pad stays lit, so the keys show what sounds, not only what is pressed.
• While FX is held (and on FX LIVE) the white keys are the punch-ins: keys 1, 5, 9 and 13 light dim so you can find each group of four by touch, and a running punch-in lights full. Other screens that use the white keys as buttons (steps, DJ's pads) light them the same way.

The screen

Every screen has the same frame:

• The header (the top line): the screen's name in its group's colour, then what it shows (a pattern's number, a page, SEQ and the view SEQ switches to); on the right the voices sounding, the transport (a green triangle playing, two red bars paused, a red dot recording), the processor's load and the battery. The battery has three bars, its shell turning red when none is left; while a computer powers the FM-1 over USB, the bars fill one after another in light blue (a plain USB charger cannot be told apart, so it shows the battery). Short messages (toasts) take the name's place for two seconds, and so does a knob's name and value while you turn it.
• The footer (the bottom line): on the left the current instrument, the one the keys play (F8:00 and its name: cartridge F8, slot 00); on the right what the knobs turn here.
• The body between them: the screen's own content.

The colours (in the DEFAULT theme; other themes keep the same roles):

HOME: back, and to everywhere

HOME backs out of whatever is open: a menu, a list, an edit, a dialog. At the top of a screen, with nothing to back out of, a tap opens HOME's combination: HOME breathes, the keys that work light up, and the next key you press does one of these:

While the combination is open, the white keys show the tracks: dim while a track plays, dark while it is muted, bright while it is soloed. The black keys show the screens, the current one bright.

Mutes and solos are part of the performance: they are not saved with the song. Once the combination has done something (a mute, say), any other key closes it and does its own job.

Playing and stopping

There is one transport: one thing plays at a time, the current song, the EDITOR's pattern loop, the loops or DJ's decks. PLAY acts the moment it is pressed.

• On SONGS, the EDITOR, LOOPS and DJ, PLAY plays that screen's own thing: the song picked, the pattern shown (looped, from the cursor's row), the loops, both decks. If something else plays, it switches at once.
• On the other screens, PLAY pauses and resumes whatever played last, so on FX or VISUAL it toggles what you hear.
• What plays plays on from screen to screen until something else starts. Every edit is heard at once.
• PLAY held stops: what plays goes back to its start, so the next PLAY plays it from the beginning (BACK TO THE START).
• With no song to play, PLAY blinks: NO SONG TO PLAY.

The CUT: all sound off

HOME + REC, on every screen, stops every sound at once: notes, echoes, reverb tails. While REC is held there is no sound at all (SOUND CUT: LET GO OF REC), but what plays keeps its time; let go, it is heard again from its next notes.

Keep REC held for 2 seconds and every effect of what plays is switched off too (SOUND CUT, EFFECTS OFF). That is an edit like any other: SAVE keeps it, REVERT undoes it.

Saving your work

Every edit goes into the FM-1's working memory first and is heard at once. SAVE writes all of them to its flash memory, where they survive power-off. Switching off loses unsaved edits.

• The SAVE light is dim while something is not saved.
• A save shows its progress (SAVING 3 CHANGES), then SAVED. With nothing to save: NOTHING TO SAVE.
• SAVE while playing waits for a pause (SAVE WAITS FOR A PAUSE); SAVE blinks meanwhile. A save still waiting is lost if the FM-1 is switched off.
• REVERT, in a screen's SEL menu, takes the thing that screen shows back to what was saved (a pattern, a song, a cartridge, the loops ...), after a question: REVERTED.
• REVERT ALL drops every edit since the last save: SAVE + OCT-, or SETTINGS, TOOLS, REVERT ALL. It asks first, then reloads: REVERTED TO SAVED (NOTHING TO REVERT when there is nothing).
• SAVE held alone only shows what it does with other keys; let go then, it saves nothing. SAVE + OCT+ saves.

What SAVE keeps, and what switching off forgets:

Samples are the one exception to "SAVE writes": CLONE and MOVE of a sampler cartridge write its samples at once.

A power cut during a save loses nothing that was saved before: the FM-1 keeps either the old state or the new one, whole. The same holds when the battery runs out.

The memory for edits holds what differs from what is saved (about 650 changed tracks). When it runs low, the header reminds you: SAVE CHANGES TO FREE MEMORY. When it is full, an edit that needs more is not made and a question asks you to save (MEMORY FOR EDITS IS FULL, SAVE BEFORE MAKING MORE EDITS): OCT+ SAVE NOW, OCT- back. After the save, make the edit again.

Storage full: a save that does not fit writes nothing and asks (NOT ENOUGH STORAGE TO SAVE): OCT+ runs CLEAN UP, which offers to delete unused patterns, samples and instruments; or delete something yourself and save again. Your edits stay in memory meanwhile. STATUS shows the free storage.

Things that use other things

A note uses an instrument, a song uses patterns, a FUSION instrument uses a pattern, a sampler instrument uses a sample. Moving, swapping or deleting something in use asks first (PATTERN 1A IS USED 3 TIMES, UPDATE REFERENCES?):

• YES (OCT+): everything that used it follows the change, and everything is saved at once (UPDATING 3 REFERENCES, then REFERENCES UPDATED, SAVED).
• NO (OCT-): the change is made, and what used it keeps the old number, now pointing at whatever is there.
• HOME: nothing happens.

A reference to something missing is drawn in red and plays nothing. SETTINGS, TOOLS, CHECK REFERENCES lists them.

Built-in things

The built-in cartridges (F0 to FA) live in the firmware. Their numbers are brown wherever they are listed. You can play, use and edit them like anything else: SAVE keeps your changed copy under the same number, and it is used from then on, also after a firmware update. BACK TO BUILT-IN, in the cartridge list's SEL menu, brings the firmware's own back (CARTRIDGE F0 BUILT-IN AGAIN). Built-in things cannot be moved or deleted.

Taps, holds and combinations

• Most buttons act when you let them go (a tap), so they can also be held as a modifier. PLAY, REC and the KEYS act the moment they are pressed, for timing.
• Held + another control is a combination: SEL + K1 means keep SEL down and turn K1. The combination repeats while the button stays held (turn on and on), and the held button's own tap does not happen.
• A slack of 0.1 s: a button let go a moment early still counts (SETTINGS' COMBO GRACE). So buttons that can combine act about 0.1 s after you let them go, and HOME then LFO can never clear a cell by mistake.
• A button held alone past the hold delay (half a second, SETTINGS' HOLD DELAY) shows what it does with the other keys and knobs, for as long as it is held. Letting go then does nothing else.
• The key that opens something closes it: a menu, a mode, an editor. EDIT opens an edit and leaves it keeping the changes; HOME leaves it dropping them (CHANGES DROPPED).

The knobs

• SELECT moves the cursor up and down, ALGORITHM left and right. The cursor stops at the ends; only the instruments, the cartridges and the screens go round.
• K1 to K4 change values at the cursor; the footer names what each turns. They never move the cursor.
• Turned fast, a knob takes bigger steps (SETTINGS' KNOB SPEED); turned slowly, always one.
• SEL + K1 (SEL held, any of K1-K4) takes big steps: an octave for a note, 10 for a value.

The keys and the current instrument

The keys play the current instrument on every screen, unless the screen gives them a job. The footer shows it on the left.

• PRESETS picks the instrument, one a click, round within its cartridge (a cartridge is a bank of up to 128 instruments). While it turns, the cartridge's instruments show over the screen, the one picked highlighted; the list goes a second after the last click, or at once when you touch another control (SETTINGS' PRESETS LIST switches it off).
• SEL + PRESETS (SEL held, or tapped first) turns the cartridges instead: the list of cartridges opens and each click picks the next. Let go of SEL (or touch another control) and PRESETS turns the instruments again; SEL tapped again only closes the list.
• OCT- and OCT+ shift the keys by an octave, from -4 to +4 (OCT +3).

The keys have no velocity: they play at SETTINGS' KEYS VOLUME. SETTINGS also sets the keys' default octave and how the effects treat them.

The arpeggiator

ARP switches the arpeggiator on and off on every screen but three: the EDITOR and LOOPS, where ARP has a job of its own, and DJ, where the keys are the decks'. While it is on, the keys you hold take turns as a rhythm instead of sounding together. Switched on with no key held, it waits for your first key.

• The notes follow SETTINGS' ARP RHYTHM (a row a step), in the order of ARP PATTERN (UP, DOWN, UP-DOWN, RANDOM, AS PLAYED).
• ARP LATCH keeps up to 1-8 notes playing after you let go of their keys; a key pressed with none held starts a new set. OFF: a note stops with its key.
• Held, ARP changes them from the knobs: ARP + SELECT the rhythm, ARP + ALGORITHM the pattern (ARP UP), ARP + K1 the latch (LATCH 4 NOTES), ARP + LFO lets the latched notes go.
• To stop latched notes and keep the arpeggiator on, tap ARP with no key held: the first tap lets the latched notes go, and ARP stays on; the next tap switches it off.
• Changing screens switches it off.

Menus, questions and names

• SEL opens the menu of what is at the cursor (copy, paste, move, delete ...), its last choice ready. SELECT picks, SEL (or the key that opened it) chooses, HOME closes. Only what can act is listed: REVERT, for example, only when there is something not saved.
• Groups: an item marked > at the right holds more items (ROWS, TRANSFORM). SEL opens it; its first line, < BACK, goes back up; HOME closes the whole menu from any level.
• MOVE: SELECT carries the thing, SEL puts it down, HOME puts it back.
• Questions: the answers sit over their keys, in their own words (REVERT or KEEP, YES or NO): OCT+ on the right answers yes, OCT- on the left no; HOME cancels, and nothing happens. Nothing else acts while a question shows.
• Typing a name: ALGORITHM moves along the name, SELECT changes the letter, SEL + SELECT jumps to the next group of characters (letters, digits, signs), LFO deletes a letter, OCT+ adds a space; EDIT is done, HOME cancels. Names take capitals, digits, the space and : . - ? | / \ * # $ @ %. An instrument's name holds 10 characters, a cartridge's 12, a song's 16; a name left empty becomes NO NAME.

The help on the FM-1

HOME + LFO, on any screen, opens LOOK FOR ONSWERS: a few pages on the screen you are on, then pages shared by all screens (the global keys, HOME, the screens, buttons, knobs, saving). SELECT turns the pages; HOME gets you back. In the help, keys are yellow, and a button whose print reads wrong gets its reading once: ENV (Explore Named Vaults), SEQ (Show Else, Quick), ARP (Again, Repeat, Please).

Keys on every screen

Play a demo song

1. Switch the FM-1 on. It starts on STATUS, which shows the version and how to get help.
2. Press HOME + OP1: SONGS, the list of songs.
3. Turn SELECT to a song, then press PLAY. Turn MASTER for the volume.
4. Press PLAY again to pause; hold it to stop and go back to the start.

Play the keys

1. Play the keys: they play the current instrument, named in the footer's left corner.
2. Turn PRESETS to try the instruments of its cartridge.
3. Hold SEL and turn PRESETS to change the cartridge: try F8, the JUNO-106, or FA, the TB-303.
4. Press OCT- or OCT+ to play lower or higher.

Write a pattern

1. Press HOME + OP2: the EDITOR, with its own pattern. Tracks go across, rows go down; each row is a step in time.
2. Press REC: its light comes on, and the keys now write.
3. Play a key: the note is written at the cursor with the current instrument, and the cursor moves down. Play more. SELECT moves up and down, ALGORITHM to another track; LFO clears a cell.
4. Press REC to stop writing, then PLAY: the pattern plays in a loop from the cursor's row. To hear it from the top, turn SELECT back to row 00 first.

The loop plays at the current song's tempo and through its effects: the song at the cursor on SONGS. To make it faster or slower, change that song's TEMPO (SONGS, GLO), or make the pattern a song of its own, as below.

The EDITOR's own pattern is a sketch pad. To use it in a song, give it a number: SEL, STORE IN A PATTERN (chapter 7).

Make it a song

A song is a list of patterns played one after another, its order. From the pattern you wrote to a song of your own:

1. In the EDITOR, press SEL and pick STORE IN A PATTERN, then + NEW PATTERN: your pattern gets the first free number (STORED IN PATTERN 00), and the EDITOR follows it there.
2. Press HOME + OP1 for SONGS. Press SEL and pick NEW: the pattern list asks what the song starts with (NEW SONG STARTS WITH). Turn SELECT to your pattern and press SEL. The song, NEW SONG, is added at the end of the list and becomes the current song.
3. Press EDIT to go into its order. SEL opens the position's menu: CLONE PATTERN puts a copy of the pattern after it, to vary; NEW PATTERN puts an empty one after it. K1 changes which pattern a position plays, and EDIT PATTERN in the menu opens it in the EDITOR (HOME comes back). Press EDIT again when the order is done.
4. Press GLO for the song's properties: set its TEMPO with K1 (the BPM it makes is shown beside it), give it a NAME (EDIT types it), and choose whether it loops or stops AT THE END. GLO closes.
5. Press PLAY to hear the whole song, then SAVE.

Record a loop

1. Press HOME + POLY: LOOPS. The cursor is on + NEW LOOP.
2. Pick a sound with PRESETS, then press REC.
3. Play: recording starts with your first note (or press PLAY to start it on the beat).
4. Press REC again: the loop closes at the next bar line and plays on. Its length is now every loop's length.
5. Pick another sound and press REC again: the next loop starts with the loops' next round.

