Les

M-VAVE FM-1

A living manual for your FM-1. Every firmware. Every day.

All 213 FM-1 firmwares, and what every control does on 38 of them.

Last checked

M-VAVE stock firmware V15 (firmware dated 2026-07-30) on the M-VAVE FM-1 F#3 G#3 A#3 C#4 D#4 F#4 G#4 A#4 C#5 D#5 F#5 F3 G3 A3 B3 C4 D4 E4 F4 G4 A4 B4 C5 D5 E5 F5 G5 VOLUME PAGE SEQ RECORD: REC+STEP FX:FX SLOT FX:FX TYPE/P1 ENV:ATTACK LFO:WAVE/DELAY FX:FX PARAM ENV:DECAY LFO:SPEED/PSENS FX:FX PARAM ENV:SUSTAIN LFO:PMD/LFOSYNC FX:FX ON/OFF ENV:RELEASE LFO:AMD/OSCSYNC VOICE ALGORITHM HOLD OCT-TRANSPOSE - OCT - WITH OCT+ RESET OCT + EFFECTS FX: GRAB FX ENVELOPE LFO EDIT FM GLOBAL HOME HOLDSAVE ARP ON/OFF SEQ ON/OFF SEQ:PLAY/ STOP SEQ:REC

TapSwipe across the panel, then tap any control to see what it does on Stock V15.

Open the Stock V15 pagePrintable skinKey strips

Watch it play

Make your first track

A simulated FM-1 on Felucca plays each step. Plug yours in and each one ticks as you do it.

  1. Pick the drum track
  2. Make a beat
  3. Play it and set the tempo
  4. Switch to the bass
  5. Shape the bass
  6. Record the bass line
  7. Make every key fit
  8. Play your melody

See it play

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Step-by-step answers in chat, for the firmware you run.

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Firmwares

What each one turns the FM-1 into. One with a Les guide opens to its controls and first steps; the others open to what they do, who made them and where to get them.

The version beside a firmware with a Les guide is the one Les has mapped; beside the others, the latest release Les knows of. A scan line names the release we scanned, the one you'd install, which can be newer.

Les scans every firmware here whose file is public, and shows what it checked and what it found. A scan lowers the risk; it can't rule it out. Each firmware is made by its author, not by Les; only Stock and M-VAVE FM-1 Open come from M-VAVE. Back up first, and install at your own risk. How Les scans firmware

Open the FM-1 Firmware Hub

Every one installs over USB from Chrome or Edge, and every one can be taken off again: the stock firmware goes back on from M-VAVE's own file. Community firmware installers are linked from thefirmwarehub.com and each author’s release page. M-VAVE Open has its official Workbench. Baud Girl’s firmware and Groove OS are closed source, so get them only from their makers’ sites.

Switch firmware without losing your work

1 · Before you switch, back up on Stock V15

  • Back up first. Keep the DX7 .syx banks you loaded so you can send them again (a bank arrives over MIDI SysEx and you pick A-D). Another route: installing Baud Girl’s FM-1+VA keeps your saved stock presets, and its Device Manager can then save all 128 presets as a .syx file. FM-1+VA is closed source; install it at your own risk. It is unknown whether stock's 16 patterns come through or can then be backed up. Write down patterns you care about. To come back, you need M-VAVE's own V15 file from its download page; the installers check it byte for byte. Stock V15’s automatic pattern saves and SAVE writes may also replace ChoralRoot’s legacy sounds 1–32, VA patches, FM6 patches 1–32, CZ patches 1–32 and FM TONE patches, kept for returning to ChoralRoot 0.21 or older. Stock V15’s write locations are uncertain. Stock V15 has no backup of its own; it sends notes over MIDI, never voice data.

2 · What happens to your Stock V15 data

Possibly at risk

  • stock settings (and possibly patterns)
  • stock Bluetooth data
  • stock presets (128, banks A-D)

