Manual

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 up; when a leaf's charge is full it fires, and that's a note. A stem drones underneath. The day turns, rain comes and goes, the wind picks up, and the plant answers all of it: busy at noon, sparse at night, wilting in a drought, shaking in a gale. You don't play it so much as grow it.

This manual covers ECO-1 version 0.0.62.

Experimental. ECO-1 is new: it has been built and tested in the simulator and the browser emulator, 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 on the FM-1: a fern on a forest floor, mid-morning

1Install

Try it first: the emulator runs the same code in the browser, with sound, played with the mouse, a touch screen or the keyboard.

Install: open the installer in Chrome or Edge, connect the FM-1 with a USB data cable and press Install. Don't unplug it while it's writing; when it finishes, the FM-1 restarts into ECO-1.

From the command line instead (needs pip3 install mido python-rtmidi): python3 tools/fm1_install.py eco1-VERSION.fwsc, with the file from the site's download.

Go back: "Back to the stock firmware", at the bottom of the installer, puts M-VAVE's firmware back. M-VAVE's own updater, M-UPGRADE, works too.

Installing other firmware is at your own risk. If the FM-1 won't start, hold OCT− and OCT+ together for five seconds for the update mode, then install again.

2Getting started

ECO-1 starts by itself: the RedtailWorks card, then ECO-1, then the plant wakes. A few minutes with it:

Listen. The first plant, Fern, is playing on a forest floor, mid-morning. Turn MASTER for volume.
Watch it. Each leaf's vein warms as its charge builds, and the leaf flashes as it fires. Its page button (ENV, ARP, LFO) flashes with it.
Try another plant. Turn PRESETS. Each of the eight has its own body, place, key, voices and way with the weather.
Change the weather. Press SEQ: turn Rain up for showers, Wind and Gusts for a storm.
Touch it. Press EDIT: a charge runs up the plant from the soil.
Freeze it. Press REC: the day and the weather stop where they are and the reverb rings on. REC again lets them go.
Rest. Press PLAY: the plant rests and its sounds fade. PLAY again and it wakes.

3Controls

The FM-1 running ECO-1, each control labelled

Control	What it does
Keys	The scale. Each key adds its note to the scale or takes it out; lit keys are in it. Every octave of a note is the same key. The root stays, and the scale keeps at least three notes.
PLAY	Grow / rest. Lit green while growing.
REC	Freeze: the day and the weather stop, the reverb rings on. Lit while frozen.
EDIT	Touch: a charge runs up the plant from the soil, waking each part in turn.
HOME	The Plant page. Hold it and turn SELECT for the day's length, from any page.
SEL	The Stem page.
ENV · ARP · LFO	The low, middle and top leaf's pages. Each flashes as its leaf fires.
SEQ · FX	The Weather and Space pages.
GLO	The Setup page; GLO again, the MIDI out page.
SELECT	The previous or next page.
ALGORITHM	Mode: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, pentatonic major and minor. Editing the scale with the keys makes it Custom.
PRESETS	The plant (see The plants).
KNOB 1–4	The four values on the screen. A few clicks are single steps; a quick turn speeds up.
OCT− / OCT+	An octave down or up: on a leaf's page that leaf, on the Stem page the stem, anywhere else the whole plant.
MASTER	Volume.
SAVE	Saves all eight plants. Held 1.5 s: the plant back to its recipe.

Help: hold any button but PLAY for a second and a card says what it does.

4The screen

Morning, a touch, a storm, night, a drought, and on MIDI clock

Top line: the plant in a tag, its root and mode. On the right, three dots, one a leaf, lit as they fire (a play triangle while resting), STILL while frozen, EXT and the tempo while on MIDI clock, and a dot when there's something unsaved. Messages ("ADDED F#", "TOUCH") show here for a moment.
The scene: the plant in its place under the day's sky: the sun or the moon on its arc, stars at night, grey in the rain, rain falling and wind streaking through. Parts green as they're watered and yellow, droop and shrink as they dry; they sway as the wind moves them; a part's vein warms as its charge builds and the whole part flashes as it fires.
Top left: the time of day.
Along the ground: the soil's water (the pond's, for the lotus), and the weather in words: DRIZZLE, RAIN, POURING; BREEZE, WINDY, GALE.
Bottom: the page's name and dots, one a page, then its four values, one for each knob. The one you're turning lights up.

