CoralFlower 0.3

CoralFlower 0.3: a sequencer for chords, bass and drums

This update adds a sequencer. Write or record chords, a bass line, drums and a third part called Layer, then play
them as a song.

What's new

• The sequencer. The first press of SEQ opens the METRONOME, the second opens the SEQUENCER, and a third returns
  to HOME. The sequencer holds eight patterns (A to H) and a song: a row of up to 32 patterns. Each pattern has four
  tracks: Chords, Bass, Layer and Drums. A pattern you pick while another plays starts at the next bar line. PLAY
  stops playback.
• The SEQUENCER screen. SELECT picks a track, ALGORITHM picks a pattern or the song, and EDIT opens the track.
  The knobs belong to the picked track: K1 VOLUME, K2 the sound (KIT for Drums), K3 KEY and K4 MUTE. KEY decides
  whether the track follows HOME's KEY and SCALE or stays as you wrote it. On Drums, K3 is SWING instead. GLO shows a
  help sheet.
• Write or record. In a track, the frame (the box that marks a step on the screen) shows where you write. Press
  the keys to write a chord or a note there. REC counts in one bar, then records what you play with its timing, even
  short notes. Hold REC for 1 second to undo the last change. Hold it again to redo. Your patterns stay when you
  switch the FM-1 off.
• A length for each track. In the Chords, Bass or Layer editor, K3 BARS sets how many bars it has (1 to 8, four
  by default) and K2 STEPS sets the grid (1, 2, 3, 4, 6 or 8 steps a beat). K4 PLAYS picks which bars play. A shorter
  track starts again by itself while a longer one plays: a 3-bar track plays 1 2 3 1 2 3 while a 4-bar track plays 1
  2 3 4. An empty bar stays silent. Nothing is copied automatically.
• Drums. Eleven drums sit on the upper keys: kick, snare, clap, closed hat, open hat, three toms, rim, cowbell
  and crash. The 16 lower keys are the steps of a 4/4 bar. PRESETS picks one of eight kits (Std, 808, 909, Tight,
  Boom, Lo-fi, Hand, Crush). K1 gives the picked drum a different kit, so kits can be mixed, and K2 sets its level.
  SWING (0 to 100 %) makes every second step come late. While you record, the upper keys work like the pads of a drum
  machine.
• Layer. The Layer track plays one more sound, picked from the chord sounds, alongside the chords and the bass.
  Edit it with EDIT > LAY, shape it on ENV's Layer page and save it with SAVE > Layer. Its last EDIT page, Glide,
  sets the voice mode (Poly, Mono, Legato or Unison), a glide time and the note priority.
• Copy and clear. Hold OCT+ and turn SELECT to copy a bar to where the frame stops. On the SEQUENCER screen, hold
  OCT+ and turn ALGORITHM to copy the pattern to another letter. SEL clears the step in the frame. Hold SEL and turn
  SELECT to clear every step the frame passes. To clear a whole track, hold SEL for 3 seconds on the SEQUENCER
  screen. Let go before the countdown ends, and the track stays.
• Arpeggio on a track. In the Chords or Layer track, ARP turns on the arpeggiator for that track. It follows the
  settings on the ARP page, including Strum. The steps still store whole chords.
• Odd time signatures. The sequencer plays in the METRONOME's TIME SIG: 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8 and 7/4.
• MIDI channels for Layer and Drums. The two new parts send MIDI on separate channels, set in GLO > Channels:
  LAYER CH (3 by default) and DRUMS CH (10 by default, General MIDI drums).

Other changes

• Single notes glide. With a GLIDE time set on HOME, a single note now slides from the previous one, as chords
  do.
• Quantize: Off, Basic, Full. The middle setting, On, is now called Basic and works as before. A new FM-1, or one
  after a reset, starts on Full, so chord notes also fit the scale. If you saved settings before, your Quantize
  choice stays.
• GLIDE on FM sounds. A chord change with GLIDE on an FM sound now takes the time you set. Before, it lasted
  longer.
• Reset everything. A new Reset page in GLO erases everything you made: sounds, patterns, the loop and settings.
  It takes three steps, so it doesn't happen by accident: turn K4 to Reset, hold SAVE for 3 seconds, then press SAVE
  again within 6 seconds.
• A new crash cymbal. The old crash rang like a gong. The new one is made from noise.
• Long values on two lines. A long value in a knob cell, such as a sound name, goes on two lines instead of
  running into the next cell.
• Saving waits for silence. A save now waits until all four tracks are silent, so it doesn't cut off a ringing
  crash or Layer note.
• Chord glide downwards. When a chord slides to a lower one, its top note now slides down with the rest. Before,
  it stayed behind at the old pitch while it faded, so the glide down sounded weaker than the glide up.
• Fixed: the VA oscillator picture wrote past the end of its text at COARSE 10 and higher (a memory error). The
  bug was also in 0.2.

Install

Open https://ficusficusov.github.io/CoralFlower/ in Chrome or Edge on a computer. Connect the FM-1 with a USB cable
that carries data, without a hub, and press "Install on your FM-1". If the FM-1 runs CoralFlower, ChoralRoot or
Felucca, the installer saves your sounds to a file first. Installing firmware is at your own risk.

You can try 0.3 in the browser first: https://ficusficusov.github.io/CoralFlower/play/

Feedback

Tell me what works, what doesn't and what you'd like next. Open a GitHub issue or email iambemoli@gmail.com. News
goes to the Telegram channel https://t.me/ficusficusov.

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CoralFlower 0.3 for the M-VAVE FM-1 (package identity FM-1_930).

Install it from your browser at https://ficusficusov.github.io/CoralFlower/ (Chrome or Edge on a computer, with the FM-1 connected by USB). You can also try CoralFlower in the browser first, with no install: https://ficusficusov.github.io/CoralFlower/play/

SHA256SUMS lists the package and the app. The package holds three JieLi AC79 SDK files (Apache-2.0); LICENSE, LICENSING.md and LICENSES.zip carry every licence. Installing firmware is at your own risk; the official M-VAVE firmware can always be reinstalled.