FM1 Move

Quick start 5 MINUTES

From a fresh install to your first eight-track loop. Everything here also works in the browser simulator (keyboard: Z…M and Q…U are the keys, F1…F10 the buttons, Space PLAY, Enter REC).

1. Switch on and press PLAYA new project already has eight tracks: drums on 1 and 7, bass, chords, lead, pad, pluck and keys on the others. The PLAY light flashes on every beat. Press PLAY again to stop.
2. Pick a track, play itTurn SELECT — one detent, one track (or hold SEL and press white key 1–8). The keys now play that track. Turn PRESETS for another sound (on a drum track: another kit).
3. Write a beat without recordingSelect track 1 (drums). Play the kick once on the keys, then hold SEQ and tap white keys 1, 5, 9, 13. Play the snare, hold SEQ, tap 5 and 13. Tap the same key again to remove a step.
4. Record a basslineSelect track 2, press PLAY, then REC: what you play is recorded at once and every pass adds on top. Press REC again to stop recording. Made a mistake? EDIT + OCT− undoes it.
5. Give it a groovePress ARP (the GROOVE screen). Turn ALGORITHM for a template (MPC 16, HOUSE, UK GARAGE…), KNOB 1 for swing, KNOB 4 for a human feel.
6. Mix and performPress GLO (MIXER): KNOB 1–4 are volume, pan, reverb, delay of the selected track. Hold GLO and press keys 1–8 to mute, 9–16 to solo. Hold FX and press a key for a punch-in effect.
7. Keep itStop, leave the FM-1 alone 2.5 s: the autosave keeps your work, even through a power-off. To keep a version: hold HOME (PROJECT), pick a slot with ALGORITHM, press SAVE.

The panel

Two rows of buttons, one meaning each: the top row is sound and mix, the bottom row is time and arrangement. Tap a button to open its screen; hold it and touch keys or knobs for its layer. The lit button always says where you are.

Always available

The screens

Ten screens, each one press away; pressing the button of the screen you are on turns its page. These pictures are drawn by the firmware's own code.

The knobs on each screen

Layers: hold a button, touch a key

While a function button is held, the 16 white keys and the four knobs do that button's job. Let go and the keys play notes again. A button you held and used does not open its screen. Holding SEQ or SEL shows its page over any screen, as on SLOOP: STEPS and KEY (below).

GLO held

SAVE (CLIPS) held

The 16 punch-in effects (FX held, white keys 1–16)

Loops of 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and 1/32 · stutter · reverse · tape stop · half speed · low-pass and high-pass sweeps · phone · bit crush · alias · gate · echo · tape wobble. All locked to the tempo; the mix is exactly dry again when you let go.

Eight tracks

Every track is independent and has no fixed role. Each one is a synth or a drum track (any number of drum kits at once), with its own pattern, length, division, level, pan, sends, filter, groove and mute / solo. Each track has its colour everywhere.

The new-project layout above; change anything.

Change a track's kind

On TRACKS (SEL), turn KNOB 1: the screen asks "TRACK 2 TO DRUMS? — its pattern is cleared". Press SEL to confirm, anything else to cancel. All six of the track's clips are emptied too (synth steps and drum lanes do not convert).

Heavy engines

The GRAIN, FM6 and PHYS engines each need a big memory area; three are available. A fourth heavy engine is refused with a message ("HEAVY ENGINES ALL IN USE") until one of them changes engine; a project that asks for more loads them as ANALOG and says "HEAVY ENGINES: 3 MAX".

Mute, solo, mix

Hold GLO: keys 1–8 mute tracks 1–8, keys 9–16 solo them. The MIXER screen (tap GLO) sets the selected track's volume, pan, reverb and delay sends; choose the track with SELECT.

The sequencer

Up to 64 steps per track, each track with its own length and division — polymeters stay in phase on one sample-accurate clock, with no drift.

Write steps (no recording needed)

1. Select the track, play the note or chord you want (on a drum track: the sound) — or hold SEQ and turn KNOB 1 to pick it.
2. Hold SEQ and tap white keys 1–16: each writes that step of the page. Tap a lit step again to clear it.
3. Longer patterns: with SEQ held, OCT− / OCT+ or the first four black keys change the page; on the SEQUENCER screen, ALGORITHM.

