AMB-1

an ambient garden for the FM-1, in the browser: the same code the FM-1 runs

Turn your phone sideways for bigger controls.

Off. Sound starts when you switch it on.

Pages and knobs

One page a layer, each on its own button; a layer's level is always KNOB 1. SELECT steps through the pages. Each piece remembers its own settings.

Garden HOME

Tempo
30 to 120 (also HOME + SELECT, from any page).
Evolve
How restless the garden is: at 0 the loops repeat exactly; turned up, bell notes change, the pulse patterns turn, and the layers take rests.
Motion
How far the slow tide swings between sparse and full, and how much pitch, pan and the echo wander.
Drift
How long a chord lasts, 20 s to 5 min. The thin bar top right fills on the way to the next. EDIT moves on now.

Pad ENV

Level, Swell
How loud; how long the voices breathe.
Bright
Opens the filter (and moves the Voices' vowel).
Colour
Rhodes or Voices.

Bells ARP

Level, Density
How loud; how many notes each of the four loops (13, 17, 23, 29 beats) holds.
Tone, Octave
Round to metallic; two octaves down to two up.

Bass LFO

Level, Octave
How loud; an octave down or up.
Glide, Fifth
How slowly it slides to its note; how often it leans on the fifth.

Pulse SEQ

Level, Hits
How loud; how many beats the three rings play (16, 12 and 7 steps).
Swing, Hats
The off sixteenths late (50% to 75%); the hats dark to bright.

Space FX

Echo, Echo time
The tape echo's send; its loop, a dotted quarter to 4 bars.
Reverb, Size
The plate's send; how long it rings, and how often the echo returns.

Setup GLO

Root, Tune
The key's root; fine tuning in cents.
MIDI out, Lights
MIDI out over USB; the key lights and the buttons' glow. The audio load shows top right.

Buttons

  • Keys are the scale: each one adds or removes its note. The root stays.
  • PLAY grows / rests. REC freezes. EDIT the next chord.
  • SELECT the previous or next page; with HOME held, the tempo. ALGORITHM the mode, PRESETS the piece (each remembers how you left it).
  • OCT− / OCT+ move the bells an octave. SAVE saves; hold it to reset the piece.
  • Hold a button for a second and a card says what it does (with a mouse: Shift-click to hold it, click again to let go).

Mouse and touch

  • Drag a knob up or down, or use the scroll wheel over it.
  • Click or touch buttons and keys. Several fingers at once work on a touch screen.
  • Combinations with a mouse: Shift-click (or right-click) a button to hold it down, click again to let go.

Keyboard

  • White keys 1–8: Q–I, 9–16: A–K. Black keys 1–11: 1–0, -.
  • Space PLAY, Enter REC (freeze), V ENV (the Pad page), Esc HOME, Z / X OCT− / OCT+.
  • ↑ ↓ turn SELECT.

Saving

SAVE keeps your scale and sound in this browser, as the FM-1 keeps them in its memory. Factory reset forgets them. It is the firmware, not a recording: what you hear is AMB-1 running, at the FM-1's 44.1 kHz. The idea of running FM-1 firmware in the browser comes from Groove OS's emulator.