GRAV-1

Experimental. GRAV-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.

GRAV-1 turns the M-VAVE FM-1 into a small solar system that plays slow, dark, spacey ambient. A star in the middle hisses and roars in coloured noise. Up to six planets orbit it, each a voice that plays a short phrase as it goes round, warm and dry near the star, cold and wet far out. A drum sequencer sets their years, larger planets swell smaller ones as they pass, and dust clouds, asteroids and comets drift through.

The system

The star

A bed of noise in eight colours, drawn in its own colour: a pink star for pink noise, a brown dwarf for brown, a blue giant, a crackling black hole. It roars now and then, and flares, never above its level.

Planets

One to six voices from sixteen: Drone, Glass bell, Pluck, Soft keys, Choir, Laser, Ether, Ring hiss, and darker ones: Abyss, Dark choir, Cello, Gong, Toll, Whisper, Cold pad, Dusk organ. Each plays its phrase round its orbit, kept to the scale, a note or two changing every year.

Pulse

Six drum lanes (Kick, Pulsar, Sonar, Geiger, Rim, Shaker), one a planet. A lane's hits set its planet's year and, by Kepler, how close it orbits. A lane left empty leaves its planet dormant.

Gravity

A bigger planet swells a smaller one as it passes, peaking at the closest approach. Dormant worlds wake only then. The outermost planet's year is the Great Year: the chord moves.

Weather

Dust clouds soften and warm the whole system, asteroids cross it pulling at the planets, and comets fall ringing into the star and burn up. Black keys 1–3 call them.

Space

A dotted-eighth echo, Dattorro's plate, a radio of hiss and falling whistlers, and the stereo width the planets spread across.

Ten systems

Ten GRAV-1 screens: Sol, Lumen, Rosette, Ember, Rigel, Veil, Cinder, Horizon, Kuiper and Nova, each its own star and planets.

One for each of the star's colours and two more. Each keeps its own settings; SAVE on the Setup page keeps all ten.

The FM-1 in the sequencer: six lanes of 16 steps, the white keys lit with the lane's steps. — **The sequencer:** hold SEQ for eight banks of six lanes. The white keys are the lane's steps, black keys or OCT pick the lane, SELECT the bank. More hits, a faster year, a closer orbit.

The FM-1 in a dust cloud, an asteroid crossing. — **Weather:** dust, asteroids and comets come by on their own, or when you call them.

Themes

Seven screen themes on the Display page. The planets keep their warm-to-cold colours, molten near the star to ice far out, and the star its own.

To your DAW

The FM-1 on MIDI clock: EXT and the tempo in the header, the Setup page with Sync on Clock. — **MIDI clock in:** START plays from step one, STOP rests it, and the steps and the orbits follow the clock.

The FM-1 on the MIDI out page. — **MIDI out:** each planet's notes on its own channel, the drums on another, and the system as CCs: each planet's tide, the roar, the dust, the Great Year, the flares.

Screens

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

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

A planet's page, its orbit picked out — A planet

Credits

GRAV-1 is a fork of AMB-1 by Charles Vestal, by way of HYP-1 and ECO-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; GRAV-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.