Save

Everything you did is in the FM-1's working memory: the SAVE light is dim. Press SAVE. When the music plays, the save waits for a pause; press PLAY to pause and it is written: SAVED. Now your pattern and loops survive switching off.

The list

• SELECT picks a song: it becomes the current song.
• PLAY plays it, from the boxed position; again, pauses. The playing song has a play mark and its name turns green.
• ALGORITHM moves the box: the position PLAY will start from (PLAY FROM POS 03 in the header). While the song plays, only the box moves; it waits for the next PLAY.
• The header counts the songs (3/18); the footer's right side shows the current song's BPM and length.
• A position whose pattern is missing shows its number in red.

When a song ends: the play modes

SEQ turns the play mode round (ONE PLAY, REPEAT SONG, PLAY NEXT). It decides how a song started here ends, if the song itself stops at its end:

• ONE PLAY (at first): it stops.
• REPEAT SONG: it plays again from its start.
• PLAY NEXT: the next song in the list plays at once, and the cursor follows it; after the last song, playing stops.

A song set to loop (AT THE END: LOOP) loops in every mode. The mode holds on every screen until something else plays (a pattern in the EDITOR, LOOPS, DJ), and it is not saved.

Changing a song's order

Press EDIT on a song: the cursor moves into its order, onto the boxed position, and EDIT lights.

• SELECT moves a line (8 positions) up or down, ALGORITHM one position left or right.
• K1 puts another pattern at the position (K1 PATTERN 0A); with SEL held, 8 at a time.
• LFO removes the position.
• ENV opens the pattern list; ENV again puts the highlighted pattern at the position.
• SEL opens the position's menu (below).
• EDIT leaves the order keeping the changes; HOME leaves dropping them (CHANGES DROPPED): a pattern made meanwhile is deleted again.

EDIT PATTERN

Opens the position's pattern in the EDITOR; HOME comes back here.

NEW PATTERN

An empty pattern at the first free number, put in after the position (PATTERN 0C MADE).

INSERT

A position before the cursor's, with the same pattern.

DELETE

Removes the position, as LFO does.

COPY, PASTE

COPY takes the position's pattern number (PATTERN 03 COPIED); PASTE puts it in after the position.

CLONE PATTERN

Copies the position's pattern to a new number and uses the copy here (03 CLONED TO 0C), so you can change it without changing the other places that play the original.

REVERT

The song as last saved (listed only while it has unsaved changes).

Your patterns are numbered 00 to EF (240 of them). With all used, NEW PATTERN and CLONE PATTERN say NO FREE PATTERN.

The song menu

SEL on the list opens the song's menu:

NEW

A new song. First pick the pattern it starts with from the list (NEW SONG STARTS WITH), or + NEW PATTERN for an empty one; HOME makes nothing. The song, NEW SONG, is added at the end of the list (tempo 120, LOOP). Past song FD: NO FREE SONG NUMBER.

CLONE

A copy of the song, after it, named with " 2".

MOVE

Another place in the list: SELECT carries it, SEL puts it down (SONG MOVED TO 02), HOME takes it back (NOT MOVED).

DELETE

Asks first (DELETE SONG 00?). The line ITS PATTERNS TOO is ticked at first: the song's own patterns, those no other song and no FUSION instrument uses, are deleted with it (SONG 00 DELETED, 4 PATTERNS TOO), and the line says how many there are and how much room they free. To keep them, clear the tick with K1. Patterns other songs use always stay. OCT+ deletes, OCT- keeps the song, HOME cancels.

RENAME

Type its name (up to 16 characters); EDIT is done.

UNLOAD SONG

Once a song, the EDITOR's pattern loop, the loops or DJ's decks have played, the keys go on sounding through that one's effects and tempo, even after it stops (chapter 15). UNLOAD SONG stops everything at once, forgets the song's place, and gives the keys back their own effects and tempo, THE KEYS', as at power-on (SONG UNLOADED). The loops and DJ's stand stay as they are. It is listed only when there is something to unload; PLAY afterwards plays the current song from its start.

REVERT

The song as last saved: its order, name, properties, mixer and effects (not its patterns), after a question (REVERT SONG 00 TO SAVED?).

ENV on the list opens the pattern list; the pattern picked becomes the EDITOR's (PATTERN 0A FOR THE EDITOR); PLAY in the list hears the highlighted pattern.

A song's properties

GLO opens the song's properties. SELECT picks one, K1 changes it at once (SEL held: TEMPO by 10, SWING by 5), EDIT on NAME types it; GLO or HOME closes.

How time works in a song: each row lasts a number of ticks (TICKS A ROW), and TEMPO sets how fast the ticks go (a tick lasts 2.5 seconds divided by TEMPO). Leave TICKS A ROW at 6 and ROWS A BEAT at 4, as a new song has them, and TEMPO is the BPM: for 128 BPM, set TEMPO to 80 (hex for 128). Whatever the three are, the screen shows the BPM they make.

NAME

Up to 16 characters.

TEMPO

How fast the song plays, with the BPM it makes: 8C (140 BPM). 3-600 (hex 03-258)

TICKS A ROW

The ticks in a row: commands that act during a row (slides, arpeggios, retriggers) act on each tick. 1-31

ROWS A BEAT

How many rows make a beat. Besides the BPM, it decides which row numbers the EDITOR colours as beats and bars, and how many rows DJ counts as a beat. 1-16

SWING

Every second row played late. 50-75 %

AT THE END

What the song does after its last position. LOOP, STOP

LOOP FROM

The position a looping song goes back to. POSITION 00 to the last

The BPM is TEMPO × 24 / (TICKS A ROW × ROWS A BEAT), rounded: a song at TEMPO 140, 6 ticks a row, 4 rows a beat plays at 140 BPM.

Keys on SONGS

The grid

• SELECT moves up and down the rows, ALGORITHM across the tracks. Nothing wraps; past the last row of a page the next page shows.
• SEQ turns the view: 8, 4, 2 or 1 tracks at once (8 TRACKS ... 1 TRACK). Fewer tracks show more of each cell: 8 tracks the notes only, 4 the instrument too, 2 a command as well, 1 the whole cell with all four commands.
• Row numbers are hexadecimal, 00 to 7F. Beat rows are cyan, each bar's first row light cyan. When this pattern plays, the playing row sits on a blue band; the view stays with the cursor.
• In a cell, --- is no note, === a note off, .. no volume (the instrument's own) and ..:.. no instrument (the track's plays on).
• The footer's right side says the command (or volume) under the cursor in words: A04 VOLUME -4.

Which pattern you edit

The EDITOR edits one pattern at a time: its own, or a numbered one.

• Its own pattern (the header says just EDITOR): a sketch pad no song can play. SAVE keeps it after switching off. A fresh FM-1 opens on it.
• A numbered pattern (EDITOR 12): your edits go straight into pattern 12, and every song that plays it hears them.

From the cell's SEL menu (nothing marked):

NEW PATTERN

Empties the EDITOR's own pattern (8 tracks × 64 rows) and opens it.

LOAD A PATTERN

Copies a numbered pattern into the EDITOR's own, to start from it (PATTERN 1A LOADED). The numbered one is not changed.

STORE IN A PATTERN

Gives what the EDITOR shows a number, so songs can play it: pick a pattern, or + NEW PATTERN for the first free number (STORED IN PATTERN 1A); the EDITOR follows it there. Storing over a pattern that holds anything asks first (PATTERN 0C WILL BE REPLACED, DO YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?).

The pattern list: ENV opens it (PATTERNS: number, size, a map of notes by track, the songs using it; unused patterns dim). ENV again opens the highlighted pattern; PLAY hears it on its own, looped, and what played before pauses, keeping its place. Moving the highlight moves the preview; PLAY again stops it (ARP does what PLAY does here). Picking a pattern or leaving the list ends the preview, and the next PLAY resumes what played before. HOME closes. Its SEL menu:

NEW

An empty pattern, 8 tracks × 64 rows, at the first free number (PATTERN 13 MADE); with all 240 used, ALL 240 PATTERNS USED.

CLONE

A copy of the highlighted pattern at the first free number (12 CLONED TO 13).

MOVE

To another free number: SELECT carries it, SEL puts it down (PATTERN 12 MOVED TO 20); with none free, NO FREE NUMBER. Songs using it ask to follow (references).

DELETE

Deletes it (PATTERN 12 DELETED), asking first when something uses it.

Writing notes

REC switches writing. With REC off (REC OFF: KEYS PLAY) the keys only play the current instrument, so you can try sounds freely. With REC on (REC ON: KEYS WRITE, REC lit), the keys write:

1. Pick the sound with PRESETS: the note is written with the current instrument and SETTINGS' KEYS VOLUME.
2. Play a key: its note is written at the cursor and sounds; the cell's commands stay.
3. The cursor moves down by the edit step (GLO's EDIT STEP; 0 stays put). Keys pressed together (a chord) land on the same row, spreading to the next tracks.

• LFO clears the cell and moves on; on an empty cell it writes a note off (===).
• REC while a song plays pauses the song (SONG PAUSED: WRITING).
• REC while the EDITOR's loop plays: the loop plays on and the keys write step by step at the cursor; it plays what you write as it reaches it. PLAY then pauses the loop (LOOP STOPPED: PLAY FOR A TAKE), and the next PLAY starts a take.
• Every change is heard at once by whatever plays this pattern (the EDITOR's loop, a song, a DJ deck).
• K1-K4, LFO, the menu and the note editor change cells whether REC is on or off.
• A note written with no instrument (..:..) plays the track's last instrument.
• To change the sound of notes already written, change each cell's INSTR in the note editor (below); there is no change for many cells at once. On LOOPS, APPLY INSTRUMENT gives a whole loop another sound.

PLAY with REC off plays the pattern in a loop from the cursor's row.

Volume and commands: K1 to K4

The knobs change the cell at the cursor, without moving the cursor:

K1

Picks which part of the cell the other knobs change: the volume, or command 1 to 4 (one past the last, to add one) (K1 VOLUME, K1 CMD 1 ACCENT). The grid shows the command in that place.

K2

The command there, through every command there is (below); back to NO COMMAND removes it.

K3, K4

Its value, a digit each. On the volume, K3 steps by 16 and K4 by 1. For an instrument parameter (*), mixer value (=) or FX knob (#), K3 picks which and K4 sets it. SEL held: K4 by 16.

The volume runs from 00 (silent) to 7F, the instrument at its full level. Turned past 7F it becomes .., no volume: the note plays at the instrument's own default (for a sampler instrument, its VOLUME). The VOLUME command (Cxx) uses the trackers' smaller scale, 00 to 40, where 40 is as loud as a volume of 7F.

An example: to fade a note out, put the cursor on it, turn K1 to CMD 1, K2 to VOL SLIDE (Axy), and K4 to 4: the cell shows A04, and the note's volume falls by 4 on every tick of the row. The footer says what the command at the cursor does, in words.

The note editor

EDIT on a cell opens it as a list of fields, a line each: NOTE, INSTR (its sound), VOLUME, CMD 1 to CMD 4, and + COMMAND to add one.

• SELECT moves a line up or down, ALGORITHM across a command line (the command, its value).
• K1 changes the part at the cursor a step; K2 in big steps: an octave, a cartridge, 16, or the next group of commands (each command is explained below).
• SEL makes SELECT and ALGORITHM move to the neighbouring cells instead (SELECT, ALG: CELLS), without leaving; SEL again goes back to the fields (SELECT, ALG: FIELDS).
• The KEYS change the note; LFO clears the cell.
• EDIT closes it keeping the changes; HOME drops them.

Recording live: takes

With REC on and nothing playing, PLAY records a take: from the cursor's row round and round the pattern, adding on each pass, until PLAY or REC stops it.

1. Press PLAY: recording starts as you let go, after SETTINGS' COUNT-IN (1 or 2 bars of clicks, or none). With COUNT-IN set to KEY, your first note starts it.
2. Or hold PLAY and press a key: the take starts on that note at once. Hold PLAY alone to see both ways (LET GO: START THE TAKE, PRESS A KEY: START ON THAT NOTE).
3. Play. Notes land on SETTINGS' QUANTIZE grid (2, 3 or 4 rows, a row, or REAL TIME); letting go of a key writes a note off. A melody stays on the cursor's track; a chord spreads to the next tracks.
4. Press PLAY or REC to stop (TAKE STOPPED). REC stays on and the cursor goes back to the row the take started on.

During a count-in a box in the middle of the screen counts it: COUNT-IN, the beats left in big figures, and the bar (BAR 1 OF 2). With COUNT-IN set to KEY, the box says TAKE ARMED, PLAY A NOTE, until your first note.

REC blinks during a take and its count-in. An armed take is cancelled with HOME, PLAY or REC (TAKE CANCELLED). A full edit memory ends a take, keeping what was written.

Listening to a row

ARP on the EDITOR repeats the cursor's row at the song's tempo, in SETTINGS' ARP RHYTHM (ROW PREVIEW #___; again, ROW PREVIEW OFF). Whatever plays stops first, so the row is heard alone; moving the cursor moves the preview. ARP + SELECT changes the rhythm (RHYTHM ##_: # plays a row, _ rests one).

Blocks

1. SEL, MARK: then SELECT and ALGORITHM stretch a block over rows and tracks from the cursor. Or hold SEL and turn them.
2. SEL again opens the block's menu.