While SEQ is held the keys' lights show the steps of the page and the playhead.

Edit a step

Hold SEQ, then hold a step's key (or several), and turn:

The STEP page NEW

SLOOP's step editor, back: on the SEQUENCER screen of a synth track, press SEQ again (the page dots show page 2; SEQ once more goes back). The drum track keeps its grid only.

The top shows the cursor's 16 steps as a piano roll over the pattern's note range (black-key rows, a line on every C), the cursor as a raised column with a white ▲, the playhead tinted. Under it, one cell per step: a note is filled, a tie is a half bar, a rest is empty, an accent is a cap, a slide is a ramp to the next note. The title reads "STEP n / length".

Control	STEP page
KNOB 1 · ALGORITHM	STEP: moves the cursor
KNOB 2	NOTE: transposes the step (an empty step gets the last note entered)
KNOB 3	TIME: NOTE / TIE / REST
KNOB 4	FLAG: – / ACC (accent) / SLIDE / A+S
Keys	The keys you press together become the cursor's step (a chord of up to 4 notes; mono voice mode: the last key; chord mode: the chord as it sounds). Let go of every key and the cursor moves on.
EDIT	Clears the cursor's step and moves on
EDIT + OCT−	Undo: one entry, or one step's knob edits, at a time

Pattern tools

• Length and division: SEQUENCER KNOB 3 (1–64 steps) and KNOB 1 (1/32 to 2 bars, triplets included).
• Swing: SEQUENCER KNOB 2, MPC style, 0 (straight) to 100.
• Shift: SEQUENCER KNOB 4, or EDIT held + KNOB 1.
• Length ×2 / ½ and transpose: EDIT held + KNOB 2 / KNOB 3.
• Erase: EDIT held + the key of a note or drum sound removes it as the loop plays it; stopped, from the whole pattern.
• Fills: steps marked "fill only" play only during a fill; GLO held + C# plays a fill while held, + D# fills the next bar.
• Undo / redo: EDIT + OCT− / OCT+.

Chords and the key

Steps hold chords of up to four notes. Hold SEL: white keys 9–16 and the black keys set the key of the song; the knobs set chord mode (one key plays a triad, 7th, 9th, sus4 or power chord of the scale), the scale (16, from major and minor to blues and whole tone), key snapping (off, snap, scale on the white keys) and transpose. In chord mode the black keys change the chord while it is held. While SEL is held the KEY page shows the chord every white key plays.

Recording

• Playing: REC starts the take on the next bar's first beat (its light blinks while it waits), and REC during a take lets it finish the bar before it stops — never in the middle, as Ableton's quantisation. SETTINGS › REC QUANT sets the cycle: 1, 2, 4 or 8 bars (counted from PLAY), or OFF to record at once. REC again while it waits cancels. Every pass is added on top (overdub). Notes land where you heard them — the keys' latency is taken back.
• Stopped: REC arms (its light flashes); your first note — or PLAY — starts the loop and the recording.
• Stop recording: REC again ("REC OFF").
• Metronome and count-in: HOME held twice › SETTINGS › METRONOME (OFF · REC · ON) and COUNT-IN (OFF · 1 BAR).
• Undo a take: EDIT + OCT− (one step; EDIT + OCT+ redo).
• Note repeat: hold ARP and hold keys: rolls at the rate of KNOB 1, recorded as ratchets.
• Drums with dynamics: hold OCT− / OCT+ while you play for ghost / hard hits; every hit keeps its level.
• Timing is kept: the recorded deviation of every note stays with it, so the Groove Engine's quantize can be changed at any time.

Clips and scenes NEW

Each track keeps six patterns, its clips; the one it plays is the pattern you see and edit. Change clips — or all eight tracks at once with a scene — on the next bar, without stopping.

