Makohai
A generative groovebox for the M-VAVE FM-1, in the style of early-90s PC tracker music.
Makohai is Finnish for the longfin mako shark. It was called Espada before 1.0.
Six lanes (lead, arp, pad, bass, drums and sfx) play parts that are composed live in one of eighteen styles: chords, bass
lines, melodies, drum patterns and noise in the manner of the S3M scene, played as a tracker musician plays them, with
glides, swells and an echo channel. You do not program steps; you mix styles. Queue the next style, blend it in lane by
lane from the bottom up, or launch it at once with its own tempo. Shape each lane with a
filter, a tempo-synced wobble, FM brightness and drive, or with tracker effects: slide, porta, vibrato, tremolo, tremor, gate, swing,
retrigger, a bit crusher, echo, and an equal-power pan per lane with an autopan that sends each note to the other side or sweeps the lane in time. An arc builds the piece up from the drums to a drop, and DROP lets you call the break yourself. SETUP's free knobs
show pictures: a scope, level meters, a goniometer, a spectrum landscape, and demo-style pictures (a turning crystal, a
tunnel, dots, plasma, fire and more). SEL + HOME shows them full screen, cut on the beat;
SETUP's BACK puts one behind the whole screen, cycling every few bars if you like.
Status: 1.3. It runs on the FM-1. A voice budget keeps the sound in time however much plays (SETUP, VOICES);
if the sound ever turns to crackles, SETUP's AUDIO and VOICES rows show what the FM-1 was doing.
Install it over the official firmware and keep the USB rescue in mind (below).
The screens
One screen, laid out as a mixing desk: the setting in large letters on top, all six lanes in the middle, and at the
bottom the four knobs in a row, four lanes side by side, each with its value for that setting; ALGORITHM slides the
window over the six lanes. A group button picks
the kind of setting, PRESETS steps through them.
| Control | Does |
|---|
| HOME / FX / ARP / GLO | the groups PLAY, SOUND, TRACKER, SONG; again: the next setting. Hold HOME: SETUP (colours, screen, lights, MIDI channels and sync, defaults) |
| PRESETS | the setting in the group |
| KNOB 1-4 | that setting for the four lanes in the window, LEAD ARP PAD BASS to PAD BASS DRUMS SFX (SONG: the four shown) |
| ALGORITHM | the lane the buttons and keys act on (turning its knob picks it too) |
| SELECT | tempo |
| PLAY / SEQ / REC | INTRO and END, launch the next style (EDIT: copy a lane), INTER (tap) or DROP (hold) |
| ENV / LFO / EDIT | fade the lane out and in (SEL+ENV: lock), a new idea, its steps |
| SAVE, OCT- / OCT+ | save; the keys' octave |
| Keys | play the lane live; on EDIT they enter steps |
How it plays
- Lanes. Notes scroll from right to left past a fixed "now" line. Solid blocks are what a lane plays; outlined
blocks are a preview of the queued style. Stopped, the lanes show the INTRO that PLAY will start. All six are
always on screen; the white mark is the lane the buttons and keys act on. Every setting is on a knob, the keys
only play.
- ARP. Arpeggios through the chord that plays, in each style its own (up, down, up-down, Alberti, broken, random;
16ths to quarters, 1 to 3 octaves), set on the knobs as every lane.
- SFX. The sixth lane: a gale of noise into every drop, the impact on it, washes, surf, laser zaps, crackle and
8-bit noise, following the arc and the style.
- Ten styles, to change the mood in one move: EPIC (orchestral minor), HYPERSPACE (techno minor with power
chords), FUSION (melodic major with a chromatic turn), OLDSKOOL (the 4-channel sound with arpeggio chords), SYMPHONY
(the orchestra), TROPIC (off-beat chords, congas, a flute), STEEL (power chords, a galloping bass, double kick),
DRIFT (sus chords, swells, no snare), FUNK (slap bass, clav, ghost notes) and RAVE (four on the floor, an acid bass).
Each brings its chords, parts, instruments, tempo and way of playing.
- Drums. Kick, snare, hats open and closed, clap, toms that step down in a fill, rim shot, kettle drum and crash,
in five kits (DEEP: a very low, long kick; PUNCH: the sharp one); each style has its own grooves and fills. SUPERSAW,
seven detuned saws, for big chords and leads; AH VOX, a choir's aah for the pad; ORCH HIT, the orchestra hit on one
key, on every drop.