5How the plant plays

The leaves. Each leaf holds a charge, as a plant cell holds an electrical potential. Light and water build it; it leaks slowly away. When it crosses its threshold the leaf fires: that's a note. Its pitch is where the leaf's slow walk through the scale has got to (wetter leaves climb, wind makes the steps wilder); its strength is how far past the threshold the charge went. The top leaf gets the most light and the most wind; the low leaf drinks first and dries last.

The stem. A firing runs down the stem and nudges the other leaves (Spread), and one that fires soon after answers a third above, so phrases call and answer. The stem also drones, on the root and an interval over it, as loud as the soil is wet and brighter in daylight.

The day. Night, dawn, noon, dusk on a cycle of Day length. Light charges the leaves, so noon is busy and night sparse; at dawn the leaves wake together. Warmth speeds the plant up and dries the soil faster.

The weather. Rain sets how often showers come and how heavy they are. While it rains there's a rain track, a hiss and the chirps of drops, and drops landing on the leaves give them a charge. Without rain, the soil dries and the plant wilts and goes quiet, top leaf first; the rain brings it back. Wind sets how hard it blows and Gusts how much it swells: it shakes the leaves (more chaos), sings (a synthesized whistle that slides up with the gusts, a second tone in strong wind), and opens the space: more reverb, longer tails, a sway in them.

6The plants

Each preset is a plant in its own place, with its own body, key, voices and stem, and its own way with the weather. The weather and the sound settings are each plant's to change; what it is stays.

Plant	Where	Its way
Fern	A forest floor	Three fronds that curl as they dry. A shade plant: busy even in low light; thirsty.
Orchid	A windowsill	Two broad leaves and a flower spike (the top leaf is its flowers). The weather is outside the glass: the wind barely touches it, its whistle is muffled, and the rain only half waters it.
Moss	A boulder by a stream	Three spore stalks that puff spores as they fire. Low and still in the wind; thirsty; a shade plant.
Cactus	The desert	A saguaro: two arms and a crown. Nearly deaf to the wind, holds water for a long time, and blooms when the rain comes, waking the whole plant.
Willow	By a lake	Three curtains of hanging strands that swing hardest of all.
Lotus	A pond	Never dry. Two lily pads and a flower that closes at night and opens as it fires; rain rings the water and lands on the pads more often.
Ivy	A brick wall	Three vines, their leaves fluttering. Hardy.
Bamboo	Under misty mountains	Three culms that bend with the wind. Starts in a storm.

7The pages

Plant (HOME)

Knob	What it does
Light	How strong the sun is.
Day	How long a day and a night take: 30 s to 30 min (4 to 512 bars on MIDI clock). Also HOME + SELECT.
Warmth	The plant's metabolism: warmer fires faster and dries the soil sooner.
Spread	How strongly a firing runs down the stem to the other leaves.

Stem (SEL)

Knob	What it does
Level	How loud the drone is (it follows the soil too: louder wet).
Colour	Hum, Organ, Reed or Choir (the notes doubled a few cents apart).
Interval	What sits over the root: nothing, a fifth, a fourth, an octave, or the scale's third. Kept to the scale (the octave if the scale hasn't it).
Tone	Dark to bright; daylight opens it up further.

OCT− / OCT+ on this page move the stem's octave.

Low, Mid, Top leaf (ENV, ARP, LFO)

Knob	What it does
Level	How loud.
Voice	Glass, Wood, Pluck, Chime, Reed, Flute, Swell or Kalimba.
Octave	Two octaves down to two up from the leaf's register (low C3, middle C4, top C5).
Tone	Soft to bright.