COPY, CUT, PASTE

Through a clipboard kept until power-off (COPIED 4 X 1: rows × tracks). Over 2 KB: BLOCK TOO BIG TO COPY; an empty clipboard: NOTHING COPIED.

PASTE MIX

Pastes into empty cells only.

CLEAR

Empties the block.

MOVE, SWAP

Carry the block with the cursor; SEL puts it down. MOVE leaves its old place empty, SWAP puts what was there in its place; HOME cancels (CANCELLED).

INSERT ROW, DELETE ROW

Under ROWS. INSERT ROW puts an empty row at the cursor's row, the rows below moving down (the pattern's last row is lost); DELETE ROW takes the cursor's row out, the rows below moving up. With a block marked, it acts on the block's tracks; with nothing marked, on the cursor's track and every track to its right, so from the first track it is every track.

TRANSPOSE

Under TRANSFORM: K1 a semitone, SEL held an octave, SEL ends it (TRANSPOSED +02).

INTERPOLATE

Under TRANSFORM: a sweep. A command on the block's first and last rows goes on every row between, its value stepping from one to the other; without one, the volumes step.

The pipette: SEL, TAKE ITS INSTRUMENT, or ENV held: the cursor's cell's instrument becomes the current one (the toast names it, 01:05 EL PIANO DX7); none there: NO INSTRUMENT HERE.

RECORD PATTERN: steps on the white keys

SEL, RECORD PATTERN opens a step sequencer: the white keys switch 16 steps on and off, and REC writes their notes into the cursor's track from the cursor's row (PATTERN: 12 NOTES). It is the same recorder LOOPS has; LOOPS explains its keys. Here K4 picks TO THE END (the steps repeated down to the pattern's last row) or ONCE. Nothing already there is removed: a step off leaves its cell as it is.

The pattern's properties

GLO opens the pattern's properties: SELECT picks one, K1 changes it, GLO or HOME closes them.

TRACKS

1-16

ROWS

SEL held: by 16. 1-128

EDIT STEP

How far the cursor moves after a note. 0-16

USED BY

The songs that play it, and FUSION when a FUSION instrument does; not changeable.

Making the pattern smaller where notes would go asks first (THIS DROPS 12 CELLS, MAKE THE PATTERN SMALLER?).

The commands

A cell holds up to four commands, acting in their order. Each takes 3 characters in the grid: the command, then its value. Values are hexadecimal; x and y are one digit (0-F), xx two (00-FF).

Rows and ticks. Every row is cut into ticks: TICKS A ROW in the song's properties, 6 at first. A command works either once, as the row starts (the "fine" ones, a volume, a pan), or on every tick after the first (slides, vibratos, volume slides move a little each tick, so the same command is stronger with more ticks a row). In the slides, vibratos and volume slides, a value of 00 goes on with the last one that track used.

K2 turns through the commands in this order: the tracker effects (0-9, then A-Z), the volume-column ones (~), PT/FM's own, then *, = and #. Below they are grouped by what they change.

Pitch

Volume

Pan

Notes and timing

The song's flow and tempo (from any track)

PT/FM's own

• B, D, E6, EE, F, G, H, # and ! act on the whole song, from any track. In a FUSION pattern they are ignored, shown dim.
• A command for what you are editing right now (an effect on FX, the mixer, an instrument's edit page, a song's properties) is skipped while you edit it, so nothing jumps under your hands.
• EDIT (the note editor) says each command in words.

Keys on the EDITOR

Browsing and playing

• The cursor is the current instrument: SELECT moves a slot at a time, ALGORITHM by 8 (a column).
• PRESETS steps to the next or previous sound there is, skipping empty slots, round.
• K1 turns the cartridges, round.
• The KEYS play the sound picked; ARP arpeggiates it, so with ARP LATCH both hands are free for the knobs.
• The bottom half shows the sound: a DX7's operators, a JUNO-106's sliders, a TB-303's knobs, a CHIP sound's steps and tables, a sample's waveform, a FUSION's pattern as a little map.
• GLO shows the cartridge's name, type and slots used, and renames it.
• ENV lists all the cartridges (CARTRIDGES: ID, name, type, slots used); ENV again opens the highlighted one.

Changing a sound: edit mode

Press EDIT: the list gives way to the sound's settings below and a picture of it above (the DX7's algorithm and envelope, the JUNO-106's envelope and filter, the sample's waveform ...).

• The settings are a table, four to a row (a group). SELECT picks a row; K1 to K4 change its four values (RELEASE 33 MS in the header as you turn).
• ALGORITHM or SEQ turn the pages of settings (SEQ goes round).
• The KEYS play the sound as it changes; every change is heard at once, by everything that plays it.
• LFO puts the knob turned last back to its default (LEVEL 0 DB (DEFAULT)).
• PRESETS moves to another sound, still editing.
• SEL on NAME types the name; elsewhere it opens the menu: COPY, PASTE, INIT, RENAME, AUTO LEVEL, REVERT (FUSION: EDIT PATTERN too).
• SEL held + a knob: big steps (LEVEL by 6 dB, a value by 10).
• EDIT leaves, keeping the changes; HOME leaves, dropping them (CHANGES DROPPED).

An empty slot has nothing to edit: EMPTY SLOT: SEL, INIT (except FUSION, below).

LEVEL

Every instrument has one: how loud it is, in dB, half a dB a click. AUTO LEVEL (in the SEL menu) measures the sound and sets it as loud as the others (LEVEL SET TO -1.5 DB; a silent sound: NO SOUND TO MEASURE). -64 to +63.5 dB

NAME

The sound's name; SEL on it types it.

DX7

The DX7 makes sound by FM: six sine-wave operators, each with its own envelope. Some (the carriers) are heard; the others (the modulators) bend their waves, which gives bells, electric pianos, basses and brass. Its four pages:

OPERATORS

The first page: a row for each operator.

OP1, OP2, OP3, OP4, OP5, OP6

The six rows, one an operator. Each has the same four knobs:

LEVEL

K1: how loud the operator is (a carrier), or how strongly it bends the others (a modulator). 0-99

COARSE

K2: the operator's frequency as a multiple of the note's: 1 is the note, 2 an octave up, 3 an octave and a fifth; 0 is half. Whole multiples sound harmonic, the others bell-like. 0-31

FINE

K3: adds to COARSE in small steps, up to almost twice its multiple. 0-99

DETUNE

K4: a slight detune, for a slow beating between operators. -7 to +7

ENVELOPES

Two rows for each operator: how its volume moves over a note.

OP1 RATE, OP2 RATE, OP3 RATE, OP4 RATE, OP5 RATE, OP6 RATE

An operator's four rates, R1 to R4 on K1 to K4.

OP1 LVL, OP2 LVL, OP3 LVL, OP4 LVL, OP5 LVL, OP6 LVL

Its four levels, L1 to L4 on K1 to K4.

R1, R2, R3, R4

How fast the envelope moves to each level: R1 to L1, R2 to L2, R3 to L3, and, once the key is let go, R4 to L4. 99 is the fastest, 0 the slowest. 0-99

L1, L2, L3, L4

The levels it moves to: it rises to L1, goes on to L2, then to L3, where it stays while the key is held; let go, it moves to L4 (usually 0: silence). 0-99

PITCH / LFO

The pitch envelope and the LFO.

P RATE, P LEVEL

The pitch envelope: its rates R1-R4 and levels L1-L4 move as an operator's envelope does, but on the pitch of the whole voice. Level 50 is the note's own pitch; above it bends up, below it down. 0-99

LFO

The LFO's first row. The LFO is a slow wave that moves the pitch or the volume:

SPEED

K1: how fast the LFO's wave goes. 0-99

DELAY

K2: how long after the key the LFO fades in. 0-99

PM DEPTH

K3: how much it moves the pitch: vibrato. 0-99

AM DEPTH

K4: how much it moves the volume: tremolo, on the operators whose stored sensitivity lets it (below). 0-99

LFO 2

The LFO's second row:

WAVE

K1: the LFO's wave; S+H is random steps. TRI, SAW-, SAW+, SQR, SINE, S+H

SYNC

K2: ON, the LFO starts again with each key; OFF, it runs on freely. OFF, ON

P SENS

K3: how strongly PM DEPTH acts on the pitch. 0-7

VOICE

The last page: NAME, LEVEL, and the row VOICE.

ALGORITHM

K1: which of the 32 ways the six operators are wired, which are heard and which modulate which; the picture shows it. 00-1F

FEEDBACK

K2: the loop drawn in the algorithm's picture, an operator modulating itself: brighter, then noisy. 0-7

OSC SYNC

K3: ON, every operator's wave starts again from zero with each key, so every note starts alike. OFF, ON

TRANSPOSE

K4: shifts the whole voice, in semitones. -24 to +24

A DX7 voice also stores what its pages do not show: keyboard scaling (louder or softer towards the ends of the keyboard), the sensitivities to velocity and to the LFO's AM, and fixed frequencies. Voices from DX7 cartridge files keep them, and PT/FM plays them as they are.

JUNO-106

The JUNO-106 is an analogue polysynth: one oscillator (DCO) with a pulse, a saw, a sub-oscillator and noise, through a resonant low-pass filter (VCF) and a high-pass, shaped by one envelope, with a chorus. Browsing, its sound shows as the original's sliders.

Its pages:

DCO

The first page, the oscillator. Its first row is named DCO too:

LFO

K1: vibrato, how much the LFO moves the pitch. 0-127

PWM

K2: the pulse's width: how far the LFO moves it (PWM BY LFO), or where it stands (PWM BY MAN). 0-127

NOISE

K3: how much noise is mixed in. 0-127

SUB

K4: the sub-oscillator, a square an octave down, mixed in. 0-127

WAVES

The second row:

RANGE

K1: the octave, 16' the lowest. 16', 8', 4'

PULSE

K2: the pulse wave on or off. OFF, ON

SAW

K3: the saw wave on or off; the two can sound together. OFF, ON

PWM BY

K4: LFO, the LFO moves the pulse's width; MAN, PWM sets a fixed width. LFO, MAN

FILTERS

The page of the filters.

VCF

The low-pass filter's row:

FREQ

K1: the cutoff: how bright the sound is. 0-127

RES

K2: resonance, a peak at the cutoff; turned high, the filter whistles. 0-127

ENV

K3: how far the envelope moves the cutoff over a note. 0-127

LFO

K4: how far the LFO sweeps the cutoff. 0-127

VCF 2

The second row:

KYBD

K1: how much the cutoff follows the note: higher notes brighter. 0-127

ENV +/-

K2: +, the envelope opens the filter; -, it closes it. +, -

HPF

K3: the high-pass filter: 0 boosts the bass, 1 leaves it flat, 2 and 3 make the sound thinner. 0-3

ENVELOPE

The page of the envelope, the amplifier and the LFO.

ENV

The envelope's row. The envelope shapes the volume (with MODE at ENV) and the filter (by VCF's ENV):

A

K1: attack, how fast the sound rises. 0-127

D

K2: decay, how fast it falls to the sustain level. 0-127

S

K3: sustain, the level it holds while the key is down. 0-127

R

K4: release, how long it fades once the key is let go. 0-127

VCA

The amplifier's row:

LEVEL

K1: the amplifier's level, before the instrument's own LEVEL in dB. 0-127

MODE

K2: ENV, the volume follows the envelope; GATE, full while the key is held, silent at once when let go. ENV, GATE

CHORUS

K3: the JUNO's own chorus, II the deeper. OFF, I, II

LFO

The LFO's row: the slow wave that DCO's LFO and PWM and VCF's LFO use.

RATE

K1: the LFO's speed. 0-127

DELAY

K2: how long after the key the LFO fades in. 0-127

VOICE

The last page: NAME and LEVEL.

TB-303

The TB-303 is the acid bass line: one oscillator through a squelchy resonant filter. In a pattern, the commands ACC (accent) and SLD (slide) play its two famous tricks (EDITOR). One page:

KNOBS

The page, and its first row, the original's knobs:

WAVE

K1: the oscillator's wave: saw at 0, square at 127, the two mixed between. 0-127

CUTOFF

K2: the filter's cutoff: how bright the sound is. 0-127

RESO

K3: resonance, the squelch: a peak at the cutoff. 0-127

ENV MOD

K4: how far each note's envelope opens the filter. 0-127

KNOBS 2

The second row:

DECAY

K1: how fast the filter closes again after each note. 0-127

ACCENT

K2: how much an accented note stands out: louder, brighter, a sharper sweep. 0-127

CHIP

CHIP is a virtual sound chip: it makes the sounds of 8-bit computers and consoles the way their chips made them, square waves at a few widths, a stepped triangle, a drawn wave, noise, 16 volume steps moving 50 or 60 times a second. Its four families: BRK (the handheld), 8BIT (the console), PSG (the computers' programmable sound generator) and 16BIT (that chip's finer later version). Any part works on any voice.

Its pages:

TONE

The first page: the oscillator, the noise, the clock and the sweep.

OSC

The oscillator's row. K1 picks the oscillator: PULSE, TRIANGLE, WAVE (one of 16 drawn waves), BUZZ (the PSG's envelope run fast enough to be a tone) or NOISE. The row's other knobs are that oscillator's own:

DUTY

PULSE's: the pulse's width; 50% is the hollow square, the narrow ones thinner. (A table can move it: below.) 12.5%, 25%, 50%, 75%

WAVE

WAVE's: which of the 16 waves it plays, by name (ORGAN ...); the WAVE page shows them.

