It is a wonderful synth IMO, well worth perservering with its quirks. It takes a bit of time to find the sweet spots when creating patches, the same as any FM synth I suppose though I think the MEGAfm is perhaps even touchier.
I just had a first mess around with the looping envelope function, which you activate per envelope by pressing the loop button within a few seconds of moving a parameter. It’s really really fun, a bit of a gamechanger in terms of creating interesting rhythmic patches.
Here’s a quick demo of a patch I just did with each envelope looping. It’s going through the OT’s filter and also into delay/reverb plugins, the delay component is mono in the centre of the stereo image -
This is just one sustained three note chord. The different decay and sustain rate timings on each operator make an interesting polyrhythm, I mess with some of the timings and you can hear one of the envelope loops going into audio rate near the end. I’m also messing with the filter and the delay FX but apart from that it’s just one chord. Would be great for a dub techno thing if I added some more layers and a bassline.
Another bit of this patch, one chord same as before -
Interestingly when I reload the preset after having saved it the timing isn’t the same at all, much slower and just generally different. Not sure why that would be but just another quirk I guess. Will have to do more testing to see if I can figure out what’s going on.
Can you point me to where this is documented? It sounds like an amazing new feature but the only mention of it that I can find is your post and the small note in the Change Log: “-Added SSGEG (Looping Envelopes)”
I tried searching the updated manual for things like “loop”, “SSGEG”, or “envelope” and nothing new came up…
Yeah it doesn’t seem to be documented currently. I only knew how to do it via someone’s post on the MEGAfm modwiggler forum topic that comes up when you search SSGEG, someone posted -
As far as I can see searching within github:
„after moving a fader we have about 3sec to press loop to enable/disable SSEG, and triangle/saw to select the shape“
I had a search in the github myself but couldn’t find what they’re talking about, but that’s probably just because I don’t really know how to use it. The loop thing definitely works and is quite intuitive, haven’t tried the shape select yet, not sure what effect that will have.
Unfortunately, I’ve possibly bricked my Mega with this update. I’ve never had an issue before but now all I can do is start it in the firmware update mode, nothing else does anything. Not sure if anyone else had issues this time (Mac, Sysex Librarian).
Maybe try updating it again? Keep this bit in mind if you hadn’t already -
Note about FW3.0
The first time MEGAfm boots into 3.0 from a previous version it will take approx. 20 seconds
To clean up the file system. The letters CL will appear on screen.
Please do not power down MEGAfm during this process.
Thanks yeah, my post wasn’t very useful for troubleshooting, sorry about that.
After the firmware is finished loading, the lights and display stop blinking and turn off but then nothing else happens. I think the issue is related to it never going to the state that’s mentioned as showing CL in the display after the firmware loads. The unit doesn’t reboot on it’s own and if I try turning it off the on again, nothing happens. The first time I updated, I waited about two minutes for the “CL” or reboot to happen and nothing did.
I also tried downgrading to 2.4 and the same thing happens as above. Interestingly, I also can’t do a factory rest using the ‘reset’ button; all that seems to work is being able to start up in ‘firmware update mode’.
It’s not an emergency or anything, I’ll shoot them an email at TE and see what happens. I’ve got a lot of money that says it’s user error somehow
Hmm I see. Yeah I’m not sure what to suggest, hopefully Alex of TE has a solution. Maybe there’s another reset method involving shorting some pins or something, he would know I’m sure.
I can’t quite remember but I think when I updated I almost turned it off while it was in the CL state but then I remembered the update note. I don’t recall if it did the file system clean after the update or after a power on/off after the update.
I don’t suppose the MIDI tool would be able to see the device? Wouldn’t help anything if it could I suppose but might be worth trying just out of curiosity.
Tried that, MIDI Tool doesn’t see it. Interestingly, the Elektron Transfer app can see and can even seem to send the *.syz file although it didn’t fix anything. Appreciate the ideas!
I’ve only heard the Limbic Bits patches which are indeed great, and I believe they’re working on some additional patches that make use of the new features.
Just keep in mind which version of the chips (YM2612 - Mk.I, or YM3438 - Mk.II) the patches were designed for. For example the Limbic patches which were made with a Mk.I MEGAfm can in some cases run into distortion in the loudest parts when played on a Mk.II, so you may need to do a little operator level tweaking if you want them to sound closer to the designer’s intent.
I’m having the same problem as you. Did the firmware update and it’s like I bricked it. Just saw your solution and set my transfer to 100% and buffer to 256 but it still won’t reset and restart on its own:(
It was working fine before I tried updating
Edit: nevermind, lowered the transfer speed a bit and that did the trick!
