FuMi-1 文

Custom firmware for the M-VAVE FM-1, inspired by the Suiko ST-50 (水光トレーナー), the Japanese poetry-accompaniment instrument. The sixteen white keys are the ST-50's lower row, mi fa la ti do three times and a top mi; the black keys its upper row or koto ornaments; the key is set in 本数; the tuning switches between 平均律 and the ST-50's 純正律 as measured from recordings; the sounds are a koto, a second koto, sho, shakuhachi, two more flutes, a bowed kokyū, a taiko, two wood blocks and four of FuMi's own, each with its name in kanji on the screen; the trill plays in pairs like a hand; and REC is a looper, as the ST-50's 自動伴奏 was: play a phrase, loop it, play over it.

Playing

MIDI comes in over USB (chromatic, each note at its velocity) and goes out over USB with the strokes' velocities. The patches are Yamaha DX7-format voices; the built-ins are community patches and FuMi's own, with no factory ROM voice among them.

The instruments

PRESETS steps through them; the screen shows each name with its Japanese name beneath, Suiko-style. The order follows the ST-50's voice slider: kotos, winds, the bowed voice, percussion. Eight are picks from community DX7 banks on patches.fm, six are FuMi's own. FuMi's own six respond to how hard they are struck.

What comes from the ST-50

The Suiko ST-50 is a 水光 trainer for shigin, the chanted recitation of Chinese and Japanese poems: a keyboard that gives the singer the scale, the key and a koto or flute under the voice. FuMi-1 keeps its logic on the FM-1's panel.

The black keys as ornaments

Press SEQ and the black keys stop being the upper row and become techniques on the note that sounds. They are momentary: held, they act; released, they stop. The first four come twice, one set per hand position; the fifth of each set and the eleventh are the koto's left hand, the techniques a player presses into the strings behind the bridge.

Ornaments recorded in a loop act on the loop's notes; your own ornament keys act on what your hands play.

The trill

Strokes come as ka-ta, ka-ta: a short gap inside the pair (42 % of it), a longer one between pairs, a little jitter mostly on the long gap. The first stroke is the hardest, each ta light, each later ka normal, and no two strokes alike. Every key you press restarts the pair, so the strokes line up with your hand. Trill rate on HOME sets the speed; Trill feel (hold GLO) goes from 0, the ST-50's even machine, to 100, the full pairs and accents. The Trill pages keep the defaults behind the feel knob: pair gap, ta level, first stroke, jitter, and oroshi for the ornament key: None, Short, Medium or Long, the time the trill takes from slow to full speed. Pair gap and ta level read as words, Even to Tight and Same to Faint, the bar beneath keeping the exact position. The ARP button's trill stays plain whatever the setting.

The looper

REC arms; the first key you play starts the loop; REC again closes it where you are and it plays (or it closes itself at 32 beats of 60 BPM, set on the ENV page). REC while it plays overdubs a layer. PLAY stops and starts from the top; held a second it undoes the last layer; REC held a second clears. Keys, the ornament keys and the bend buttons are recorded with their timing; knobs and MASTER are not. The loop stores keys, not pitches, so change 本数 or the tuning and it follows. Each layer keeps the instrument it was recorded in, so turn PRESETS and play over it. The loop lives in memory until the FM-1 is switched off.

The whole story, the research and the measurements are in the README and in docs/research/ on GitHub.

To go back to the official firmware, use the installer's "Back to the stock firmware", or M-VAVE's updater, M-UPGRADE, from m-vave.com/download. Suiko and ST-50 are names of Suikohsha; M-VAVE and FM-1 are trademarks of their owners. FuMi-1 is affiliated with none of them. Site from commit c83d2c4.