Launch

• A clip: hold SAVE (CLIPS) and press white key 1–6: clip 1–6 of the selected track.
• A scene: hold SAVE and press white key 9–14: scene 1–6 puts every track on its clip 1–6. A track whose clip is empty goes quiet.
• When: while playing, the new clip starts at the start of the next bar on its first step, whatever its length and division; stopped, at once. Press PLAY to stop before the bar and the queued clip is there at once.

While SAVE is held the key lights show the clips: keys 1–6 lit = playing, blinking = queued for the next bar, dim = holds a pattern, off = empty; keys 9–14 lit = that scene plays (every track on that clip), dim = some track holds that clip.

The CLIPS screen

Tap SAVE. A grid of eight tracks (columns, in their colours) by six clips (rows). The cursor is a white frame on the selected track's column; ALGORITHM or KNOB 1 (CLIP) moves it up and down, SELECT changes the track. The title reads "SCENE n" when every track plays clip n.

How clips keep your work

• Everything that writes a pattern — SEQ + keys, recording, EDIT, the STEP page, the groove, the device page — writes the clip playing. Switching clips first keeps what the outgoing clip got, so nothing is lost.
• Clips are saved with the project and the autosave.
• The clips share 8 KB of memory; a 16-step pattern takes about 100–300 bytes. When it is full the panel says CLIP MEMORY FULL: the clip keeps its last stored version, and the pattern playing is still saved with the project. Clear clips you no longer need to make room.
• Changing a track between synth and drums empties its clips.

The Groove Engine NEW

Quantize without losing your timing, templates of famous feels, swing, micro timing and a human touch — all non-destructive, per track or for the whole song.

Control	GROOVE screen (ARP)
ALGORITHM	Template: STRAIGHT, MPC 16, HOUSE, UK GARAGE, BROKEN, ROLLING, LATIN, USER. Choosing one also sets its swing.
KNOB 1	Swing, 0–100
KNOB 2	Quantize strength: 100 % on the grid, 0 % exactly as played
KNOB 3	Groove amount: how much of the template's timing and accents
KNOB 4	Humanize: small timing and velocity variations

• Non-destructive: what you played is kept; quantize, template and humanize act as it plays and can change any time, even while playing.
• Per track or song: tracks follow the song's groove until you edit a track's groove — then it has its own.
• Humanize repeats: the variations are the same every loop and after saving, so a take you like stays as it is.
• Swing once: swing shapes the grid; templates add only what swing does not, so nothing is moved twice.

Sounds and engines

Twelve synth engines and 153 factory sounds, all level-matched, plus 37 drum kits — SLOOP's sound, all of it.

On the panel

• PRESETS browses sounds by kind, then your user presets; on a drum track, the kits.
• SOUND (EDIT): ALGORITHM picks the engine; the knobs are the engine's four macros. Tap EDIT again for ENV, LFO and SENDS.
• ENV and LFO jump straight to those pages.
• PLAY shows the macros too, so the sound is always under your hands.

Everything else, from the device page WEB

Some parameters have no panel page yet. The device page reaches every parameter of every track: the eight engine parameters, envelope destinations, the rest of the LFO, the slicer, the arpeggiator, voice mode and glide, strum and voice leading, the global delay, reverb and chorus, and the tempo.

Master

PERFORM (FX): DJ filter (low-pass ← off → high-pass), DUST (an old sampler and a record: bits, rate, crackle), DUCK (the kick pumps the synths), and the selected track's filter. An output limiter keeps the mix safe.

Projects and saving

• Autosave: stop and leave the FM-1 alone for 2.5 s: the working project is kept in flash (at most every 20 s). At power-on FM1 Move comes back exactly as you left it.
• Two project slots: hold HOME for PROJECT. ALGORITHM picks the slot; SAVE saves (asks before overwriting), EDIT loads (asks, the working project is replaced), REC deletes (asks). Stop the transport first.
• Format: FM1M — eight tracks and their six clips each, every parameter, the steps that hold anything, locks, nudges, fills and the groove. A save cut off by power loss leaves the previous version intact.
• From an earlier FM1 Move build with four slots (before clips): project 1 and the autosave still load (each track's pattern becomes its clip 1); projects 2–4 do not carry over (slot 2 shows empty). Before updating, export the projects you want to keep from the device page.
• From SLOOP: at the first start, SLOOP's working project is imported onto tracks 1–4. SLOOP's four saved slots are not imported yet.
• On the computer: the device page exports and imports single projects (.fm1m.json) and makes a full backup.

