FM-1+VA (Baud Girl)

This is the firmware that opened the party: the first one FM-1 owners could install, on September 26, 2026 — a week ahead of Felucca and of the whole ecosystem that came after. It doesn’t replace the system: it patches the stock V15 — the Dexed-derived FM engine stays, wrapped in a rebuilt UI and new engines. Drey Andersson ranks it best overall (77/100). And in my rescue of a bricked FM-1 it shows up as living proof that this platform can be rewritten: its patch shapes guided my first patch — the one that bricked the device.

Workflow

It’s designed for playing: the promise is that every setting is reached the same way — a 6-row list UI, KNOB1–4 live on every screen, remappable with hold-SEL. Install and rollback from the same web page.

Engines & what it emulates

Three layers. (1) The stock 6-operator FM, corrected: four factory bugs fixed — detune too wide, fast LFOs that ran slow, algorithms 4/6 altered after feedback, notes hanging on vel-0 — down to M-VAVE’s swapped op mutes (OP1 was muting OP6). (2) VA supersaw: BLEP sine/saw/square/tri with a Super mode of 7 detuned copies (“detune/mix curves modeled on a legendary ’90s VA”), drift, sub, noise, and a multimode ZDF filter (LP12/LP24/BP/HP) with a per-note envelope, layered over FM presets. (3) 8-Bit (confirmed in the 096): 15 waves, duty sequences, 31 arpeggios. 9–12-voice polyphony (VA tri/square: 8).

What sets it apart

• A 64-step sequencer (stock is 16) with live REC, hold-and-turn move/copy/swap of steps, and per-step ratchet/chance/gate/transpose/accent/slide plus tie+slide.
• Full MIDI CC control; 7 color themes; presets 113–128 replaced by the VA pack (97–112 by the 8-Bit one).
• Free with Ko-fi tips; source promised “Coming Soon” under GPL-3.0-or-later.

Status & caveats

Stable and maintained at a furious pace: 9 public builds in 10 days. The current stable is the FM-1_096 (published 10-06, debuting the Chiptune engine) and there’s already a 97 beta announced on the site — the 092-vs-096 discrepancy from days past got resolved: the site was simply lagging [unverified]. M-UPGRADE rollback throws “Checksum error” on ≤093 — update to ≥094 before going back. It’s not on the community hub (closed-source), and the baudgirl.com apex domain is parked: only path URLs work. Conceptually it’s the parent of sloopDX’s voice edit list; the other closed option is Groove OS.