Please use a computer
Installing firmware is only allowed from a desktop or laptop computer (Chrome, Edge or Opera on Windows, macOS, Linux or ChromeOS), with the FM-1 on a USB cable. Phones and tablets can sleep, switch apps or lose USB power halfway through an install, so the flasher does not run on them.
Everything else — the jam editor, your jams, the user kit, the screen and the manual — works on this device in the companion.
Install JAMTRACK
JAMTRACK
- Browser: Web MIDI with SysEx (Chrome, Edge, Opera)
- Package checked: identity, every part's checksum, SHA-256
- FM-1 found: —
- The FM-1 checks the package (nothing is written yet)
- The update loader starts
- Writing the firmware
- Restarting
- Done
How this keeps the FM-1 safe
- The FM-1's own boot loader (the first 16 KB of its flash) is never written: its start-up and its built-in update mode always stay intact.
- The package is checked twice before anything is written: here (every checksum, the identity, SHA-256) and by the FM-1 itself, which only stages the update after its own checks.
- An install that is interrupted (cable out, power lost) leaves the FM-1 in its update loader: plug it back in and press Resume.
- If a firmware fails to start twice, the FM-1 opens SAFE MODE (no sound, USB on): this page installs from there. After four failed starts it enters the chip's own update mode.
- Your jams, settings and user kit live outside the firmware's area: updating keeps them.
Back to the stock firmware
Download M-VAVE's FM-1 firmware (m-vave.com → Download), choose the file here, press Find the FM-1, tick the boxes, then install. Or use M-VAVE's own updater, M-UPGRADE.
If the FM-1 doesn't start at all
- Plug it in and press Find the FM-1. An FM-1 in SAFE MODE or in its update loader is found and can be installed or resumed.
- Still nothing: the chip's own update mode puts stock firmware back with no extra hardware, from a Mac or Linux:
fm1_rescue.py(seedocs/RECOVERY.mdin fm1-base's and JAMTRACK's source). It backs up the whole flash first and never writes the boot area. - Last resort, with an RP2040 board: FM-1-transporter.