SHAPE, STEPS, GATE

BUZZ's: SHAPE the envelope's shape (SAW DN, SAW UP, TRI), STEPS how many steps it has (16 or 32), GATE ON cuts it with a square at the same note (the "sync buzzer").

NOISE

The noise row. Its first knob, NOISE, ON mixes noise into the tone:

MODE

K2: LONG, a hiss; SHORT, a metallic, pitched noise. LONG, SHORT

RATE

K3: how high the noise sounds. 0-F

KEY

K4: KEY ON, the rate follows the note played; KEY OFF, it stays as set. KEY OFF, KEY ON

CLOCK

The row of the chip's own manners. Its first knob, CLOCK, is the chip it is tuned on (BRK, 8BIT, PSG 1.77, PSG 1.00, PSG 1.79, 16BIT), so high notes go out of tune as they did on that chip; EXACT is always in tune.

CURVE

K2: how its 16 volume steps sound, as on each chip. BRK, 8BIT, PSG, 16BIT

FILTER

K3: the chip's own output filter, or NONE. BRK, 8BIT, PSG, NONE

FRAMES

K4: how often its tables and envelopes step: 60 or 50 times a second, as the old machines' screens did. 60 HZ, 50 HZ

SWEEP

The sweep's row: the pitch slides by itself from each note's start. Its first knob, SWEEP, sets the way: OFF, DOWN or UP.

SHIFT

K2: how big each step of the slide is. 0-7

PACE

K3: how often it steps; 0, never. 0-7

VOLUME

The page of the volume. Its first row is named VOLUME too:

VOL

K1: the volume, in the chip's 16 steps. 0-F

ENV

K2: NONE, the volume stays; DOWN or UP, it steps down or up by itself; PSG, the chip's own envelope (the next row). NONE, DOWN, UP, PSG

STEP

K3: how often DOWN or UP takes a step. 0-7

RELEASE

K4: how fast the sound fades once the key is let go; 0 stops it at once. 0-F

PSG ENV

The PSG's envelope, used with ENV at PSG:

SHAPE

K1: one of the chip's 16 shapes, drawn beside its number: down, up, repeated, triangles. 0-F

PERIOD, FINE

K2 and K3: the envelope's speed, a four-digit hex number: PERIOD sets its first two digits, FINE its last two. Bigger is slower.

TABLES

The page of the tables: built-in lists that change the sound a step a frame (FRAMES: 60 or 50 a second).

VOL, ARP, PITCH, DUTY, NOISE

A row for each table: VOL shapes the volume, ARP adds notes (chords, drum drops), PITCH bends the pitch, DUTY changes the pulse's width, NOISE the noise's rate. Each row has the same two knobs:

TABLE

K1: which table, by number and name, or -- for none.

SPEED

K2: how many frames each step of it lasts. X1-X4

VIBRATO

The vibrato's row: DELAY (K1, how many frames after the note it starts, 0-62), SPEED (K2, X1-X4) and DEPTH (below).

DEPTH

K3: how far the pitch swings. 0-62 cents

WAVE page

The row TABLE: the wave the WAVE oscillator plays (00 SAW ...), drawn large.

Sampler

A sampler cartridge holds samples (recorded sounds, uploaded from the computer: the FM-1 does not record audio) and up to 64 instruments that play them. One sample can serve several instruments: a drum loop cut into hits, say. To bring your own sounds and make instruments for them, see chapter 17.

SAMPLE

The first page. Its first row is named SAMPLE too:

SAMPLE

K1: which of the cartridge's samples it plays. ENV on it lists the samples (name, length, rate, waveform): the keys play the one highlighted, and ENV again picks it.

START, END

K2 and K3: the part of the sample that plays, a click moving 1/200 of the sample (SEL held: 10 clicks).

LOOP

The loop's row. Its first knob, LOOP, sets how the part from FROM to TO repeats while the key is held: OFF, it plays once; FWD, over and over; PING, forwards and backwards in turn.

FROM / LOOP START, TO / LOOP END

K2 and K3: where the loop starts and ends (the header says LOOP START and LOOP END), a click 1/200 of the sample.

RELEASE

K4: how long the sound fades once the key is let go; ENDLESS lets it ring. 4 MS ... 118 S, ENDLESS

PITCH

The pitch's row:

BASE NOTE

K1: the note at which the sample plays as it was recorded. Set it to the note the recording sounds, and the keys play it in tune.

TUNE

K2: finer tuning, in 1/128 of a semitone, up to almost a semitone either way.

VOLUME

K3: the volume a note gets when its cell has none. Songs converted from MOD, S3M or XM files bring their samples' default volumes here; for your own sounds, leave it at 64. 0-64

ENVELOPE

The second page, an envelope as a DX7 operator's.

RATES, LEVELS

Two rows: RATES, R1 to R4 on K1 to K4, and LEVELS, L1 to L4. The volume rises to L1, goes on to L2, then L3, where it stays while the key is held; let go, it moves to L4. Each R sets how fast it moves to its L, 99 the fastest. 0-99

In the samples list, SEL, DELETE removes a sample. When instruments use it, it warns first (DELETE SAMPLE?, 3 INSTRUMENTS USE IT AND ARE DELETED TOO), and they go with it; an unused one goes at once (SAMPLE 03 DELETED). Deleting an instrument never deletes its sample: SETTINGS' CLEAN UP removes samples nothing uses.

FUSION

A FUSION instrument is a sound made of a pattern. Each key plays its own row of the pattern, every note of that row at once: C-4 plays row 3C (its MIDI note number), and letting go stops them all. So one key can play a chord, a layered sound, or a different drum on every key (a kit).

FUSION

The one page: the pattern's map above.

PATTERN

Which pattern it plays. On it, K1 or ENV pick another (in ENV's list the keys try each before you pick); SEL opens it in the EDITOR to write it.

• Writing it: SEL on PATTERN opens the EDITOR on the pattern, locked to it: with REC off the keys play this FUSION as you write it, its rows lighting green; with REC on they write. HOME comes back.
• EDIT on an empty FUSION slot makes a new pattern (128 rows, 4 tracks) and first asks (A NEW PATTERN FOR THIS SLOT, FILL IT WITH 01:00 EL PIANO?): K1 or SELECT pick another sound (the keys hear it); OCT+ (FILL) writes that sound's note on every row, so the slot plays as that sound, ready for layers; OCT- (EMPTY) leaves it empty.
• Rows the keys do not reach can keep ideas for later; SEL, MOVE puts one on a key.
• A FUSION inside a FUSION is silent: no chains, no loops. Voices are shared: rows with many notes take voices from other sounds.

The menus

SEL on a slot:

MARK

Several slots: SELECT (ALGORITHM by 8) stretches the mark; then SEL for their menu. COPY, INIT and DELETE act on all of them. SEL held + SELECT marks too.

COPY, PASTE

Copy a sound (4 at most) and paste it over a slot (COPIED 3; nothing copied: NOTHING COPIED).

MOVE, SWAP

MOVE carries the sound to an empty slot (full cartridge: NO EMPTY SLOT: SWAP INSTEAD); SWAP trades places. SELECT carries, SEL puts down, HOME takes back. Songs using it are asked about (references).

DELETE

Empties the slot.

INIT

A plain starting sound in the slot.

RENAME

Type its name.

AUTO LEVEL

As loud as the others.

REVERT

The sound as last saved (REVERT SLOT 01:00 TO SAVED?).

SEL in the cartridge list (ENV):

NEW

A new cartridge: pick its type (DX7, JUNO-106, TB-303, CHIP, SAMPLER, FUSION). It goes at the end of your cartridges (CARTRIDGE 11 MADE); all numbers used: ALL CARTRIDGE NUMBERS USED.

CLONE

A copy (01 CLONED TO 11). A sampler cartridge's samples are copied too, written at once (CLONING ITS SAMPLES); without room for them, NO ROOM IN THE USER AREA.

MOVE

To another free number; a sampler cartridge with unsaved changes must be saved first (SAVE IT FIRST).

DELETE, RENAME

As for a slot.

AUTO LEVEL ALL

Sets every sound's LEVEL at once, after a question (AUTO LEVEL 32 SOUNDS?, EACH ONE'S LEVEL SET AGAIN): LEVELS SET.

BACK TO BUILT-IN

On a changed built-in cartridge (brown number): your changes dropped, the firmware's own back.

REVERT

The whole cartridge as last saved.

Keys on INSTRUMENTS

What it shows

• The pattern playing now, scrolling with the play position. There is no cursor and no editing.
• The header shows the song position and the last one (02/0B); the footer's right side the position and row playing (POS 02 ROW 1F).
• While the EDITOR's pattern loop plays, the header says PAT 0C (or EDITOR for its own pattern) and the footer PAT 0C ROW 1F.
• While LOOPS' loops play, each loop is a track; the header says LOOPS. EDIT then goes to LOOPS.
• When nothing plays, it shows where playback paused, or the current song's start; with no song at all, NOTHING HAS PLAYED: PLAY STARTS THE SONG.

SEQ (or K2) shows 8, 4, 2 or 1 tracks at once, as in the EDITOR (4 TRACKS). ALGORITHM moves the highlighted track across; the view scrolls sideways to keep it in sight.

Playing the song live

• PLAY pauses and resumes what played last.
• SELECT steps through the song a row at a time: the first click pauses and plays the current row again; each click forward plays the next row, each click back the previous one. PLAY goes on from there.
• K1 jumps to another position of the song (K1 POSITION 03/0B PATTERN 05). While playing, the jump comes as the current row ends, and it is a clean start: every note of the song is cut and the effects' tails emptied. Paused, PLAY resumes from that position.
• K3 is the song's volume, from +6 dB down to -24 dB and OFF, a dB a click (K3 VOLUME -6 DB). It turns the song alone, not the keys, so you can play over a quieter song.
• K4 is the song's speed, in BPM, from 3 to 600 (K4 TEMPO 124.0 BPM -3.2%: the BPM, and the change against the song's own tempo). Every tempo the song plays is scaled by it, its tempo commands too.
• LFO puts back the one of K3 and K4 turned last: the volume to 0 dB, the speed to 100 %.
• The keys play the current instrument over the song; ARP arpeggiates them.
• HOME + white key mutes and unmutes tracks.

More from PLAYBACK

• EDIT opens the EDITOR on the pattern playing, with the cursor on the playing row; HOME comes back here.
• ENV opens the song list: PLAY there plays the highlighted song from its start, and PLAYBACK follows it; ENV again closes the list.
• GLO opens the view's options (PLAYBACK VIEW): SCROLL by ROWS (the playing row stays in the middle) or by PAGES (the highlight moves, the pages flip; also SETTINGS' PLAYBACK SCROLL), and UNLOAD SONG, listed once something has played: everything stops, and the keys get their own effects and tempo back, as at power-on (chapter 6).

Keys on PLAYBACK

The stand

• The left deck is the main: its tempo is the set's tempo, and the right deck can follow it (SYNC).
• Each deck shows its song, its BPM and the change from the song's own tempo, its position and bar, an overview of the song with the time left, its filter, and its loop or repeat.
• The crossfader (ALGORITHM) blends the two: all the way left, only the main is heard (as at first).
• The song list below: SELECT moves its highlight; L, R or LR mark the songs on the decks.

Loading and playing

1. Turn SELECT to a song in the list.
2. Press OP4 to load it on the left deck, or OP5 on the right (LEFT: CITY LIGHTS). A song with no positions is refused (SONG 0A IS EMPTY).
3. Press OP1 to play or pause the left deck, OP6 the right. Held, the deck goes back to its song's start, paused (LEFT: BACK TO THE START).
4. PLAY plays or pauses both decks at once; held, both go back to their cue points (BACK TO THE CUES).

• Loading onto a playing deck waits for its next bar line (LEFT: CITY LIGHTS AT THE BAR; the LOAD key blinks): the new song takes over at the bar, at the BPM the deck was playing, so the beat goes on. Hold the LOAD key instead to have it start at its own tempo (LEFT: CITY LIGHTS AT ITS TEMPO). Tap LOAD again before the bar line to cancel (LEFT: LOAD CANCELLED).
• The same song can be on both decks, to fade from one part of it to another.
• At a song's end it loops or stops, as the song says. Stopped, its PLAY has nothing more to play (THE END: CUE GOES BACK). Through the last 8 bars of a song that stops, the time left turns red and the deck's PLAY key blinks on the beat.
• An empty deck refuses PLAY, CUE, SYNC, HOLD and FILTER: NO SONG ON THE DECK.

SWAP: SEQ exchanges the decks (DECKS SWAPPED; both empty: NO SONGS TO SWAP): songs, places, cue points, tempos, filters, loops and mutes. Nothing heard changes. The usual flow: the main plays; you load the next song on the right, start it in time and bring it in with the crossfader; SWAP; the right deck is free for the next one.

Tempo and SYNC

• K1 is the left deck's tempo (the set's), K4 the right's: shown as the BPM it plays and the change (TEMPO L 124.0 BPM +3.2%), 3 to 600 BPM in steps of 0.1 (SEL held: 1 BPM). The song's own tempo commands still act, scaled. SEL after a turn sets it back to the song's own (TEMPO 120.0 BPM: THE SONG'S).
• MONO is SYNC (on at first): the right deck follows the main's tempo (or its half or double, whichever is nearest its own song's) and its beats fall on the main's. A synced right deck starts on the main's next bar line; its tempo knob then does nothing (SYNC: TEMPO ON THE MAIN DECK). SYNC ON, SYNC OFF.
• With SETTINGS' SYNC set to EXTERNAL, an outside MIDI clock leads the main deck (SYNC EXTERNAL: THE CLOCK'S TEMPO); START plays it from its cue point, STOP pauses it.
• Two decks at one BPM never drift apart.

