SOUND

Every sound track has a sound of its own, FM or virtual analog, and you shape it three ways: with the four macros on TRACKS, in the SOUND view and its editors, and by picking a different sound in the browser. This chapter covers all three, plus the four banks A to D that hold the sounds, loading sound packs from the website, your own kits and instruments in the browser, copying sounds between tracks and sending DX7 voices from a computer.

Two engines

A track remembers both: switching its engine in the TRACK menu and back loses nothing. The FM-1's stock firmware plays one sound at a time; with Groove OS, every track has its own. A third kind of track, SAMPLE, plays a recording you made instead of a synth sound: that is the SAMPLER's.

The four macros

On TRACKS, K1 to K4 are four controls named for the selected sound and chosen so that each one clearly changes it, both ways. They are the quickest way to make a sound yours.

Most sounds in the sound packs have names like these. The rest get TONE ATTACK DECAY CHAR on FM and CUTOFF RESO ENV DRIVE on VA, and so does any sound without names of its own: the FM-1's factory voices, a DX7 bank you load, a voice you send. Values run from -50 to +50, one a click (hold SEL for ten); 0 is the sound as designed. RESET MACROS in the SOUND menu puts them all back to 0.

Macros are performance controls: with REC on, a macro you turn is recorded onto the track and replays every loop (see Recording and undo). On FM tracks a macro move takes effect from the next note, not inside a note you are holding.

After the sound come the track's own effects: press FX for its DRIVE, CRUSH, FILTER and SLICER, and its two sends (see TRACK FX).

The SOUND view

Open it with SEL on a track, then SOUND ▸. (On a kit that row is PADS + STEPS ▸ and opens the drum grid instead; a MIDI OUT track has no such row.) K1 to K4 are still the macros, with a picture over each knob. The EDIT button goes straight to the SOUND menu below, with this view behind it.

Hold HOME+REC here to clear the track (it asks, like TRACKS and MIX).

The sound editors

SEL in the SOUND view opens the SOUND menu, a list of groups (twelve on an FM track, five on a VA track). Pick one and its editor opens: a picture plus four knobs, and holding HOME shows four more on the legend. ALGORITHM steps to the next group (the dots at the top right show where you are), HOME goes back to the menu. The ENV button jumps straight to the amp envelope, LFO to the LFO, EDIT to the menu; press the same one again to return.

FM groups

Two groups are the synth's, not the track's, and their title says ALL TRACKS: the amp envelope (with SEL switching it on or off) and PLAY (mono, glide, bend range; its TRANSP is the track's own). Change them and every FM track hears it. The FM engine also has a single LFO, so the LFO's wave and speed are shared too, although the screen does not say so.

Careful: the FM editor does not put every DX7 parameter on a knob. Per-operator EG levels and rates 1 to 4, keyboard scaling, curves, velocity sensitivity and fixed-frequency mode are kept as they were loaded or imported, but cannot be edited from the panel.

VA groups

A VA sound can be POLY, MONO or LEGATO, with glide; those are on the AMP ENV group's second row, with HOME held.

The SOUND menu's actions

The preset browser

Turn PRESETS. The browser opens on the track's own sound, and that first detent already moves one row the way you turned, so two clicks right are two sounds on. The list is KITS first (PUNCH, DUSTY and STEEL), then the FM-1's four banks, A to D, slot by slot: 32 slots each, every one an FM (DX7) voice or a VA sound. Your own kits and instruments from the SAMPLER come last (see Your own kits and instruments). Moving through it auditions: each sound plays a short note of its own on a spare voice (a kit row plays nothing), and the track keeps its own sound until you decide. (SETTINGS > CONTROLS > PREVIEW turns the preview note off.)

Each row shows the sound's name, then its type and engine in grey: BASS VA, KEYS FM, DRUMS KIT. A voice with no type reads DX7, as the FM-1's own factory voices do. An arrow marks the sound the track has now, a dot a favourite. Slots that hold nothing (erased, or data the FM-1 cannot read) are left out of the list.

Play the keys while you browse and you hear the highlighted sound, not the track's: play a bass line through each bass before you pick one. The notes go through the keybed as usual (the octave, the track's OCTAVE, IN KEY, the velocity curve), at the velocity you play. On a kit row the keys play that kit's pads as on KIT (the white keys pads 1-8 twice, the black keys 1-8 each pad), on any track, a kit track included; on a sound row a kit track's keys play notes. A note you hold keeps the sound it started with until you let go, even if you move on, take the sound or close the browser; the next key plays whatever is highlighted then. Playing keeps the browser open (the 8 seconds count from the last key, move or octave change). OCT- and OCT do what they do on the page you are on (on most pages they move the keybed) and leave the browser open on the same row, so you can hear a bass an octave down before you take it.

Audition notes are never recorded: with REC on they are heard, not taken. Once the browser closes, the keys play (and record) the track again.

Entering a bank with K4 names it in a toast: BANK C · LO-FI for a sound pack loaded from the website (its name is stored inside the bank), BANK A · FACTORY for a bank that is still as it left the factory, and just BANK C for anything else.

