SLOOP Pro 2.8.4

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).

SLOOP Pro 2.8.3

SLOOP Pro 2.8.3: SLOOP on the M-VAVE SMK-37

Install from the browser: https://isod89.github.io/sloop-pro/ (Chrome or Edge). The keyboard must run M-VAVE's
V016 first; the page picks the package for your model (SMK-37 Pro / Starrykey 37 Play, SMK-37 Elite, MKE-P37).

New in 2.8.3

• SLOOP 2.8.3's fixes. The kick is no longer cut on a busy beat: a drum hit takes a free voice first, and the
  kick last. The hold pages no longer flash on a quick tap. A free take keeps a held note under the notes played over
  it. A chopped sample played again starts from silence with its ATK, so it doesn't click. The second core is hardened:
  a USB backup no longer crashes it, and if core 1 fails, the keyboard goes on with one core.
• SLOOP 2.8.2's fixes. Hold a note under others: on a POLY track, a note you hold keeps sounding while you record
  over it. When you overdub, it goes on through the notes already there. SEQ > NOTES LEN runs on under later notes, so
  you can put a long bass under a melody. A mono sound says MONO: SET VOICE POLY. No note stays stuck when MIDI comes in
  too fast.
• Four sample banks (USR1 to USR4), as on the FM-1. The SMK-37 has 40 KiB a bank. The editor keeps 22 kHz when the
  sounds fit and switches the bank to 11 kHz when they don't, so a bank still holds about 7 s. Samples from 2.8.1 need
  to be sent again.
• Pads triggered like a drum module's. The velocity is taken at the peak of the hit, with a mask after each note,
  a retrigger cancel that follows the pad's decay, and a baseline that follows the pad at rest. A pad hit flashes
  white. The menu has a new PADS section with three items:
  • PAD THRESHOLD: LOW, MID, HIGH, MAX.
  • PAD LIGHTS: the pads' brightness.
  • PAD SCOPE: a trigger monitor. It shows what a pad measures and stops on a double hit, for a photo with your
    report.

Files

• sloop-pro-2.8.3.fwsc: SMK-37 Pro and Starrykey 37 Play
• sloop-pro-elite-2.8.3.fwsc: SMK-37 Elite
• sloop-pro-mke-2.8.3.fwsc: MKE-P37
• sloop-pro-editor-2.8.3.html: the editor, for offline use

Each package refuses another model before anything is erased. The factory calibration is never written. M-VAVE's own
updater (M-UPGRADE) takes the keyboard back to the stock firmware at any time.

Credits

• Felucca: Leo Kuroshita (@kurogedelic), Hügelton Instruments.
• SLOOP: isod89.
• The SMK-37 board layer and the installer library: M. Geisler (@genkigenki),
  fm1-to-smk37.
• Ideas: @ChanceTheMaker (sloop-smk).
• The second core: @andrerezemini, Charles Vestal, @keremimo.
• Also: @juanjiant-bit, AL-255, kagaimiq.

Everyone is named in CREDITS.md.

Experimental firmware with no warranty. M-VAVE, SMK-37, MKE-P37 and Starrykey are trademarks of their owners; SLOOP Pro
is not affiliated with them. Licence: GPL-3.0.

SLOOP Pro 2.8.1

SLOOP Pro 2.8.1 is SLOOP 2.8.1 on the M-VAVE SMK-37: the SLOOP groovebox (three synths and a drum machine, twelve engines, 153 sounds, 37 drum kits, your own samples, songs, 27 punch-in effects, the NOTES piano roll) with everything the bigger keyboard brings. It is the first release, a beta.

What the SMK-37 adds

• 37 velocity keys. The 27 middle keys work as on SLOOP, with the velocity of your unit's own factory curves (KEY VELOCITY: dynamic, soft, hard or fixed). The outer 10 keys play notes, or drums on the drum track.

• 16 RGB pads, in three modes (KNOB BANK + FADER BANK):

  • DRUM KIT: the kit, whatever track is selected.
  • NOTES: the selected track's own sound, played on the pads with velocity. With QNT WHITE the pads follow the track's scale.
  • STEPS: the selected track's 16 steps.

  Turning K4 opens the sound picker on the pads. PAD LIGHTS sets their brightness.

• 4 faders, 5 banks: A level, B filter, C reverb, D delay, and E, the selected synth track's envelope (ATTACK, DECAY, SUSTAIN, RELEASE).

• Wheels and pedal: pitch bend (BEND UP / DOWN), vibrato, and a sustain pedal on the PEDAL jack, which learns its polarity at power-on.

• MIDI: USB MIDI, and the TRS MIDI OUT jack, where no note is left hanging when it is turned off. A full DAW mode turns the keyboard into a controller with your own CC map (the editor's DAW MAP tab).

• The second core is OFF by default (HOME menu > SYSTEM > 2ND CORE).

• A failed save says so ("NOT SAVED: FLASH ERROR"), and the editor is told.

• Models: SMK-37 Pro (and the Starrykey 37 Play), SMK-37 Elite and MKE-P37, one package each. The installer picks the right one.

Install

1. The keyboard must run M-VAVE's firmware V016. Update an older one with M-VAVE's own updater (M-UPGRADE) first.
2. Open https://isod89.github.io/sloop-pro/ in Chrome or Edge. Plug the SMK-37 straight into the computer and close other MIDI apps. Tick the box and press Install SLOOP Pro.
3. On Windows, if the page stops while the keyboard restarts into update mode: close Chrome completely, open the page again and press Install. It goes on where it stopped.

Your unit's factory calibration is never written. M-VAVE's own updater takes you back to the original firmware at any time. Back up the keyboard's flash once before the first install (see SLOOP-PRO.md, Safety).

The files attached here are the same packages as the online installer, plus the offline editor, a single HTML file that you open in Chrome or Edge.

Thank you

SLOOP Pro stands on the open work of many people. Everyone is named in CREDITS.md.

• Leo Kuroshita (@kurogedelic), Hügelton Instruments: Felucca, the firmware SLOOP is built on.
• @genkigenki: the SMK-37 port, which is the board layer, the SMK-37's features, the fm1-to-smk37 kit and the installer library that works on Windows.
• @ChanceTheMaker (sloop-smk): the ideas behind the pedal, the pad brightness, the envelope faders, the TRS note-off flush and honest saves.
• @andrerezemini, Charles Vestal and @keremimo: the second core.
• @renebohne, @juanjiant-bit, @ordenador, AL-255 and kagaimiq.
• The Felucca and SLOOP communities.

Tell us how it plays on your keyboard: https://github.com/isod89/sloop-pro/issues