Weather (SEQ)

Knob	What it does
Rain	How often showers come and how heavy. 0: a drought.
Wind	How hard the wind blows.
Gusts	How much it swells and falls.
Sound	How loud the rain track and the wind's whistle are.

Space (FX)

Knob	What it does
Reverb	The plate's send.
Size	How long it rings.
Wind verb	How far the wind opens the space: more send, longer tails, a sway in them.
Stem verb	How much of the drone goes into the reverb.

Setup (GLO) and MIDI out (GLO again)

Knob	What it does
Root	The key's root.
Tune	Fine tuning, ±50 cents.
Sync	Free: its own time. Clock: follows MIDI clock while it comes.
Grid	On the clock, the leaves fire on 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/8T or 1/16T, or Free.
Sends	MIDI out: Off, Notes, Notes+CC or CC.
Channels	The five channels it uses: 1–5 up to 12–16.
Lights	The key lights and the buttons' glow: On, Keys (no glow), Off.
CPU	The audio's share of the processor.

Sync, Grid and the MIDI settings belong to you, not the plant: they stay as you set them across plants.

8MIDI clock and your DAW

Clock in (USB or the TRS jack). With Sync on Clock, ECO-1 follows MIDI clock whenever it comes: EXT and the tempo show top right. START grows the plant from the morning, STOP rests it, and Day counts in bars. With a Grid, a leaf that's ready waits for the next step, so its notes land on the beat. When the clock stops, the plant goes back to its own time.

MIDI out (USB). On the MIDI out page (GLO twice), Sends picks what goes out:

Channel (default)	What
1	The low leaf's notes
2	The middle leaf's notes
3	The top leaf's notes
4	The stem's note
5	The signals, as CCs (about 20 a second, when they change)

CC	Signal
20, 21, 22	Each leaf's charge, building to its firing
23, 24, 25	Each leaf's water
26	The soil's water
27	Light
28	Rain
29	Wind
30	The stem's level
31	A spark: 127 as any leaf fires, falling away

Record the notes on their own tracks, or map the CCs to anything: the wind opening a filter on another synth, the spark gating a delay.

Audio per voice is in the emulator for now: choose "8 channels" under its device and it gives the mix on 1–2, then each voice dry on its own: 3 low leaf, 4 middle leaf, 5 top leaf, 6 stem, 7 weather, 8 reverb. The FM-1 itself sends the stereo mix from its output.

Remote: the FM-1 plays the emulator. Open the emulator, switch it on and connect MIDI (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 plugged in by USB). Then hold SEL and press GLO on the FM-1: REMOTE shows on its screen, it goes quiet and stops sending MIDI, and its whole panel (every button, key and knob, and MASTER) plays the emulator instead, its lights following the emulator's. SEL + GLO again gives the FM-1 back. For livestreams, the emulator's Stream view shows the FM-1 and its screen large on a 16:9 stage, with whatever you press on the real one lit up.

9Saving

What you change is kept with the plant. ECO-1 saves by itself a few seconds after a change while resting, or press SAVE. Hold SAVE for 1.5 s to put the plant back to its recipe (saved when you next save).

10Troubleshooting

No sound: turn MASTER up; check PLAY is lit (press it to grow); check the page levels.
Silent plant: look at the soil. In a drought the plant wilts and stops; turn Rain up on the Weather page, or pick the Lotus or Cactus.
The clock does nothing: Sync must be Clock (Setup). EXT shows while the clock comes.
No MIDI out: Sends must not be Off (MIDI out page), and your DAW must listen on channels 1–5 (or the ones you chose).
The FM-1 won't start: hold OCT− and OCT+ together for five seconds for the update mode, then install again.

11Credits

ECO-1 is a RedtailWorks project. It's 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. The reverb is Jon Dattorro's plate. 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.

<sub>Leave the garden be a while, and look again when it's dark.</sub>