A track that is playing takes its new sound on the next bar line (T2 ACID LINE @ NEXT BAR), so changes land in time (a voice from a SYSEX bank, and your own kits and instruments, land at once). A VA sound you take starts with its macros at 0. The browser closes by itself after 8 seconds without a move, leaving the track as it was. Kits are listed too: on an empty track, taking a kit makes it a KIT track, and on a kit track it swaps the sounds under the same beat.

Where a row can go depends on the track. A sound (FM or VA) goes on a sound track, or on a drum track that has no notes, which becomes a sound track. A kit goes on a drum track, or on a sound track that has no notes, which becomes one. Rows that cannot apply right now are dimmed and say why (CLEAR THE TRACK FIRST for a sound that would change a track with notes from a sound to a kit or back, STOP REC FIRST while recording).

A TYPE with nothing in the current tab says so (NO KEYS IN FAVORITES), and SEL does nothing then.

Careful: a VA sound auditions only while a track slot is free, so with eight tracks a VA row is silent while you browse, on the keys too. Taking it still works. A kit row always plays its kit with the FM drum voices, also over a VA KIT track (taking it there gives the VA drums).

Careful: favourites and RECENT remember a slot, not a sound. After you load another bank into that letter, they point at whatever sits in the slot now.

Your own kits and instruments

The kits and instruments you made on the SAMPLER are in the same browser, so you pick them the way you pick any sound. They are listed on the ALL tab after bank D, newest first; the kit or instrument you are still building on the SAMPLER comes before the ones it has saved. A kit is KIT and an instrument INST (the grey text on their rows reads KIT USER and INST USER): set K3 TYPE to either one to see only those. Your kits are called KIT 1, KIT 2 and so on, and an instrument is named after its sample.

• Turning onto a row plays it: a kit plays its first sound, an instrument one note. SETTINGS > CONTROLS > PREVIEW switches that off, as for any sound. The keys stay quiet on these rows: turning is how you hear them.
• SEL puts it on the track at once, even while the music plays. A kit makes a drum track with your sounds on its pads (up to 16, on PADS A and PADS B), an instrument a SAMPLE track.
• Where it can go: a kit goes on a drum track, or on a sound track that has no notes, which becomes a drum track. An instrument goes on any sound track, which becomes a SAMPLE track, or on a drum track that has no notes. When the track would have to change kind and has notes, SEL says CLEAR THE TRACK FIRST (or STOP REC FIRST while you record). These rows are never dimmed: SEL says why instead.
• A project holds up to 32 samples. A kit or instrument that would go past that says PROJECT FULL: 32 SAMPLES.
• No favourites, no RECENT: a dot cannot be set on these rows (K2 has nothing to mark), and they are listed on the ALL tab only.

The banks

The FM-1 keeps four banks of 32 sounds, A to D, in its own flash, apart from your projects. Out of the factory they hold the FM-1's 128 DX7 voices. Any slot can hold a Groove OS VA sound as well as an FM voice, and you change what a bank holds by loading a sound pack from the website: a sound pack is a bank of 32, it goes into one letter and replaces what was there, so the FM-1 holds up to four at once.

What stays built in, whatever the banks hold: the three kits and their drum sounds, INIT SOUND (the DX7's plain sine, which a new SOUND track starts on) and EMPTY's four sounds. A bank that is erased, or holds sounds the FM-1 cannot read, shows only what it can; KITS and a new track still play.

Sound packs

Eleven sound packs come with Groove OS, free: CORE, a good first one, plus ten genres. Each is one bank of 32 and a whole groovebox: a drum kit in slots 1 to 8, and 24 sounds in slots 9 to 32 (bass, chords and keys, leads, pads and FX), FM and VA side by side. CORE fits any style; each genre pack is made for one genre. Each also has two or three songs made only with it (see Songs inside). Any sound pack goes into any letter.

The first column is the name K4 shows on the FM-1 (BANK C · LO-FI). The 24 sounds are slots 9 to 32 of the letter (C09 to C32). The kit is listed under KITS, after PUNCH, DUSTY and STEEL, and its eight pad sounds are in the bank's list too. Taking the kit and what a song keeps of it: see KIT.

Putting a bank back to factory

SETTINGS > STORAGE > RESET BANK puts one bank back to the FM-1's own factory sounds, on the unit, with no computer. Pick BANK A to BANK D; it asks first (ITS 32 PRESETS BACK TO FACTORY). K4 then reads BANK A · FACTORY again. See SETTINGS.

Loading banks from the website

The Sounds page lists the eleven sound packs under Sound packs, CORE first. The play button on a sound pack's cover plays a preview of 20 to 30 seconds in the browser; Add to FM-1 puts it into one of A to D. Each sound pack also has a page of its own (See inside; /sounds/lo-fi for LO-FI) with its preview, its songs, its kit's 8 pads and its 24 sounds, each one playable in the browser, and Add to FM-1 there too. Loading needs Chrome or Edge on a computer, the FM-1 and its USB cable, and the account you bought Groove OS with, signed in.