Filters, volumes and effects

• K2 is the left deck's DJ FILTER, K3 the right's: one way a low-pass (LP, darker), the other a high-pass (HP, thinner), OFF in the middle (FILTER L LP 2.4K).
• OP3 (the left) and the black key GLO (the right) switch the filter off and back on, sliding there while the key is held (FILTER L OFF, FILTER L ON LP 2.4K). With the filter off, the knob sets the filter silently, ready for the key to bring it in on the beat.
• ENV switches K2 and K3 to the decks' VOLUME and back (K2 K3: VOLUME, K2 K3: FILTER): +6 dB down to -24 dB and OFF, a dB a click (VOLUME L -3 DB).
• SEL tapped puts the last knob turned back: a tempo to the song's own, a filter to OFF, the crossfader to the middle, a volume to 0 dB, a KEY to 0.
• Each deck plays its song's mixer and its own GATE, FILTER, DRIVE, LO-FI and DUCK. CHORUS, DELAY and REVERB are DJ's own, shared by both decks, with DJ's settings: FX on DJ edits them, with the LIMITER and the METRONOME, and FX again comes back to DJ.
• FX + white key held plays a punch-in over the mix, as everywhere.
• When all 16 voices are busy, the deck the crossfader favours less gives way.

A hand on the record: HOLD

OP2 is the left deck's HOLD, PIT the right's:

• Held down, the deck stops where it is, as a hand on the record.
• Turn the deck's tempo knob meanwhile (K1 left, K4 right): it moves by hand, a row a click, heard. Its filter knob (K2, K3) moves it silently, a beat a click, for the long way.
• Let go: a deck that was playing plays on from there at once. So a tap holds a deck back by that much, to nudge it against the other.

The pads

The white keys are each deck's pads: keys 1-8 the left deck's, 9-16 the right's. The BLANK key turns their mode between PLAY pads and LOOP pads (PADS: PLAY, PADS: LOOPS); LFO brings in the LFO pads.

The stops (pads 5-8) work while held: let go, the deck plays on where it would have been, in time, as if it had never stopped; a tap is a dip. Press the deck's PLAY key while a stop is held and the deck stays stopped when you let go.

A loop stays through a pause; a pad that cannot act (a stop on a paused deck, say) blinks fast.

The LFO pads

LFO brings in the LFO pads (PADS: LFO), and LFO again goes back. They make things swing by themselves, each at a note length of the tempo (1/2 at first). Hold LFO to see which pad does what.

Mutes, the CUT, saving

• HOME + white key mutes a deck's track: keys 1-8 the left deck's tracks 00-07, keys 9-16 the right deck's (LEFT TRACK 02 MUTED). SEQ first, or the key held: solo (LEFT TRACK 02 SOLO).
• HOME + OCT+ takes those keys to tracks 08-0F (MUTES: TRACKS 08-0F); HOME + OCT- back (MUTES: TRACKS 00-07). Alone, OCT does nothing on DJ.
• HOME + PLAY takes both decks back to their cue points; HOME + REC cuts the sound while the decks play on.
• SAVE keeps the whole stand (the decks as they stand, the crossfader, SYNC, the LFOs): at power-on the decks are back, paused, and PLAY goes on from the same point.

DJ's properties

GLO opens DJ PROPERTIES:

CROSSFADER

SMOOTH (each deck at -3 dB in the middle, as loud through the blend) or SHARP (both full until the last 2 clicks at either end, for cuts).

FILTER RESONANCE

The DJ filters' resonance. 0-100 %

FILTER THE SENDS

ON: a deck's filter also filters what it sends to the shared effects, so a sweep takes its echoes along. OFF saves some processor time. ON, OFF

FX LFO

What the FX LFO swings. REVERB MIX, DELAY MIX, CHORUS MIX

RESET DJ

EDIT, after a question (RESET DJ?, BOTH DECKS EMPTIED, ALL AS AT FIRST): both decks emptied, everything as at first (DJ RESET).

Keys on DJ

The views

SELECT turns the views a step at a time (it stops at both ends); SEQ goes to the next and round. The header names the view (VISUAL SCOPE).

VOICES

A small scope for each voice, labelled with what plays it (T03 a song's track, KEY the keys, L05 a loop) and its note.

SCOPE

The output as an oscilloscope, left above, right below.

WAVE

The output's waveform over the last seconds, scrolling.

SPECTRUM

The output's spectrum: bass on the left, treble on the right (30 Hz to 18 kHz).

LEVELS

A meter for each track, 00 to 0F.

FOMA

PT/FM's mascot: a little FM-1 with a cat's ears, flying into the stars, its rainbow tail waving with the sound.

Zoom, gain and options

• K1 zooms SCOPE in time, 1 to 6 (K1 ZOOM 3): from 128 to 1,024 samples across the screen.
• K2 makes every view taller or flatter, x0.13 to x16 in doublings (K2 GAIN X1).
• GLO opens VISUAL OPTIONS: VIEW STEREO or MONO, and FREEZE OFF or ON, to hold the picture still (the footer then says FROZEN).

VISUAL works from a copy of the sound, never slowing it down.

Keys on VISUAL

The pages

SELECT or ALGORITHM turns the pages:

PT/FM

The name, the version, PRESS HOME + LFO FOR HELP, and the figures a glance needs:

CPU 1, MAX	How much of its time the first processor spends on the sound now, and the most since the last reset. Green up to 50 %, yellow to 80 %, red above.
CPU 2	The same for the second processor (effects and voices 11-16); OFF while it does not run.
HALF	The longest piece of sound work, in microseconds: over 5804 is too slow.
LATE	Pieces of sound not ready in time: each one is a click (dropout).
STEALS	Notes that gave their voice up to a new note because all were busy.
VOICES, MAX	Voices sounding now and the limit (01/12), and the most at once.
EDITS FREE	The memory left for unsaved edits.
FLASH FREE	The free storage, where saves go.
UNSAVED	How many things changed since the last SAVE.
BATTERY, UP	The battery, and the time since power-on.
SONG	The song playing, else the current song.

PERFORMANCE

Each processor's load now, on average and at most; the worst sound piece, late pieces and steals; each engine's share; voices; the effects' cost; a graph of the last 30 seconds.

STORAGE

The user area (where everything you keep goes), used and free; what it holds by kind; unsaved changes and the memory they take.

USER FLASH MAP

The user area as a map, a square a kilobyte, each in the colour of what it holds.

RAM MAP

The FM-1's 512 KB of memory as a map, a square a kilobyte.

DEVICE

The battery, the firmware version, the output (stereo, mono, sync pulse), MASTER, the screen's frames a second, the time since power-on, VOICES, THEME and the second processor's state.

SECOND CORE reads STARTING in the first two seconds, then ON; OFF when SETTINGS' SECOND CORE is off; or, in red, why it stopped until the next start: STOPPED: NO ANSWER, STOPPED: MISREAD, STOPPED: STUCK, STOPPED: FAULT, or STOPPED: AFTER A CRASH (after PT/FM crashed, the second processor stays off until the FM-1 is switched off and on). Without it, the FM-1 plays on with 12 voices at most. BATTERY reads 1, 2 or 3 bars, or USB POWER.

The footer's right side shows the free storage (FREE 237K).

Keys on STATUS

Changing a setting

1. SELECT picks a setting; the footer shows its default (DEFAULT STEREO).
2. K1 changes it, a step a click. It applies at once.
3. LFO puts it back to its default.
4. SAVE keeps the settings after power-off, as every change.

SEQ or ALGORITHM turns to the MIDI page and back. SEL, REVERT takes the page back to what was saved, after a question (REVERT THE SETTINGS TO SAVED?); with nothing unsaved, NOTHING TO REVERT.

Sound and output

OUTPUT

What the jack and the speaker get. STEREO for headphones and a mixer. MONO for the FM-1's own speaker, which plays one channel only (and for a mono cable). SYNC PULSE L or R: a click on that side every half beat, for instruments that follow a sync pulse, the music in mono on the other side (with SYNC INTERNAL only; with SYNC EXTERNAL the output stays stereo, no clicks). A cable in the jack mutes the speaker, and the FM-1 cannot tell, so set this yourself. STEREO, MONO, SYNC PULSE L, SYNC PULSE R; STEREO at first

LINE GAIN

The level of the speaker and the jack, with MASTER. -24 to +12 dB, 0 dB at first

USB GAIN

The level of USB audio, the sound a computer records; MASTER does not touch it. -24 to +12 dB, 0 dB at first

VOICES

How many notes are heard at once, everywhere. 16 needs the second processor (SECOND CORE); while it does not run, 16 counts as 12 (16 VOICES: 12 WITHOUT CPU 2). When all are busy, a new note takes the voice least missed: a ringing tail first, then the quietest held note; the keys' notes go last. A held note pushed out comes back when a voice frees. 8, 12, 16; 16 at first

SECOND CORE

The FM-1's chip has two processors: ON works the effects and voices 11-16 out on the second. OFF: one does it all (12 voices at most). ON, OFF; ON at first

TUNING

The pitch of A4. 430-450 Hz, 440 at first

The keys, the knobs and the look

THEME

The screen's colours. DEFAULT, EGA, PASTEL, NEON, SUNSET, ICE, CLEAR, GREEN, AMBER, WHITE, DAYLIGHT, PAPER, MANUAL, SILVER, LCD, COMMANDER; DEFAULT at first

KEYS VOLUME

The volume of the notes the keys play and write (the keys have no velocity). 01-7F, 60 at first

KEYS GAIN

How loud you hear the keys while playing them (the FM-1's and MIDI's), not how they are recorded. -24 to +12 dB, 0 dB at first

KEYS

THROUGH FX: the keys go through the effects as everything else. DRY: past every effect, straight to the output. THROUGH FX, DRY; THROUGH FX at first

KEYS OCTAVE

The keys' octave at power-on. -4 to +4, 0 at first

KNOB SPEED

Bigger steps when a knob is turned fast. OFF, LOW, HIGH; LOW at first

HOLD DELAY

How long a button must be held to count as held. 300-1500 ms, 500 at first

COMBO GRACE

How long a button let go still counts for a combination. 0-250 ms, 100 at first

PLAYBACK SCROLL

PLAYBACK scrolls by ROWS (the playing row stays in the middle) or by PAGES. ROWS, PAGES; ROWS at first

PRESETS LIST

While PRESETS turns, the cartridge's instruments over the screen, gone a second after the last click; OFF, the footer alone names the instrument. ON, OFF; ON at first

Recording and the arpeggiator

COUNT-IN

Before an EDITOR take: 1 or 2 bars of clicks, none, or KEY (your first note starts the take). LOOPS has its own. OFF, 1 BAR, 2 BARS, KEY; 1 BAR at first

QUANTIZE

Where an EDITOR take puts a note: on the nearest line of 2, 3 or 4 rows, the nearest row, or REAL TIME (the row it falls in, its exact time kept with a note delay). The keys sound exactly as written. 2 ROWS, 3 ROWS, 4 ROWS, ROW, REAL TIME; ROW at first

ARP RHYTHM

The arpeggiator's rhythm and the EDITOR's row preview, a row a step: # plays, _ rests. #, #_, #__, #___, ##_, ###_, ##__, #_##_, and two slow ones; #___ at first

ARP PATTERN

The order the arpeggiator's notes take turns in. UP, DOWN, UP-DOWN, RANDOM, AS PLAYED; UP at first

ARP LATCH

How many notes go on playing after you let go of their keys. OFF, 1-8 NOTES; 4 NOTES at first

POWER-ON SCREEN

The screen the FM-1 starts on. STATUS, LAST, or any screen; STATUS at first

TOOLS and ABOUT

On TOOLS, K1 picks a tool and EDIT runs it:

TOOLS

The line of tools below.

CHECK REFERENCES

Lists the references to things that are missing (a note's instrument gone, a song's pattern deleted): MISSING REFERENCES: 3, or NO MISSING REFERENCES.

CHECK STORAGE

Reads every saved record and checks it is whole (CHECKING STORAGE): STORAGE OK, or a list of problems (STORAGE PROBLEMS: 2). It writes nothing.

CLEAN UP

Finds what nothing uses and asks what goes, as a checklist (CLEAN UP: FREES 1.3K): UNUSED PATTERNS, UNUSED SAMPLES (ticked at first), UNUSED INSTRUMENTS (not: most of a bank is a library, not leftovers). SELECT picks a line, K1 ticks it, OCT+ cleans up (CLEANED UP: 4 DELETED; nothing to do: NOTHING TO CLEAN UP). Built-in things are never listed.

AUTO LEVEL ALL

Measures every sound you have and sets its level, after a question; the built-in cartridges keep theirs.

REVERT ALL

Drops every unsaved change, after a question, as SAVE + OCT- does.

FACTORY RESET

Erases everything you saved or uploaded: songs, patterns, loops, your cartridges and samples, your edits of the built-in instruments, DJ's decks, the settings and the MIDI map. PT/FM itself and its built-in instruments stay, so the FM-1 is as it was after its first install, before the demo disk.

