LOF-1Experimental
Experimental. LOF-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.
An M-VAVE FM-1 running LOF-1: a record turning, the chord Dm7, following you; the Groove page's Tempo, Swing, Jazz and Busy below it.

LOF-1 turns the M-VAVE FM-1 into a lofi groovebox. You play the lead on the keys and a tired jazz band follows you: it hears which chord your notes imply and the comp, bass and drums move with it on the beat. Stop playing and the band carries on; after a while a ghost takes the lead. Under it all, an old record crackles.

LOF-1 on the FM-1: play the lead and the band follows, or let it play by itself.Watch on YouTube

The band

You: the lead

Twenty instruments on the keys: Rhodes, Wurli, FM piano, two uprights, vibes, marimba, kalimba, glock, harp, strumstick, muted trumpet, tenor sax, clarinet, flute, ocarina, harmonica, bell, music box, sine. Single notes, or whole chords on each key.

Comp and bass

The chord, re-voiced on every change and rolled like a tired pianist: held, stabs, offbeats or an arpeggio. The bass plays roots, root and fifth, walks, or goes dub.

Answer

Call and response: when you rest after a phrase, a second instrument answers it, echoing yours or inventing its own.

Drums

A sixteen-step sequencer, eight lanes, eight patterns and swing, on the Dusty kit (samples) or the Tape kit (synthesized). Drift changes the pattern for you every few bars.

Daydream

Leave the keys alone and a ghost takes the lead with phrases of its own, as sparse or as busy as you set it. Any key takes it back.

Dust

The record under it all: vinyl crackle and pops, cassette hiss, reel-to-reel haze or radio static, with hum, wow and flutter and a granular smear of the music itself.

The pages

Eight LOF-1 screens: Groove, Lead, Comp, Bass, Answer, Drums, Dust and Global.

One button a voice, pressed again for its second page; four knobs a page; ALGORITHM picks the page's instrument. Hold any button and a card says what it does.

Four tapes

LOF-1 playing from vinyl, a cassette, reel to reel and an old radio.

Ten presets, each a different session: a key, a tempo, a band and a tape. Store over any of them and it's yours.

Five themes

LOF-1's Groove page in five colour themes: Lamp, Matcha, Sakura, Midnight and Sepia.

Global 2 picks the screen's colours: Lamp, Matcha, Sakura, Midnight or Sepia. Every screen comes out as if on an old TV, a slight curve, scanlines and a soft band rolling slowly down; Global 2 turns that off too, if you'd rather.

Playing it

The FM-1 in Chords mode: each key plays a chord of the scale.
Chords: SEL + HOME and each key plays the scale's chord on that note, as rich as Jazz has it. The band follows.
The FM-1 in FX mode: a map of which key does what.
FX: every key an effect, with a map on screen: stutters, record skip, half time, tape stop, backspin, muffle, radio, mutes, solos, throws. Hold SAVE to lock them on.
The FM-1's drum sequencer.
The sequencer: hold SEQ and the white keys are the sixteen steps, OCT− and OCT+ the lane.
A red panda leaning on a tree with a coffee, nodding along.
Leave it alone long enough and someone drops by to listen.

Screens

Six LOF-1 screens: following you, chords on the keys, daydreaming, effects locked on, the sequencer, a visitor.
The boot screen: a pixel red panda on the RedtailWorks name
Switching on
The second boot screen: LOF-1 in big pixel letters
…then LOF-1
The Daydream page
Daydream
Groove 2: Drift
Drift
The Space page
Space
REC's help card
Help cards

To your DAW

MIDI in: notes play the lead from any keyboard, and with Global › MIDI on Clock, a DAW's clock drives the tempo. MIDI out: the lead, comp, bass and answer on channels 1–4, the drums on 10. In the emulator, the six voices can come out on their own channels too.

Credits

LOF-1 is a RedtailWorks 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. The sampled instruments are from Versilian Studios' CC0 libraries (VCSL, VSCO-2 Community Edition). Screen font: Barlow Semi Condensed (SIL OFL). GPL-3.0. M-VAVE and FM-1 are trademarks of their owners; LOF-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.