SLOOP

SLOOP 2.8.4: a bug-fix release (cleaner fades, knobs, unison, tuning)

A bug-fix release. Thanks to everyone who reported issues on GitHub: every fix below has its own test, and the whole firmware was checked again (the editor's protocol, MIDI in and a damaged flash fuzzed, every engine, sound and key measured).

Cleaner sound

• No more distortion at the end of notes. The mix rounded every part down to 16 steps of the 16-bit output, so a fading note carried a buzz that followed it, on the 3.5 mm output and on USB. The mix now rounds properly: about 10 times less error, the quiet tails are clean.
• UNISON no longer stacks its voices in phase. Most engines started every unison voice at the same phase, up to +18 dB louder than POLY on some sounds. Each voice now starts apart, as a unison should, and the level matches POLY.
• PHYS strings are in tune. They played sharp, by up to a semitone on the low notes of HARPSICH (STR PLUCK, BANJO, PLUCK BASS, the guitars). Now within 2 cents; KOTO, SITAR and TANPURA bend with their curved bridge, as designed.
• The top of the keyboard follows the keys. NOISE's NZ ARCADE, SAMPLE and GRAIN played one pitch over the upper keys (the top octave of the sampled sounds); they now go on rising. A GRAIN note played while the one before is fading out is no longer almost silent.

Controls

• A firm press on a layer button (GLO, EDIT, ARP, SEQ, SEL, FX, SAVE) opens its pages. Before, a press longer than 0.45 s opened nothing; now up to one second counts as a tap.
• On REC READY, a knob changes only its own value: KNOB 3 (START) no longer moves the loop LENGTH too. The same fix covers every page: a knob turned alone changes one value.

Your data

• The SONG screen's confirmations (OCT+ to load, REC to replace) always ask again: one left unconfirmed could load or overwrite a section with a single press weeks later.
• Installed after Clipper, SLOOP no longer plays track 1 two octaves high: a working project left by Clipper had sounds on engines SLOOP does not have, read as another engine. Those parts now start with their default sound; the patterns stay.
• MIDI Bank Select 8 + Program Change (user presets) shows the right message.
• Safer loading: a user drum kit with an odd root note, or a project file with out-of-range velocities, plays normally.

Install and go back

• Going back to the official firmware: use M-VAVE's M-UPGRADE with FM-1 V16; if it does not find the FM-1, Clipper's installer page and its Return to the official firmware work with SLOOP too (see the guide).

Compatibility

• Projects, presets, samples and settings are kept when you update, and the project format is unchanged.
• A few sounds change a little on purpose: the PHYS strings (now in tune), the unison sounds, NZ ARCADE.

Install from the browser: https://isod89.github.io/sloop-fm1/ (Chrome or Edge, the FM-1 on USB).