It asks twice. First FACTORY RESET? with ERASES ALL YOU SAVED OR UPLOADED and ONLY THE BUILT-IN INSTRUMENTS STAY: OCT+ answers RESET. Then ERASE IT ALL NOW? with THERE IS NO WAY BACK, and, if you have changes not saved yet, how many go with the rest (3 UNSAVED CHANGES LOST TOO): OCT+ answers ERASE. OCT- (KEEP) or HOME at either question leaves everything as it was.

Then ERASING shows a bar for up to two seconds, the sound silent and every control waiting, and the FM-1 restarts on its power-on screen with the settings as they come.

To keep a copy first, read the FM-1 on the editor page and download a disk (chapter 17). The demo songs come back with the install page's UPLOAD DEMO DISK (chapter 2). A power cut while it erases leaves part of your work: run FACTORY RESET again.

ABOUT

EDIT opens it: the version and the licences. EDIT closes it.

The MIDI page

The second page (SEQ), the same kind of list (chapter 16 explains MIDI in full):

MIDI IN CHANNEL

The channel MIDI in listens to, on USB and the jack. ALL, 1-16; ALL at first

MIDI OUT

What goes out over USB: OFF, KEYS (the FM-1's keys as played) or ALL (the keys and everything that plays: track 0 on channel 1 ... track 15 on channel 16). OFF, KEYS, ALL; KEYS at first

MIDI OUT CHANNEL

The keys' channel out. 1-16; 1 at first

SYNC

INTERNAL: PT/FM's own tempo. EXTERNAL: an outside MIDI clock leads (USB or the jack). INTERNAL, EXTERNAL; INTERNAL at first

CLOCK OUT

Sends the clock, START / STOP / CONTINUE and the song position out, with SYNC INTERNAL. OFF, ON; OFF at first

MIDI CONTROLLER

EDIT turns the FM-1 into a MIDI controller for a computer until it is switched off and on, after a question (chapter 16).

LEARN

How many mappings of 64 (3 OF 64). EDIT learns one: touch an FM-1 control, then move the MIDI control that should drive it (TOUCH AN FM-1 CONTROL, MOVE THE MIDI CONTROL). The mappings are listed below; LFO deletes the one picked.

Keys on SETTINGS

The loops

• Up to 16 loops, listed in the order they were made, the newest at the bottom, with + NEW LOOP under them. A loop's number is its place, 00 to 0F.
• One length for all, set by the first loop in whole bars (8 bars at most at 1/16). After that only the properties' LENGTH and the menu's DOUBLE change it.
• A loop has one instrument and a colour of its own. PRESETS (and ENV, the cartridges) pick the sound the keys play and the next loop takes, never a recorded loop's.
• POLY or MONO, chosen before recording (the black keys MONO and POLY in CONTROL mode; POLY at first): a POLY loop holds up to 4 notes at once, a MONO loop one, a note over a held one taking over as the properties' MONO LEGATO says.
• A loop's mix: K1 to K4 turn the selected loop's LEVEL, PAN, DELAY SEND and REVERB SEND (CHORUS and DUCK on FX's MIXER). On + NEW LOOP they set the next loop's mix.
• ALGORITHM turns the tempo, any time.
• LOOPS has its own effects (FX from LOOPS edits them) and metronome, so it sounds the same whatever song is current. SAVE keeps the loops like any change.

Recording a loop

1. Pick a sound with PRESETS. Turn SELECT to + NEW LOOP (for a new loop) or to a loop (to record it again).
2. Press REC: the take is armed.
   • With the loops playing, it starts at their next start; the row counts down (ARMED: STARTS IN 3 BARS).
   • With nothing playing, your first note starts the loops and the take at once; or press PLAY to start them after the properties' COUNT-IN.
3. Play. A take is one pass of the length and stops by itself, the loops playing on. Press REC to stop it early; REC while armed cancels (CANCELLED).

The first loop has no length to fill: it grows a bar at a time while you play. Press REC to close it on a bar line (LOOP 00: 4 BARS); its bars are the length. Played nothing: NOTHING PLAYED: NO LOOP. PLAY with no loops, nothing armed and nothing playing is refused: REC, THEN PLAY: THE FIRST LOOP.

• What you hear is what is kept. While recording, notes land on QUANTIZE's grid and sound there; a MONO loop plays one note at a time, a POLY one at most 4. Not recording, the keys play freely.
• RE-RECORD: EDIT (or REC on a loop) records the selected loop again; its old notes are gone the moment the take is armed (LOOP 03 RE-RECORDING). It keeps its place, colour, instrument and mix.
• PEEL: LFO removes the selected loop (on + NEW LOOP, the last) without asking (LOOP 03 PEELED); SEL's REVERT brings back what was saved.
• A full edit memory ends a take, keeping what was written (MEMORY FOR EDITS IS FULL).

QUANTIZE

Where a recorded note lands: the properties' QUANTIZE, or the black keys OP1-OP5 in CONTROL mode (QUANTIZE: 2 ROWS).

2 ROWS, 3 ROWS, 4 ROWS

The nearest line of that many rows, from the loops' start.

ROW

The nearest row (at first).

REAL TIME

The row it falls in, its exact time kept as a note delay, its end as a key off.

A note played a little early waits for its line; one just after it sounds at once and is written on the line.

CONTROL mode: mutes and solos

In CONTROL mode the keys stop playing notes and become a mixer for the loops. Each white key is a loop: white key 1 is the top loop, white key 16 the sixteenth.

1. Press SEQ. The FM-1 shows KEYS: CONTROL and the header reads SEQ MUTE.
2. Tap a white key: its loop mutes (LOOP 02 MUTED) or plays again (LOOP 02 ON) at once.
3. Press SEQ again to play notes: KEYS: PLAY.

Hold a white key a moment instead (longer than HOLD DELAY in SETTINGS) and the change waits for the next bar line (LOOP 02 MUTED AT THE BAR); the loop's row shows a yellow M while it waits.

Press the black key GLO to make the white keys solo instead of mute (SEQ: SOLO; again: SEQ: MUTE). One loop is soloed at a time: a white key solos its loop alone (LOOP 02 SOLO), and on the soloed loop it ends the solo (LOOP 02 SOLO OFF). Held, the solo waits for the bar line (a yellow S).

From any screen, HOME + white key mutes or unmutes that loop at once; hold the white key to solo it.

The pattern recorder

ARP opens a step sequencer over the loops, which play on, so the pattern is heard in the mix while you build it. (The EDITOR's SEL, RECORD PATTERN is the same recorder.)

• 4 rows of 16 steps, a note a row (with a kit, each row a drum). SELECT picks the row; a white key switches its step on or off.
• The row's note: K3 moves it a semitone a click; or tap SEL, then press a key: that key is the note (KEYS: THE NOTE, then KEYS: THE STEPS). SEL held + a key does it at once. OCT- / OCT+ move the row's note with the octave (NOTE C-5).
• K1 STEP SIZE (1/32 to 1/4, 1/16 at first), K2 LENGTH (4, 8, 12 or 16 steps), K4 TIMES (x1-x8, for the first loop only: how many times it fills the new length).
• GLO: the notes RING TO THE NEXT (at first) or last A STEP LONG (NOTES RING TO THE NEXT, NOTES A STEP LONG).
• The preview plays while the recorder is open; ARP switches it off and on.
• REC writes it and closes: on + NEW LOOP a new loop (PATTERN: LOOP 06, 4 BARS); opened on a loop, it replaces that loop's notes (PATTERN INTO LOOP 03). No step on: NO STEPS ON. HOME closes it, nothing written.

What you set stays for the next time until power-off.

RECORD LIVE: the performance as a song

SEL, RECORD LIVE records everything you do over the loops into a new song: the loops as they play, mutes and solos, the keys, effects, punch-ins, tempo changes and the mix.

1. SEL, RECORD LIVE opens its panel: the song's NAME (EDIT types it) and K1 TEMPO.
2. REC arms it (REC blinks; the top line's REC reads SONG). HOME cancels.
3. It starts with your next REC, a note, or PLAY.
4. Perform. PLAY drops the loops out and brings them back; PLAY held takes them to their start; the keys play on their own tracks.
5. REC ends it (SONG 12 RECORDED: 1:23, 5 PATTERNS). SAVE keeps the song.

• While a song records, nothing changes the loops themselves: takes, PEEL, DOUBLE and the like are refused (RECORDING A SONG).
• Leaving LOOPS (but for FX) ends it, keeping what was written.
• Notes that do not fit the song's 16 tracks are left out and counted (SONG 12: 3 NOTES LEFT OUT). It stops by itself when the memory, the pattern numbers or 256 positions run out (SONG 12 STOPPED: MEMORY FOR EDITS IS FULL); with no song number free it is refused (NO SONG NUMBER FREE).

Loops to a pattern and back

LOOPS has no precise editing; for that, store the loops in a pattern and edit it in the EDITOR.

SAVE TO PATTERN

Writes one pattern of the loops' length: every loop's notes, repeats written out, each with its instrument, and each loop's mix (LOOPS STORED IN PATTERN 2A). Pick NEW or a pattern; a pattern that is not empty asks first.

LOAD FROM PATTERN

Turns a pattern into loops, a loop an instrument, replacing the loops after a question (PATTERN 2A IN LOOPS: 3 LOOPS). The length is the pattern's, in whole bars; what does not fit 16 loops of 4 notes is left out and said.

The properties and the menu

GLO opens LOOPS PROPERTIES:

TEMPO

As a song's, with its BPM (ALGORITHM turns it too). 3-600

SWING

50-75 %

LENGTH

A bar more or less: longer adds silence at the end, shorter cuts bars off (asking first when notes would go). Before the first loop: THE FIRST LOOP SETS IT.

GRID

1/16, 1/16T or 1/32: 4, 6 or 8 rows a beat. Only before the first loop (GRID: ONLY BEFORE THE FIRST LOOP).

QUANTIZE

Where a recorded note lands (above): on every 2, 3 or 4 rows, on the nearest row, or where you played it (REAL TIME). 2 ROWS, 3 ROWS, 4 ROWS, ROW, REAL TIME; ROW at first

MONO LEGATO

On a MONO loop, a note over a held one: GLIDE (a short glide; a TB-303's slide), LEGATO (the held note moves to the new one, no new attack) or JUMP (a plain new note).

COUNT-IN

Before a take PLAY starts: OFF, 1 BAR, 2 BARS. A key always starts at once. OFF at first

SEL opens the menu:

APPLY INSTRUMENT

The selected loop takes the current instrument (LOOP 03: 01:04 BRASS).

DOUBLE

The length x2, every loop playing twice what it played (DOUBLED: 8 BARS; past 8 bars: DOUBLE: AT MOST 8 BARS).

RECORD LIVE

Its panel (above); while armed, CANCEL RECORD LIVE.

SAVE TO PATTERN, LOAD FROM PATTERN

Above.

CLEAR LOOPS

Every loop goes, after a question; the next loop sets a new length (LOOPS CLEARED).

REVERT

LOOPS as last saved, after a question.

With no loops, EDIT, LFO and the menu's loop items say NO LOOPS YET.

Keys on LOOPS

Whose effects

Every song has its own effects (its FX setup: the chain's order, routing, each effect's knobs and on/off, the mixer and the metronome). LOOPS and DJ have their own. FX always edits what you hear:

• the song playing (or the one played last); a pattern from the EDITOR uses the current song's;
• in LOOPS, the loops'; on DJ, DJ's (FX from LOOPS or DJ does not leave them);
• before anything has played, THE KEYS': the keys' own setup, with the reverb on, so the FM-1 sounds round as a synth from its keys alone.

A new song starts with only the LIMITER on. THE KEYS' setup, which the keys play through at power-on, also has the REVERB on. While what FX edits plays, nothing but your hand changes the effect under the cursor: the song's own commands for it are skipped.

The keys keep the last song's effects. Once a song has played, the keys go on playing through its effects and at its tempo after it stops or pauses, until something else plays. THE KEYS' own setup comes back at the next power-on, or at once with UNLOAD SONG (SONGS' SEL menu, chapter 6). With LOOPS on the screen and nothing playing, the keys play through the loops' setup.

LIVE: playing the effects

• The white keys are the 16 punch-in effects, each while its key is held (below); the keys play no notes on LIVE.
• The black keys pick an effect, a fixed key each: OP1 GATE, OP2 FILTER, OP3 DRIVE, OP4 LO-FI, OP5 CHORUS, OP6 DELAY, PIT REVERB, GLO LIMITER, MONO DUCK, POLY METRONOME.
• The BLANK key is BYPASS: every effect off while held (the metronome clicks on).
• SELECT picks the effect too. OCT+ switches it on, OCT- off (GATE ON, GATE OFF).
• K1 to K4 turn its knobs (SEL held: steps of 10); ALGORITHM shows its next knobs (FILTER has 8, DELAY 5). LFO resets the knob turned last.
• EDIT shows the effect on the EDIT page; SEL opens its menu (RESET, REVERT).
• ARP on LIVE plays the last note you played, hands free (with SETTINGS' ARP LATCH not OFF), so you can play the effects over an arpeggio: the keys stay punch-ins.

