ECO-1

Experimental. ECO-1 is new: built and tested in the simulator and in the emulator here, not yet on a real FM-1. Install it at your own risk; HYP-1, or M-VAVE's own firmware, goes back on the same way.

ECO-1 turns the M-VAVE FM-1 into a small plant that plays music. Each of its three leaves holds a charge that light and water build; when it's full, the leaf fires a note. A stem drones beneath. The day turns, rain comes and goes, the wind picks up, and the plant answers all of it.

The plant

Leaves

Three voices, low, middle and top, each its own register and one of eight sounds: Glass, Wood, Pluck, Chime, Reed, Flute, Swell, Kalimba. A firing runs down the stem and the others answer.

Stem

A drone on the root and an interval over it, in four colours (Hum, Organ, Reed, Choir), as loud as the soil is wet and brighter by day.

Sky

Night, dawn, noon, dusk, on a cycle of 30 s to 30 min (or bars, on MIDI clock). Light charges the leaves; warmth speeds them up.

Weather

Rain waters the soil and plays a rain track; drops land on the leaves. Wind shakes them, sings a whistle that slides up with the gusts, and opens the reverb.

Eight plants

Eight ECO-1 screens: a fern on a forest floor, an orchid on a windowsill, moss on a boulder by a stream, a saguaro in the desert, a willow by a lake, a lotus in a pond, ivy on a brick wall, bamboo under misty mountains.

Each preset is its own plant in its own place, with its own way with the weather: the cactus barely notices the wind and blooms when rain comes; the willow swings in every breeze; the orchid lives indoors; the lotus never dries.

Weather and time

Six ECO-1 screens: morning, a touch, a storm on the cactus, the lotus at night, a fern wilting in a drought, the ivy on MIDI clock.

To your DAW

The FM-1 on MIDI clock: EXT 120 in the header, the Setup page with Sync on Clock and a 1/16 grid. — **MIDI clock in:** START grows the plant from the morning, STOP rests it, the day counts in bars, and the Grid puts the leaves on the beat.

The FM-1 on the MIDI out page. — **MIDI out:** each leaf's notes on its own channel, the stem on another, and the plant's signals as CCs 20–31: charge, water, soil, light, rain, wind, a spark on every firing.

Screens

The boot screen: a pixel red panda on the RedtailWorks name — Switching on

The second boot screen: ECO-1 in big pixel letters — …then ECO-1

Credits

ECO-1 is a fork of AMB-1 by Charles Vestal, by way of HYP-1. The platform (USB, update loader, storage, installer) is Felucca by Leo Kuroshita (@kurogedelic), Hügelton Instruments. Screen font: Barlow Semi Condensed (SIL OFL). GPL-3.0. M-VAVE and FM-1 are trademarks of their owners; ECO-1 is not affiliated with M-VAVE.

To go back to the official firmware, use the installer's "Back to the stock firmware", or M-VAVE's updater, M-UPGRADE. Installing firmware is at your own risk.