HYP-1
HYP-1 turns the M-VAVE FM-1 into a hypnotic techno and acid machine. It plays from the moment it's switched on: a breathing pad, a deep drone, a generative 303 line and grain, over drums you sequence. You shape the voices like a small modular, flip patterns on the bar, break it down, build it up, and record the whole performance into your DAW.
The voices
Pad
Four breathing voices in sixteen sounds (Rhodes, sung, strings, glass, dub and rave chords, supersaw and more), each on its own cycle, so the chord forms and dissolves. Env and LFO pages shape the breath and move the filter, level, pan or pitch; the Chords page picks triads, 7ths, 9ths, sus, fourths or dub techno's minor 9 stabs.
Drone
Sixteen sounds (saws, Reese, rumble, hoover, fifths, FM…) and a sub through a resonant 24 dB low-pass, with its own envelope (on each chord, or every 1–8 bars) and LFO: a slow 16-bar sweep by default.
Acid
A 303-style line written as it plays: 1–16 steps of chord tones with accents and slides, in sixteen sounds from the 303's saw and square to sync, pluck and chip. Mutate rewrites a few steps each time round.
Drums
Kick, snare, clap, closed and open hats, perc, each drum's sound from eight kits. A 16-step sequencer with six patterns per piece; a new pattern waits for the bar.
Noise
A bed of grain in eight colours (white, pink, brown, blue, violet, grey, crackle, radio hiss), with its own tone and sidechain pump.
Space
A tape echo, from an eighth to a bar, and a plate reverb, from a room to a long hall.
Sounds, and playing them
Each voice has sixteen sounds and each drum eight, stored with the piece. Pick them on the voice's own page, or hold SEL and turn ALGORITHM on any of its pages; on the drums' pages that swaps the whole kit.
| Voice | Sounds |
|---|---|
| Pad | Rhodes, Voices, Strings, Glass, Organ, Warm, Stabs (chords on the off-beats), Dark, Dub (dark saw stabs), Trance (supersaw), Poly, Hollow, Pings (bell stabs), Hits (organ stabs), Rave (supersaw stabs), Sine |
| Drone | Saws, Warm, Grit, Dirty, Reese, Pulse, FM, Organ, Rumble, Sub, Square, Hoover, Fifths, Metal, Sync, Bright |
| Acid | Saw, Square, Driven, Sync, Pluck, PWM, Chip, Sub, Trance, Bleep, Fifth, Bell, Organ, Laser, Fold, Soft (the last eight made for arps and leads) |
| Kit | Kick, snare (and clap), hats and perc, each Hypno, House, Techno, Acid, Break, Minimal, Hard or 808 (the Break kick chops and crushes the drums live) |
Play it
Ten pieces
PRESETS picks 01–10, each with its own settings, six drum patterns and drum sounds. On Global, SAVE stores the piece at once: playing, the music pauses for a moment while it's written and picks up where it was.
Breakdowns
SAVE drops a breakdown on the next bar; tap again for a four-bar build and the drop, or hold it for the drop straight away. REC freezes the chord.
Shift
Hold SEL: white keys 1–6 jump to a pattern on the bar, PRESETS changes piece on the next bar, ALGORITHM the voice's sound, ENV the voice on screen by hand, and in the sequencer you copy, clear and restore lanes.
Links
Patch the drums into the voices: each kick opens the drone's filter, snares flash the pad, hats accent the acid, and the perc lane can clock the acid line. SEL + SEQ turns them on and off.
Remote
Plug the FM-1 into a computer, open the emulator and press SEL + GLO: its whole panel plays the browser, lights and all. Any other MIDI controller works too, with MIDI learn.
Always different
Every power-on starts on a piece at random: as you stored it, or slightly nudged from its factory settings. Chords drift, the acid mutates, a slow tide moves between sparse and full.
Screens
Also from RedtailWorks
LOF-1 Experimental
A lofi groovebox for the FM-1: you play the lead on the keys and a tired jazz band follows, with an old record crackling under it. Have a look, or try it in the emulator.
ECO-1 Experimental
A small plant plays the FM-1. Three leaves fire notes as light and water charge them, a stem drones, and the rain, wind and the turning day play the plant. Have a look, or try it in the emulator.
GRAV-1 Experimental
A star and its planets play the FM-1: each planet a voice on its orbit, the drums setting their years, gravity, dust clouds, asteroids and comets doing the rest. Slow, dark and spacey. Have a look, or try it in the emulator.
HYP-1 is free, and always will be. If it's found a place in your music, a coffee keeps the updates, videos and new pieces coming.
Support on Ko-fiCredits
HYP-1 is a fork of AMB-1 by Charles Vestal, the generative ambient firmware it grew from. The platform (USB, update loader, storage, installer) is Felucca by Leo Kuroshita (@kurogedelic), Hügelton Instruments. Screen font: Chakra Petch (SIL OFL). GPL-3.0. M-VAVE and FM-1 are trademarks of their owners; HYP-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, from m-vave.com/download. Installing firmware is at your own risk.