More on switching away from Stock V15

How switching works

Back up before changing firmware. Felucca, SLOOP, JIANT and Melodee use their web editors; Baud Girl uses Device Manager while FM-1+VA is running. Keep Felucca's and JIANT's FM6 voice-bank .syx files separately: their backups omit that bank. Felucca also omits hand-set SLICE markers; SLOOP omits its 2.7 favourites. X0X v1.1.0 exports a project through its USB backup page or tools/x0x_backup.py: stop playback first and keep the break-loop WAVs (samples and calibration are excluded). Restoring an older Melodee backup clears U379-U384. With a nondefault VOICE BUDGET, Melodee settings restore fails and stops before restoring current music; earlier objects may already be written. GHOULBOX’s editor backup leaves out the separate FM6 voice bank and hand-set slice boundaries: keep the original .syx and note those boundaries. ChoralRoot’s USB device manager or backup tool covers saved sounds, settings, imported banks, favourites and ten loops; hold SAVE first for pending settings, and store valued live sounds as presets. It does not capture the live session. In Open’s matching Workbench, export each loaded USER project as .fm1. Read the device sample bank before exporting .fm1s: the browser starts with demo audio. Open preferences and pairing keys have no identified export. AMB-1 has no supported piece export or restore for its rescue dump; record valued settings elsewhere. FM-106 Beta4 cannot store new user sounds in flash: use the librarian’s Read All, check its replies, then export User A and User B as separate .syx banks. Those files keep names and classic sound controls; record extended controls, MIDI settings, sequence notes and locks separately. For Polly, stop, release the keys and holds, free enough MEMORY places, then press SAVE. A success message can still leave edits out when memory is full, so check that the changes were kept before downloading .plb from its USB backup page. Keep the QY70 ROM separately. Calibration is outside the backup; redo it after a restore. Save before a computer or button-started update too. Skiff’s web editor exports a full backup while stopped, but omits MAN slice positions. Record those, and verify pending patterns were saved before trusting the file: a failed flush can leave edits out. Hortator and OberVave have no supported backup in these releases. Hortator’s four unit slots are not external copies, and its inherited browser editor cannot export or restore its projects. Write down valued OberVave settings. FoMni and stock V15 have no backup. Every other firmware’s own page says how to back it up, or that no backup is available.

Leaving JIANT 0.7.x: back up, then use JIANT's own "Return to official V15" before another firmware's installer. The other open-firmware installers listed here do not find its "JIANT FM" USB MIDI port.

  • Moving between firmwares. Installing can overwrite saved work in the incoming program area and clear update records; then the new firmware's own saves write over the old one's data, some of it by itself (at its first start, or as you use it), the rest when you save, upload, calibrate or send from a web editor. Treat everything the table marks at risk as lost unless you backed it up; whether an older saved copy survives depends on how often you saved. Each map's "Before you switch firmware" section lists what that firmware writes over, and every way it does, for all mapped firmwares.
  • JIANT installs only over stock V15 or JIANT. From anything else its installer offers "return to official V15", but that only works from Felucca, which it backs up first (we found the backup markers it needs in Felucca 1.1.5.1, 1.4, 1.5.1 and 1.6). From SLOOP, Melodee, X0X, FoMni or Baud Girl it stops with an error and writes nothing: go back to stock with that firmware's own installer or the hub's "return to official V15" card first, after backing up.
  • Baud Girl keeps stock presets when you install it, and stock keeps hers when you go back. They stay until you replace them: in Baud Girl, by accepting a DX7 bank, resetting a bank, pressing SAVE on a preset or sending from the Device Manager; in stock, by loading a DX7 bank, resetting a bank or saving a preset. That is why those two cells read at risk. Patterns and settings are possibly at risk.
  • Back up stock presets through Baud Girl: installing her FM-1+VA keeps them, and her Device Manager can then export all 128. FM-1+VA is closed source; install it at your own risk. Stock V15 has no backup tool of its own. Write down stock’s 16 patterns before switching; their survival is not promised. Every other cell for stock’s data reads possibly at risk. The table includes later writes as well as installation risks.

A skin is a paper cover for the FM-1's panel with each control's job printed beside it, and key strips print what each key does.

Print a skin at 100% on A4 paper (its labels fit on US Letter too). Measure its 50 mm bar to check your printer didn't resize it.

10 how-to videos

Hardware specs

Six operators, 32 algorithms and standard DX7 voice banks on the stock firmware · plays up to 12 notes at once · 27 keys · 7 knobs that turn all the way round, and a volume knob · 1.54-inch colour screen · MIDI over USB-C, Bluetooth and a TRS input · a battery that lasts about 12 hours · 161.5 × 96.5 × 28.6 mm, 251 g

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Les is independent and not affiliated with M-VAVE or the firmware authors. M-VAVE and FM-1 are trademarks of their owners.