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Bitl ❤️
@at.bitl.dev

Decided to do a much more in depth rant about custom m-vave fm-1 firmwares as a appendix to my rant on vibecoding The idea of custom firmwares for the fm-1 is exciting but the fact most if not all the firmwares are vibecoded makes it much less exciting so im gonna blabber about it 🧵

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Bitl ❤️
@at.bitl.dev

What is the fm-1? It is a 40-80 dollar mini fm that does 12 voice polyphony, multi effects, 6 operator FM synth that sounds almost as good as the DX7 and it even has wireless and wired MIDI support, a speaker, and batteries. It is a MASSIVE value for 80 bucks. Other similar synths cost way more!

Bitl ❤️
@at.bitl.dev

There's a big drawback if you don't want the default firmware: all of them used AI in their development. The big one is Felucca, which has many many features, including 15 sound engines and is one a lot of firmwares are built on. It's vibecoded though.

Bitl ❤️
@at.bitl.dev

The biggest issue is that the whole reverse engineering effort could also have been using AI as well, similar to most modern game decomps. Worst part is: a lot of people are fine with this. This is a bad look for both the fm-1 itself and the community behind it.

Bitl ❤️
@at.bitl.dev

I'd still recommend the fm-1 though, with the stock firmware, because its still a good instrument besides that But what if you want to use an fm-1 but don't want to use fm sounds? You either wait for a firmware that isn't ai generated (which may take a while) or use my only recommended firmware