Skiff 1.2

Skiff 1.2: more sounds, a list by type, and new ways to shape them.

Install: in Chrome or Edge with the Skiff installer, or download skiff-1.2.fwsc below and run python tools/fm1_install.py skiff-1.2.fwsc. Custom firmware, at your own risk; the installer page also takes the FM-1 back to the official V15 firmware. Your projects, sounds and patterns from 1.1 stay as they are.

What's new

• 143 factory sounds, up from 100, at least 8 for every engine: 18 basses among them, presets for all six of DRUM's kits (four of them only EDIT › KIT reached before) and eight new DRUM-X kits, each loaded by its preset (SAVE held brings your own kit back).
• A list by type. Every factory sound is a BASS, LEAD, PAD, KEYS, PLUCK, DRUM or FX sound. On SAVE › PRESETS, turn KNOB 4 (LIST) to BASS, and PRESETS steps through the basses of every engine, on HOME and the sound pages too. The LIST stays where you leave it.
• Shape a sound: FX › DRIVE gives DIST four types (SOFT, HARD, FOLD, BITS) and a TONE; ENV 2 is a second envelope for the MOD matrix; on DRUM, EDIT › LANES sets each lane's TUNE and DECAY.
• Effects: a HALL reverb next to ROOM and SPRING; the chorus plays CHORUS, FLANGER or PHASER, with FEEDBACK; and four more hold effects on the FX layer: GATE (B4), DUB (C5), FLANGE (D5) and VINYL (E5).
• SLICE: a new BREAK (one bar at 120 BPM) and a second loop, FUNK (SOURCE 5: two beats at 86 BPM), both generated with the YuE2 music model; seven new presets play them, FUNK BREAK among them.
• Every new page draws what it does, in each theme's own way: CRYPT's snakes and skulls, NEON's tubes and sun, QUARK's nuclei and particle tracks.

Changed

• SLICE's BREAK is a new recording, so a track playing it in a saved project plays the new break.
• Thirteen sounds have new names, so that no two share one (ANALOG's PLUCK is now SYNTH PLUCK, FM6's BELL is GLASS BELL, PHASE's BRASS is PD BRASS, DRUM-X's DRUM KIT is OWN KIT, …); they sound as before.
• ANALOG's STRINGS and DARK STRINGS now sound unlike each other and unlike SOFT PAD, and NOISE's RAIN comes in more slowly. A saved project keeps the sound it was saved with.

Fixed

• HOME, opened from the sequencer's first page, drew that page's hints under HOLD HOME SHIFT at the bottom left (#3, thanks @hit3nkuro).

Going back to 1.1

Projects, patterns and sounds saved with 1.2 open on 1.1 without what 1.1 doesn't have: DIST plays SOFT, HALL plays SPRING, the chorus plays CHORUS, SLICE's FUNK plays PIANO. A MOD slot set to ENV2 becomes EXPR on 1.1, which with no MIDI expression coming in is its full amount all the time: set it OFF there.

Files

• skiff-1.2.fwsc: the firmware package (identity FM-1_712)
• skiff-1.2.zip: the package, the app image, SHA256SUMS and every licence and attribution text they need

The package holds three unmodified files of the JieLi AC79 SDK (Apache-2.0); see LICENSING.md. SLICE's BREAK and FUNK were made with YuE2 by Multimodal Art Projection.