Settings

Hold HOME (0.7 s) for PROJECT, hold it again for SETTINGS; tap HOME to leave. ALGORITHM picks the row, KNOB 1 changes it. Settings are kept in flash when the FM-1 is stopped.

MIDI and USB

• USB MIDI in and out, class compliant (no driver), and the 3.5 mm TRS MIDI IN jack (with a TRS-to-DIN adapter).
• Channels in: channel 1–8 plays synth track 1–8; the drum channel (10, changeable on the device page) plays drum track 1; any other channel plays the selected track.
• MIDI CCs: 7 level, 10 pan, 74 filter, 71 resonance, 73 / 75 / 72 attack / decay / release, 5 glide, 91 / 93 / 94 the reverb, chorus and delay sends.
• Clock in: USB or TRS (SETTINGS › CLOCK IN), pulse by pulse with no drift.
• USB audio: the FM-1 is also a USB audio input (44.1 or 48 kHz stereo) — record it in a DAW or a phone over the same cable.

The device page

nicodesy06.github.io/FM1-MOVE/device — Chrome or Edge on a computer, the FM-1 on a USB data cable. Every tab also works on the virtual FM1 (the firmware running in the browser), without a device.

Install

1. Open the device page in Chrome or Edge on a computer. Connect the FM-1 directly with a USB data cable; close other apps that use MIDI.
2. If your FM-1 runs SLOOP and you have work on it, save a backup with SLOOP's editor first (FM1 Move reads SLOOP's working project, not its backup files).
3. Go straight to Install — you don't need Connect to install, whatever firmware the FM-1 runs now (Connect is for managing an FM-1 that already runs FM1 Move). Read the warning, tick it, press Install FM1 Move, allow MIDI when the browser asks. Do not unplug while it writes.
4. The FM-1 restarts into FM1 Move. Connect it on the page to see its version.

Recovery

FM1 Move keeps SLOOP's update loader and rescue paths unchanged.

Coming from SLOOP

• Every engine, sound and sequencer feature of SLOOP 2.5 is still there; the panel is new and has eight tracks of any kind.
• SEL held + keys 1–8 now selects tracks (the song key moved to keys 9–16 and the black keys); GLO held: keys 1–8 mute, 9–16 solo, fill and tap tempo on black keys.
• SLOOP's song mode (sections A–D, chains, SONG REC) is gone; clips and scenes replace it (six clips per track, six scenes, launched on the bar).
• SLOOP's layer pages for SEQ (STEPS, 4 × 4) and SEL (the chords on the keys) are back: hold the button.
• SLOOP's STEP page is back as the SEQUENCER's STEP page (SEQ again), with accent and slide.
• Sample slots: three (USR1–3). SLOOP's USR4 flash now holds FM1 Move's projects.
• The visualiser, colour palettes, zoom and the calibration page are gone from the panel.

The full list, feature by feature: what was kept, changed and removed.

Questions

Can I write a sequence without recording?

Yes: hold SEQ and tap the white keys — see The sequencer.

How do I set an exact tempo?

Hold any function button and turn SELECT (one BPM a detent), or tap the tempo with GLO held + F#, or set BPM on the device page.

Why does a fourth GRAIN / FM6 / PHYS track not get its engine?

Three heavy engines can run at once; change one of them to free its memory.

How do I switch between patterns while playing?

Hold SAVE and press white key 1–6 (a clip of the selected track) or 9–14 (a scene, every track): it changes on the next bar — see Clips and scenes.

Where are my SLOOP projects?

The working one is imported at the first start. The four saved slots stay in flash, untouched; importing them is planned.

Does the device page send my files anywhere?

No. Everything happens between the browser and the FM-1 over USB; the virtual FM1 keeps its data in your browser only.