EDIT: the chain

• The chain is a list: the sound goes from top to bottom. The LIMITER is always last; DUCK and the METRONOME sit apart, outside the chain.
• SELECT picks an effect; K1-K4 its knobs; ALGORITHM its next knobs.
• OCT+ / OCT- switch it on and off, so you can set it first and switch it on after. The keys play notes on EDIT, to hear the effect; SEL + OCT+ and SEL + OCT- change their octave.
• SEL opens the menu: MOVE (SELECT moves the effect through the chain, heard as it goes; SEL puts it down, MOVED; HOME puts it back, NOT MOVED; the LIMITER, DUCK and the metronome stay: LIMITER DOES NOT MOVE), RESET (the effect as at first), REVERT (every effect as last saved).
• Each effect's picture shows what it does: the filter's curve, the echoes, the reverb's decay. The footer shows what the effect costs the processor (GATE 0.4% CPU). Each effect, its picture and its knobs are below.

The effects

Ten effects, each in a section of its own below, in the order FX EDIT lists them, with all its knobs. On EDIT, SELECT picks the effect, K1-K4 turn its first four knobs and ALGORITHM shows the next four (FILTER and DELAY have more than four); LFO puts the last knob turned back to its default. A knob with no range given runs 0-100 %. A new song starts with only the LIMITER on (THE KEYS' setup has the REVERB on too); OCT+ switches the picked effect on.

GATE

Chops the sound on and off in a rhythm, locked to the song's bars: a trance gate on whatever passes through it. Its rhythm is a pattern of 16 steps; each step is OFF (closed), ON (open for the first three quarters of the step) or a ratchet, X2, X3 or X4 (two, three or four short hits within the step).

PATTERN

Which rhythm. 00-0F are built in (the table below); 10-1F are yours, MY GATE 10 to MY GATE 1F, written on the white keys (below). 00-1F; 00 STRAIGHT at first

RATE

How long a step is: at 1/16 the 16 steps make one bar of 4 beats, at 1/8 two bars, at 1/32 half a bar; 1/8T and 1/16T are triplet steps (3 and 6 to a beat). At 1/16, step 1 falls on the bar's first beat. 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/8T, 1/16T; 1/16 at first

DEPTH

How far a closed step closes: 100 % is silence, 50 % only dips the sound, 0 % leaves it as it is. 100 % at first

SMOOTH

How soft the edges are: low, a hard click-on, click-off chop (0.5 ms); high, a soft pulse that swells in and out (up to 20 ms). 20 % at first

Writing your own steps: on EDIT with GATE picked, EDIT puts its 16 steps on the white keys: a key switches its step on or off; held, ALGORITHM gives it ratchets (X2, X3, X4). A built-in pattern is copied into yours first (STRAIGHT COPIED TO MY GATE 11). EDIT keeps the changes, HOME drops them. ENV on GATE lists the patterns.

FILTER

One filter on the whole mix: a low-pass (darker, the top taken away) or a high-pass (thinner, the bass taken away), with an envelope that can open it on every note or beat, as a synth's filter envelope does. Its eight knobs are on two pages (ALGORITHM turns to the second).

CUT

Where the filter cuts, and which kind: turned left of the middle it is a low-pass closing from LP 20K down to LP 100 (Hz); turned right, a high-pass opening from HP 20 up to HP 8.0K; in the middle, OFF. Turned by hand it glides, so no step is heard. With the envelope on, CUT is where the filter rests between notes. LP 100 ... LP 20K, OFF, HP 20 ... HP 8.0K; OFF at first

RESO

Resonance: a peak at the cutoff. Low is smooth; high makes the cutoff ring and whistle, the acid squelch when the cutoff moves. 30 % at first

ENV

How far each note (or beat) opens the filter, as a part of the way from CUT to fully open: a low-pass opens upward, a high-pass downward. 0 % switches the envelope off. 0 % at first

SOURCE

What opens it. KEYS: every note the keys play (the FM-1's, MIDI's, the arpeggiator's), held as long as the key. TRACK 00 ... TRACK 0F: every note that track starts, muted or not, so a silent track can carry a rhythm for the filter. 4 BEATS, 2 BEATS, BEAT, 1/2 BEAT, 1/4 BEAT: the beat itself, every so many beats, each hit held half its length. KEYS at first

ATTACK

How long the filter takes to open from where it is. 2 ms-3 s; 2.0 MS at first

DECAY

How long it then takes to close down to SUSTAIN. 5 ms-5 s; 296 MS at first

SUSTAIN

How open it stays while the note is held, as a part of ENV's opening; 0 % closes it fully after DECAY, a pluck. 0 % at first

RELEASE

How long it takes to close back to CUT once the note ends. 5 ms-5 s; 296 MS at first

There is one envelope for the whole mix, not one a note: each new note starts it again from wherever it is, and it holds while any note of the source is held.

LO-FI

The sound of an old sampler: fewer bits, a lower sample rate and record crackle.

BITS

How finely the level is measured: 16 is clean, 8 grainy, 4 and under harsh and noisy, 2 a broken buzz. 2-16; 8 at first

RATE

The sample rate it imitates: lower takes the top away and adds the metallic ring of aliasing; 44 kHz leaves the rate as it is. 1-44 kHz; 22 at first

DUST

Crackles and specks, as from a record. They are a sound of their own: heard even when nothing plays. 20 % at first

CHORUS

A JUNO-style chorus: two short delays, swaying in opposite ways left and right, mixed with the sound, so it widens, thickens and gently detunes.

MODE

The JUNO-106's three chorus settings. I: slow (0.5 Hz) and gentle. II: a little faster (0.83 Hz) and deeper, a lusher swirl. I+II: fast (9 Hz) and shallow, a shimmering vibrato. I, II, I+II; I at first

RATE

The sway's speed, around the mode's own: 50 % is the JUNO's, 0 % about a third of it, 100 % about 1.7 times. 30 % at first

DEPTH

How far it sways, around the mode's own in the same way: more is a stronger pitch wobble. 50 % at first

MIX

How much of the chorus is heard against the sound itself. With ROUTING SENDS (below) it is the chorus's return level instead, and each track sends to it by its MIXER send. 50 % at first

DELAY

Echoes locked to the song's tempo. The echoes are mono; PING-PONG puts them left and right in turn.

TIME

The time between echoes, as a note value; T marks triplets, a dot dotted values (1/8. is three sixteenths). Up to 1 s (0.5 s with PING-PONG): a value longer than that at a slow tempo plays the longest that fits. 1/32, 1/16T, 1/16, 1/8T, 1/16., 1/8, 1/4T, 1/8., 1/4, 1/2T, 1/4., 1/2; 1/8. at first

FEEDBACK

How much of each echo comes back as the next: low, one or two echoes; high, a long trail. 40 % at first

TONE

How bright each echo is: every repeat passes through a low-pass, so lower makes the echoes darker and softer as they go, as a tape or analogue delay; 100 % keeps them bright (up to about 13 kHz). 60 % at first

PING-PONG

ON: the echoes bounce between left and right. OFF: they stay in the middle. OFF, ON; OFF at first

MIX

How loud the echoes are against the sound. With ROUTING SENDS, the delay's return level instead. 30 % at first

REVERB

A plate reverb: the sound in a large, smooth, bright space.

SIZE

How long the reverb rings: from about 1.3 s, a room, to about 11 s, a cathedral (the time it takes to die away). 60 % at first

DAMP

How dark the tail gets: more damping takes the highs out of the tail as it rings, warmer and less hissy; none leaves it bright. 40 % at first

PRE-DELAY

A gap before the reverb starts, so the sound's attack stays clear in front of it. 0-100 ms; 10 at first

MIX

How loud the reverb is against the sound. With ROUTING SENDS, the reverb's return level instead. 25 % at first

DRIVE

Warm distortion: the mix pushed into a soft clipper, adding harmonics as an overdriven amplifier or tape does. The deep bass (under about 55 Hz) is kept out of it, so it stays clean; the level is evened out as the drive rises.

DRIVE

How hard it is pushed: low, a little warmth and grit; high (up to about nine times the level), heavy saturation. 30 % at first

TONE

The brightness after the distortion: low is dark and smooth, high bright and edgy. 50 % at first

LIMITER

Keeps the mix from going over a ceiling, catching its peaks so the sound never clips. Always last in the chain, and on in every new song.

CEILING

The most the mix may reach. Lower catches more of the peaks, and the mix comes out quieter. -12 to 0 dB; -1 at first

RELEASE

How fast the level comes back after a peak: short keeps it loud but can pump; long is smoother. 10-1000 ms; 100 at first

DUCK

One track pushes the others down while it plays, as a kick making room for itself in the bass and the pads (sidechain). It sits outside the chain. Which tracks duck, and how much, is set in the MIXER's DCK row, none at first: raise DCK on the tracks that should duck (MIXER). The source never ducks itself.

SOURCE

The track that pushes the others down, or KEYS: every note the keys play, so the song can make room for a part played live. 00-0F, KEYS; 00 at first

DEPTH

How far the others go down when the source hits (each also by its own DCK). 60 % at first

RELEASE

How long they take to come back up after it: short, a quick dip; long, a slow breathing pump. 20-1000 ms; 150 at first

METRONOME

A click on the beats, to play or record in time. It is mixed after the effects, takes no voice, and stays off USB audio. It sits outside the chain. The count-in before a take is not the METRONOME's: SETTINGS' COUNT-IN (chapter 13).

TEMPO

FOLLOW: the tempo of what plays (on THE KEYS, their own TEMPO). A number: its own tempo, so it clicks with nothing playing. FOLLOW, 30-300 BPM; FOLLOW at first

BEATS A BAR

How many beats a bar; the first is accented, louder and higher. In LOOPS it is also the loops' bar. 1-16; 4 at first

SOUND

CLICK: a short tick of noise. BEEP: a clean tone (higher on the accent). WOOD: a woodblock knock, its pitch falling. COWBELL: the classic drum machine's two-tone cowbell. CLICK, BEEP, WOOD, COWBELL; BEEP at first

LEVEL

How loud it clicks. 60 % at first

Routing and the keys

GLO opens FX PROPERTIES, titled whose setup it is (a song's name, THE LOOPS, DJ or THE KEYS):

ROUTING

GLOBAL: one chain on the whole mix. SENDS: CHORUS, DELAY and REVERB leave the chain and become shared sends, each track sending its own amount (the MIXER's CHO, DLY, REV); their returns join the chain at the SENDS line (marked with a diamond): effects above it work on the dry sound only, below it on everything (ROUTING SENDS, ROUTING GLOBAL).

KEYS, EVERYWHERE

THROUGH FX, or DRY: the keys skip every effect (as SETTINGS' KEYS) (KEYS DRY, KEYS THROUGH FX).

TEMPO, SWING

For THE KEYS: their own tempo and swing.

MIXER

• A column for each of the 16 tracks (8 at a time), a row for each value: LVL (level), PAN, DCK (how much it ducks, shown while DUCK is on), and with ROUTING SENDS CHO, DLY, REV (its sends).
• ALGORITHM picks the track, SELECT the value, K1 changes it (SEL held: by 16), LFO resets it.
• KEYS, the last column, is the keys' own strip, the same in every song (its LVL is SETTINGS' KEYS GAIN).
• In LOOPS the columns are the loops (MIXER: THE LOOPS).
• A value a song's command moved shows white, BY THE SONG; muted tracks are dark.

Punch-in effects

Hold FX and press a white key, on any screen: that effect plays on the whole mix for as long as the key is held, locked to the tempo. On LIVE the white keys alone do it. Let go, it fades back into the mix.

The song goes on underneath every punch-in, in time: let go, and you hear it where it is now, faded back in over 80 ms (VINYL STOP spins back up instead). FX LIVE's map shows short names (LP SWEEP, ECHO THRW, HALF SPD ...); FX held's list and the toasts, the full ones below.

LOOP 1/4, LOOP 1/8, LOOP 1/16, LOOP 1/32

Catch the last quarter, eighth, sixteenth or thirty-second note of the mix, just before the key, and repeat it for as long as the key is held: LOOP 1/4 repeats the last beat, as a DJ's loop does; LOOP 1/32 repeats so fast it becomes a buzzing roll.

STUTTER 1/16T

The same with a sixteenth-note triplet (a sixth of a beat): the fast, off-grid stutter of a glitch edit.

BIT CRUSH

The live mix ground down to a handful of levels (8 each way from silence, about 4 bits) at a sixth of the sample rate: gritty, aliased, old-sampler noise.

GATE 1/16, GATE 1/32

The live mix chopped on and off in time: sound for the first half of every sixteenth (or thirty-second) note, silence for the second, with soft edges. A trance gate on the whole song.

LOW-PASS SWEEP

A resonant low-pass filter closes over one bar, from 18 kHz down to 200 Hz, and stays closed while held: the song sinks under water.

HIGH-PASS SWEEP

A resonant high-pass filter rises over one bar, from 30 Hz up to 6 kHz: the bass and the kick fall away and the song thins to its top, the classic build-up before a drop.

ECHO THROW

Throws the mix into the delay while held: dotted-eighth echoes bouncing left and right, with 65 % feedback. Let go, nothing more goes in, and the echoes ring on for about 2.4 s over the song. It borrows the DELAY's line, so the song's own DELAY is not heard meanwhile.

REVERB SWELL

The mix rises into a huge reverb over two beats, the dry sound falling to half under it: a wash. Let go, its tail rings on in the song's own REVERB (with REVERB off, it fades out over 80 ms). It borrows the REVERB, so the song's own is not heard meanwhile.

REVERSE

The last beat played backwards, again and again while held.

HALF SPEED

The mix from the moment pressed, played at half speed: an octave down, dragging behind the song. It falls further behind the longer it is held, and every second it jumps back to the present, so each second held plays the half second that began it.