1. Connect the FM-1 with its USB cable and switch it on.
2. Press Add to FM-1 on a sound pack. The page connects (the browser asks once to allow MIDI) and reads what A to D hold.
3. The page asks Put it in bank…, with a button for each letter that says what it holds now: Factory, a sound pack's name (or a bank the page loaded before), Empty, or Own sounds. Nothing is picked for you. Press the letter.
4. What is there now is backed up in this browser first, then the sound pack goes in, and the page reads it back to check it. The FM-1 says LOADING BANK C while it writes, then BANK C LOADED.
5. On the FM-1, open PRESETS and turn K4 to that letter: BANK C · LO-FI. The 24 sounds are C09 to C32, and the kit is under KITS, on the drum track.

The page stamps the sound pack's name into the bank, which is what K4 shows. Adding a sound pack to a letter that already holds it writes nothing. Once the page has read the FM-1, a sound pack it holds says so, with its letter: On your FM-1 · bank C.

The FM-1 takes a bank only while the music is stopped and PRESETS is closed. If it is playing, or the browser is open, the page waits: stop the music or close PRESETS, and it carries on by itself.

Safe against a cut

A bank load is safe against a pulled cable or a power cut: each bank is either the old one or the new one, never half of each. If the power goes while the FM-1 is copying the new bank in, it finishes the copy by itself at the next power-on. If the load stops earlier (the cable, a closed tab), the FM-1 says BANK D NOT LOADED and the bank is as it was: load it again.

Backups

Before every load the page reads A to D and keeps a copy in this browser. The Backups section of the Sounds page (/sounds#backups) lists each one: Put back writes all four letters back as they were (and backs up what is there first), Download saves it as a file, to keep it safe or take it to another computer. A backup file you downloaded opens there too.

Careful: the backups live in the browser you loaded from. Another browser or another computer does not have them, and clearing the site's data removes them. Download a backup you want to keep.

DX7 banks

DX7 banks have a page of their own, /sounds/dx7: the Sounds page's Classic DX7 banks card opens it. Drop or choose a .syx file that holds a 32-voice DX7 bank, hear its 32 voices in the browser, then put the bank into a letter with the same Put it in bank… question, backed up first like a sound pack. Its name on the FM-1 comes from the file name, up to 10 characters. A single DX7 voice still goes onto a track: see Sending DX7 sounds.

Right after you install

When the Install page has put Groove OS on the FM-1, its Start with CORE card (See sound packs) brings you to the sound packs on the Sounds page. For a first beat, start with CORE: its kit and 24 sounds fit any style, and its songs show what they can do. Then add the genres you play, up to four sound packs at once, each into a letter of its own (see Getting started).

Songs keep their sounds

A track keeps its own copy of its sound, FM or VA, with its macros, and the project saves that copy. Loading a bank, or putting one back to factory, never changes a song: it plays the same whatever the banks hold, on any FM-1.

A song that plays your own samples keeps a different kind of thing: which samples it uses, up to 32 of them (PROJECT FULL: 32 SAMPLES when it is full). The samples themselves are on the FM-1, in SAMPLES, shared by every song, and deleting one there takes it from every song that uses it (see SAMPLES).

Songs inside

Every sound pack has two or three songs made only with its own kit and sounds. On the sound pack's page, Add song to FM-1 puts one into an empty project slot (see PROJECT). A song keeps its own sounds, so it plays the same whether its sound pack is in a bank or not.

To use a song's sounds in a new song, start from it: duplicate the project, keep the tracks you like and replace the rest.

Sending DX7 sounds

Send a DX7 single voice from a computer or a DX7 editor, and it becomes the selected track's sound at once (VOICE SOFT LEAD LOADED), with the track's macros back at 0. If the selected track is a VA track it switches to FM, as taking an FM sound in the browser does, so you hear the voice and the track is named after it. Send a 32-voice DX7 bank and the FM-1 asks BANK: 32 VOICES: ALGORITHM picks CANCEL or BROWSE, SEL confirms. BROWSE opens the browser on a SYSEX tab with the 32 voices.

A bank lives only while you browse it: when the browser closes the bank is let go, and the voice you kept stays on the track (its sound is saved with the project). To use another voice later, send the bank again. Each message is checked before anything changes: its length and its DX7 checksum, and values outside the DX7's ranges are brought back into range.

Pro tip: select the track first (HOME+ALGORITHM, and the strip over the hint line shows where you land), then send. A voice or bank always goes to the selected track, so pick an FM or VA sound track.

A DX7 bank sent over MIDI never reaches banks A to D while Groove OS runs, so it cannot overwrite them. To keep a DX7 bank on the FM-1, add it into a letter from the DX7 page (see DX7 banks).

Program Change messages also load sounds: see MIDI and sync.

Fixes to the FM engine

Groove OS's FM engine corrects three faults of the stock one: operator detune that is too wide, fast LFOs that run too slow, and a note ended by a velocity-0 note-on that kept sounding. Sounds you made on a stock FM-1 may therefore sound slightly different.

Troubleshooting