- Sets. Eight sets of everything but your parts (styles, knobs, mutes, key, tempo, effects), to load at once while
playing (SONG, SETS).
- Played by hand. Lead notes glide in from the last one, long chords swell in or fade out, the lead has an echo
channel, as in the trackers; strings carry bow noise and the drums ring as recorded ones. Each style also plays the
tracker's effects its own way: vibrato, slides, dives, cut-off stabs, volume slides, swing, trance gates, wide
stereo and orchestra hits.
- The music of a lane. MELODY (which idea), RHYTHM, PITCH and CHANGE (how soon new material comes, from frozen
to every 16 bars), side by side for all four lanes. LFO: a new idea now. ENV fades a lane out and in.
- Long arcs. The lead plays 16-bar sections of two 8-bar periods: a motif stated, answered, sequenced, closed
open, then driven to its high point and closed on the root.
- Mixing. BLEND moves lanes to the queued style one at a time: drums, then bass, pad, lead. LAUNCH moves every
unlocked lane at the next 4-bar phrase. LOCK keeps a lane where it is. The bass lane's style sets the chords
for everyone, so a half-blended mix stays in key.
The full guide to the panel is in docs/MANUAL.md. Where Makohai is going, how it is built and
why: docs/DEVELOPMENT.md.
Try it in the browser
Makohai in the browser: the same code the FM-1 runs, compiled to
WebAssembly, on Felucca's browser FM-1 (knobs, buttons, keys; your computer's keyboard plays it too, a MIDI
controller turns the knobs). Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
Install
Makohai's web installer in Chrome or Edge on a computer (it also takes a test
build, and brings back the official V15), the FM-1 Firmware Hub, or from the command
line (once: pip3 install mido python-rtmidi):
python3 tools/fm1_install.py makohai-1.3.fwsc
Install over M-VAVE's official firmware. If anything goes wrong: hold OCT- while switching on for the USB rescue,
where the installers still reach the FM-1. Installing firmware is at your own risk.
Build
You need Linux on x86-64 (or macOS / Windows with Docker or WSL), Python 3 with Pillow, JieLi's toolchain and three
files of the JieLi AC79 SDK:
pip3 install Pillow
tools/get_toolchain.sh
git clone --depth 1 --branch AC79NN_SDK_V1.2.1_2023-12-13 \
https://gitee.com/Jieli-Tech/fw-AC79_AIoT_SDK.git ~/fw-AC79_AIoT_SDK
./build.sh # -> build/makohai.fwsc
./build.sh --release 1.3 # -> build/makohai-1.3.fwsc, identity FM-1_47625642
GitHub Actions builds the package on every push (the run's artifact makohai-firmware).
In the browser: web/emu/makohai_build.sh (clang with wasm-ld, or Emscripten) writes build/makohai_emu/;
serve that folder and open it. node web/emu/makohai_emu_test.mjs build/makohai_emu/makohai.wasm checks it without
a browser.
Host mode runs the same code on a computer: tests/run_host.sh writes the screens as PNG and the sound as a WAV.
build/host/makohai OUT tests/demo.txt plays a scripted tour (buttons, encoders, keys over time). The screenshots
above come from host mode, pixel for pixel what the FM-1 draws, at twice the size.
firmware/src/makohai.c the app: shared state, includes the parts below
firmware/src/makohai_synth.c the audio interrupt: FM, drum and sfx voices, lane effects, the step clock
firmware/src/makohai_music.c harmony, the eighteen styles, generators, density, the arc, your patterns, the bar cache
firmware/src/makohai_ui.c the screen, the views and pages, the panel, saving
firmware/src/platform.c Dinghy's wiring of the FM-1 platform (boot, USB, updates, panel, screen, settings)
The chip's rules (docs/RULES.md): integers only, no 64-bit division, the audio interrupt well
under 5.8 ms. SEL + SAVE shows the interrupt's worst time in the header.
Licence and credits
GPL-3.0-only. Makohai is built on Dinghy (zvenson), which carries the platform of
Felucca (Leo Kuroshita, Hügelton Instruments) as
SLOOP (isod89) has it. Details in LICENSING.md.
"M-VAVE" and "FM-1" belong to their owners. Makohai is not made or endorsed by them.