TAPE STOP

The sound slows down and stops over one beat, pitch falling with it, as a tape machine switched off. Stopped, it is silent until you let go.

VINYL STOP

A turntable's stop button: the record brakes to a standstill in half a second. Stopped, it is silent. Let go, it spins back up in a tenth of a second, straight into the song, landing on the beat.

A pattern can hold punch-ins as commands (!08: as if its key were held for 8 rows), so songs can carry them. In LOOPS a punch-in is heard, and written only by RECORD LIVE.

Keys on FX

Playing PT/FM from MIDI

MIDI comes in over USB and through the MIDI IN jack (a TRS-to-DIN adapter, type A or B, for a keyboard's DIN cable); both behave the same.

• Notes play as the FM-1's keys do, on every screen: they play the current instrument, write in the EDITOR with REC on, record into LOOPS, feed the arpeggiator. Velocity sets the note's volume. Every note plays, not only the keys' range.
• MIDI IN CHANNEL picks the channel listened to (ALL at first).
• Program change picks the instrument in the current cartridge, as PRESETS does: program n is the cartridge's n-th sound, counted from 0 and skipping empty slots, so it is not always slot n. Bank select (CC 0) picks the cartridge, as SEL + PRESETS does: bank n is the n-th cartridge in the cartridge list, counted from 0, not cartridge number n. With the demo disk, bank 0 is 01 DRUM KIT and bank 6 is F0.
• Pitch bend bends the keys' notes, plus or minus 2 semitones. The sustain pedal (CC 64) holds the notes played from MIDI.
• Every other controller does nothing until you learn it onto an FM-1 control (below).

MIDI learn

An outside controller's knobs and pads can work the FM-1's own controls: its 7 knobs, MASTER, every button but HOME (HOME cancels learning, so it cannot be learned) and the 27 keys. A learned control works exactly as the FM-1's, on every screen, with its combinations and holds.

1. SETTINGS, the MIDI page (SEQ), turn SELECT to LEARN and press EDIT.
2. TOUCH AN FM-1 CONTROL: turn the knob or press the button or key to learn (it does nothing else then).
3. MOVE THE MIDI CONTROL: turn the outside knob, or press and let go the pad. The FM-1 works out what kind it is (an absolute knob, an endless encoder, a momentary or a toggle pad) and says what it learned (K1: CC 74, CH 1).

HOME cancels at either step. Up to 64 mappings; the list below LEARN shows them, and LFO deletes the one picked. SAVE keeps them.

MIDI out and the clock

• MIDI OUT goes over USB only (the FM-1 has no MIDI OUT jack): OFF, KEYS (the FM-1's keys as played, on MIDI OUT CHANNEL) or ALL (also everything that plays: track 0 on channel 1 ... track 15 on channel 16). Notes that came in over MIDI are never sent back.
• SYNC EXTERNAL follows an outside MIDI clock, from USB or the jack: its tempo, START, STOP, CONTINUE and the song position (a sequencer can start PT/FM from any bar). PT/FM locks to the clock itself, not only its tempo, so nothing drifts. In LOOPS the clock drives the loops; on DJ, the main deck. Lost for half a second, PT/FM plays on at the last tempo (CLOCK LOST).
• CLOCK OUT ON sends the clock, START / STOP / CONTINUE and the song position, timed to the sound as heard.
• SYNC PULSE: for instruments that follow a sync pulse through an audio cable, set SETTINGS' OUTPUT to SYNC PULSE L or R and use a stereo-split cable: a click on that side every half beat, the music in mono on the other. MASTER sets the clicks' level too. It works with SYNC INTERNAL only: while PT/FM follows a clock (SYNC EXTERNAL), the output stays stereo and sends no clicks.

USB audio

• The FM-1 is a class-compliant USB audio input: no driver on Windows, macOS, Linux or a phone. Record it like any microphone or interface.
• 16-bit stereo at 44.1 or 48 kHz, whichever the computer picks, kept in step with the computer's clock, so a recording never drifts or clicks.
• It carries the mix after the effects, always stereo, at SETTINGS' USB GAIN (MASTER does not touch it). The metronome and the count-in's clicks stay off it.
• No audio goes back from the computer to the FM-1.

MIDI CONTROLLER

The FM-1 can become a USB-MIDI controller for a computer: its keys, knobs and buttons send MIDI to a synth or a music program, and its screen shows what it sends.

1. SETTINGS, the MIDI page, SELECT to MIDI CONTROLLER, EDIT. It asks first (SWITCH TO MIDI CONTROLLER?, PT/FM STOPS UNTIL THE FM-1 IS SWITCHED OFF AND ON), then whether to save unsaved changes (SAVE BEFORE SWITCHING?).
2. PT/FM stops. The screen asks for the mode: REC for MIRROR (channel 16), HOME for GENERAL (channel 1); SELECT first picks another channel.
3. Play. Switch the FM-1 off and on to get PT/FM back.

GENERAL

A keyboard controller: the keys send notes (OCT- and OCT+ shift them, -3 to +3, both together back to 0); K1-K4 send CC 74, 71, 73, 72 (cutoff, resonance, attack, release); SELECT CC 1 (modulation); ALGORITHM CC 21; PRESETS program change; MASTER CC 7 (volume); PLAY starts and stops a music program (MIDI Machine Control, and CC 114); the other buttons CC 102 and up.

MIRROR

Every control sends one fixed message, for working the virtual FM-1 of PT/FM's web pages from the real panel; the page lights the FM-1's LEDs back.

Nothing is saved in controller mode, and nothing is written to the FM-1's memory.

Two panels

• TABLE (left): everything you drop on the page, kept in the browser. Its items have no numbers, so it holds any number of songs, patterns and cartridges, and two imported modules never clash.
• FM-1 (right): an image of what an FM-1 holds, with its numbers.
• Drag items between the panels (or use the arrows): an item moves with everything it uses (a song with its patterns, their instruments, their samples), and numbers are given as it lands on the FM-1 panel. DELETE removes items; UNDO takes back any step.
• Both panels group their items by kind: SONGS, PATTERNS, CARTRIDGES, SAMPLERS, SAMPLES and SYSTEM (the settings, the MIDI map, the loops, DJ's setup, the EDITOR's own pattern and the keys' song). A click on a group's header folds or opens it. Each panel shows its items as DETAILS (a row each, with sizes and what uses them), LIST or ICONS.
• Picking works as in a file manager: a click picks one item, Ctrl adds one, Shift a range, Ctrl+A all. A double-click (or Enter) opens the item's tab, Space plays it, Delete deletes it, F2 renames it; the right-click menu has the rest.
• The space bar under the FM-1 panel shows the FM-1's room: 103 blocks of 4 KB, as data, audio and free. Keep at least 16 blocks free for the FM-1's own saves: with fewer than 10 free, the FM-1 cannot save new things (it can still delete), and with fewer than 3 it cannot save at all until a WRITE frees room.

An item's tab

Every item opens in a tab of its own: double-click it, or EDIT IN A TAB in its menu. The tab edits a copy: SAVE puts the changes into the item, on its panel, and closes the tab; closing a tab with changes not saved asks SAVE, DISCARD or KEEP EDITING. A change saved on the FM-1 panel reaches the FM-1 only with WRITE. The pictures in a tab are the FM-1's own, drawn by PT/FM's own code exactly as the FM-1's screen shows them, and they follow the controls as you move them.

Song

Its properties (NAME, TEMPO, TICKS A ROW, ROWS A BEAT, SWING, AT THE END), its order (each position's pattern from a list, moved, removed or added), TRIM (tick the positions to keep), the MIXER (each track's LEVEL, PAN, DUCK and SENDS) and the FX setup (the chain's order by dragging, each effect on or off, its knobs).

Pattern

The grid, made for the mouse and the finger: a click picks a cell, a drag marks a block. The cell's panel has a keyboard of the FM-1's 27 keys with NOTE OFF and NO NOTE, the instrument picked from a list of the cartridges by name, the volume, and up to four commands, each with its meaning in words. On the computer's keyboard, the arrows, Page Up / Page Down, Home, End and Tab move; the letter keys write notes as the FM-1's keys play them (Z S X D C F V ... from F-3); = writes a note off; Delete clears; Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+V copy, cut and paste; Space plays.

Instrument

Its NAME, LEVEL (AUTO LEVEL measures it as the FM-1 does) and its engine's parameters, each page beside the FM-1's picture of it. Every instrument page has a keyboard of the FM-1's 27 keys, played by mouse, touch, the computer's keys, or a MIDI keyboard picked from the computer's inputs. With VIRTUAL MIDI KEYBOARD picked, the computer's keys play anywhere in the tab (Z S X D C ... from F-3 as the FM-1's keys; [ and ] change the octave).

Sample

Its waveform with START and END to drag (or drag across it for a new cut), PLAY THE CUT, CHANNELS (both mixed, left or right of a stereo sound), RATE, DEPTH (8 or 16 bits), TRIM SILENCE, WHOLE SAMPLE, the sizes before and after, and the instruments that play it. Their START, END and loop points follow a cut when you SAVE. OPTIMIZE (below) makes it smaller.

SETTINGS, MIDI MAP, LOOPS, DJ SETUP

Every setting (and your 16 GATE patterns as rows of steps), each MIDI mapping, each loop's instrument and notes, and DJ's crossfader, filter, decks and effects.

Your own sounds

A sound dropped on the page becomes a sample, a recording. To play it from the FM-1's keys it also needs an instrument that plays it: the instrument sets its note, loop and envelope. The page does not make one for you. On the page:

1. Drop the sound (WAV, FLAC, MP3, OGG ...) on the TABLE.
2. Drag it onto a sampler cartridge of the FM-1 panel: it joins that cartridge. (Dragged onto the panel anywhere else, it gets a new sampler cartridge of its own.)
3. Open the sampler cartridge's tab: beside the sample, NEW INSTRUMENT FOR IT makes the instrument. Set its BASE NOTE (the note the recording plays at its own pitch) and its loop, then SAVE.
4. WRITE.

Or make the instrument on the FM-1, after the WRITE: INSTRUMENTS, the sampler cartridge, an empty slot; SEL, INIT makes a plain instrument there; EDIT, and on its SAMPLE row ENV lists the cartridge's samples (the keys play the one highlighted, ENV picks it). Set its BASE NOTE and loop, then SAVE (chapter 8).

Making room

Samples take most of the FM-1's room. The page can make them smaller: in a sample's tab, OPTIMIZE offers three levels, each with its size and what it saves, heard before you SAVE:

LOSSLESS

Changes nothing you hear: it cuts what no instrument plays (before the first START, after the last END or LOOP END) and the silent tail.

SMALLER

Adds the rate the page proposes for the sound (the lowest that loses nothing heard).

SMALLEST

Adds 8 bits, a softer top, and a level 6 dB lower, made up by the instruments' LEVEL.

On the TABLE, OPTIMIZE SAMPLES does the same to every sample picked (and every sample of a picked sampler) at once, listing each level's size before and after. UNDO takes it back.

Reading, writing and backing up

Connect the FM-1 by USB with PT/FM running. Nothing stays connected: each action finds the FM-1, does its work and lets go.

READ

Reads what the FM-1 holds into the FM-1 panel (after the first time, only what changed).

WRITE

Makes the FM-1 hold exactly the panel. Before writing it shows what it writes and what it removes (in red), warns when the FM-1 saved something since the last READ (READ FIRST, WRITE ANYWAY or CANCEL) and when fewer than the 16 advised blocks would stay free, and offers to back up first: what the write would replace goes onto the TABLE (BACKUP and the time). When the panel does not fit around what the FM-1 keeps but fits the FM-1 emptied, it writes the whole user area anew and says so first (it takes longer). The FM-1's sound stops while it writes. With unsaved edits on the FM-1 it is refused: SAVE OR REVERT FIRST.

REVERT

Puts back what the panel showed after the last READ or WRITE.

DOWNLOAD DISK

Saves the FM-1 panel as a disk file (ptfm-2026-10-26.ptfmdsk). This is the backup: READ, then DOWNLOAD DISK.

UPLOAD DISK

Puts a disk file in the FM-1 panel, numbers kept; WRITE then puts it on the FM-1. A backup put back is exactly as it was.

Bringing content in

Drop files on the TABLE (or + ADD FILES):

Disks

.ptfmdsk files: their items as they are.

Tracker modules

MOD, S3M and XM: the song, its patterns (a channel a track, 16 at most), a sampler cartridge with every instrument and sample. IT is not read; XM's envelopes are not kept.

MIDI files

A song: each channel's notes become tracks, notes on the nearest row, the tempo kept, patterns of 4 bars; each channel's instrument mapped onto a built-in sound (all 128 General MIDI programs have one), the drums onto FM DRUM KIT. Pitch bend and controllers are left out.

DX7 cartridges

.syx, the 32-voice dump: a DX7 cartridge, exactly; a single voice's dump: a cartridge of one.

Sounds

WAV, FLAC, MP3, OGG and the rest: a sample, at the lowest rate that loses nothing heard.

Take only a part (some patterns, a cut of a sound) in the item's tab, then move it to the FM-1 panel and WRITE.

On every screen

SONGS

EDITOR

INSTRUMENTS

PLAYBACK

DJ

VISUAL

STATUS

SETTINGS

LOOPS

FX

On every screen

Saving and reverting

SONGS, patterns and the EDITOR

INSTRUMENTS