Beta testers' guide

Thanks for testing Outrigger. Most testers need the first three parts; the rest are for when something goes wrong.

  1. What Outrigger is, and what you need
  2. Install and first setup
  3. The test plan
  4. Switching FM-1 firmware: what can go wrong
  5. Adding a firmware
  6. Your backups
  7. If your FM-1 won't boot
  8. Known issues

What Outrigger is, and what you need

Outrigger is a small touchscreen board that sits on a USB hub next to your FM-1. It lets a MIDI controller with a USB connection play the FM-1 with no computer, and it switches the FM-1's firmware for you, backing it up first.

The homepage has the full shopping list, with links: outrigger.music. In short:

The fine print

Outrigger is an unofficial, independent project. It isn't made or supported by M-VAVE or Waveshare. It's a beta: use it at your own risk, and read If your FM-1 won't boot before your first firmware switch.

Install and first setup

Installing is on the homepage: outrigger.music, under "Set up once". Plug your ESP32 into the computer, click Check my board and pick the port Chrome offers. It reads the board and tells you what installing would change, without changing anything. Then click Install. It never erases: your settings and FM-1 backups stay. On a new ESP32 it also sets up firmware switching, starting with M-VAVE stock V15. Add Felucca, Skiff and others afterwards (see Adding a firmware). Your browser downloads stock V15 from the Firmware Hub, and one small file from GitHub, and checks each. If a download fails, it writes nothing and asks you to try again.

If it says your ESP32 has storage we can't read, nothing was installed. That can happen on an ESP32 that ran an earlier beta. Email [email protected] before going further: your backups may be in there.

Then put it on the hub:

  1. Power first: the charger goes into the hub's charging port. The hub needs its own power: Outrigger runs on it.
  2. Outrigger goes on the hub's upstream (host) cable or port, the one a laptop would plug into.
  3. The FM-1 and your MIDI controller go into the hub's USB-C data ports. On the hub we tested, its USB-A ports didn't work (see Known issues).

The homepage's What you need has a picture of the wiring.

Outrigger's Play screen shows a line each for the hub, your controller, the router and the FM-1. All green means notes are getting through.

Wi-Fi: off until you turn on Setup > Remote diagnostics, and then only for a read-only page with Outrigger's status, log and any crash: see Known issues. Updates and downloads over Wi-Fi are coming; see "What's coming" on the homepage.

Updating

When a new build is out:

  1. On Outrigger, open Settings, then Computer mode, and hold the button. Outrigger restarts with MIDI off, so your computer can reach its USB port.
  2. Plug it into your computer, open outrigger.music, click Check my board, then Install.
  3. When it's done, Outrigger restarts by itself and goes back to MIDI. Your settings and backups stay.

Settings shows which build you're running, for example ccbc36d hub+L.

Going back to an earlier build

Not from the website yet: it only offers the latest build. If a new build gives you trouble, email [email protected] with the build shown in Settings, and we'll get you the previous one.

The test plan

Thanks for testing. Please work through these checks once, in order, then use Outrigger normally for a week. Each check says what should happen. Anything else is worth an email, even if it fixed itself.

The checks

  1. Install. Follow "Set up once" on outrigger.music: Check my board, then Install. Expected: Check my board says what's on your ESP32 and changes nothing. Install takes a couple of minutes, sets up firmware switching, and says it's done. Outrigger restarts by itself.
  2. First start on the hub. Wire it up as in Install and first setup. Expected: within a few seconds the Play screen shows the hub, your controller and the FM-1 (with its firmware's name), all green.
  3. Play for 10 minutes. Play the way you normally would: notes, knobs, pads. Expected: every note sounds, with no stuck or dropped notes, and the Router line's count keeps climbing.
  4. Unplug and replug each device. One at a time: the controller, then the FM-1. Wait for each to come back. Expected: its line turns orange (the FM-1's says "not found"), then green again within a few seconds of plugging back in, and playing works again.
  5. Restart Outrigger. Unplug the hub's charger, wait 5 seconds, plug it back in. Expected: everything comes back on its own, as in check 2.
  6. Change a setting. In Settings, change the text size, then restart Outrigger as in check 5. Expected: the setting is still there after the restart.
  7. Back up your FM-1. On the FM-1 screen, open Backups and hold the button. Expected: it reads the FM-1 twice, writes nothing to it, and says the backup is saved.
  8. Switch firmware once (a new ESP32 comes with stock V15; add Felucca or Skiff first). Read Switching FM-1 firmware and the switching part of Known issues first. Start with Felucca ↔ Skiff, the tested pair, on the FM-1 screen. Ask us before switching Skiff to stock. Expected: in about a minute the FM-1 restarts in the new firmware. Switch back, and your songs are where you left them.

Then, a week of normal use

Use Outrigger the way you'd use your FM-1 anyway. We're looking for anything that happens only over time: a dropped connection, a freeze, a setting that didn't stick.

How to report

Email [email protected] with:

Good news is useful too: "all eight passed" tells us that setup works.

Switching FM-1 firmware: what can go wrong

Outrigger can put a different firmware on your FM-1: Felucca, Skiff, SLOOP, M-VAVE's own, and most of the Firmware Hub catalog. Two aren't supported yet: Melodee and Tessera (below). This page explains what happens during a switch, what can go wrong, and how to make it unlikely. Read it before your first switch.

What happens when you switch

You pick a firmware on the board's FM-1 page. Its plan page lists, in plain words, everything the switch will do. Nothing happens until you hold the yellow button for two seconds. Then, in about a minute:

  1. The board restarts and sends your FM-1 into its built-in install mode. The FM-1's screen goes dark. That's normal.
  2. It checks the FM-1 against its latest backup. If anything changed since (a new song, say), it backs the FM-1 up first. Your very first backup comes from the board's Backups screen, before your first switch.
  3. It saves the current firmware's songs and settings on the board.
  4. It writes the new firmware, and reads back every piece it writes to check it.
  5. It sorts out your songs (next section), then restarts the FM-1 into the new firmware.

MIDI stops while this runs, and comes back when the FM-1 does.

What happens to your songs and settings

Firmwares that aren't supported yet

Melodee and Tessera can write the part of the FM-1 the board uses to tell one FM-1 from another. After that, the board would see a stranger, and your backups would no longer match it. The board won't install them until it can recognise an FM-1 another way. If your FM-1 runs one of them now, switching away still works.

What the board never touches

The board refuses, every time, to write:

What can go wrong

Before you switch

Adding a firmware

Outrigger comes with M-VAVE stock V15. Add Felucca, Skiff or any other firmware from the community catalog at mutant.cloud, up to ten in all, from the Firmware library. No Mac tools, and nothing on Outrigger is erased.

How

  1. On Outrigger, open Settings (the gear), then Computer mode, and hold the button. Outrigger restarts with MIDI off.
  2. Plug it into your computer with a data cable, and open the Firmware library in Chrome or Edge.
  3. If you haven't updated Outrigger since this feature came out, click Check my board, then Install, first. Outrigger restarts into MIDI after an install, so go back to Computer mode (step 1) before going on.
  4. Click Connect, then Choose my Outrigger, and pick the port Chrome offers. On your board shows what Outrigger has, with an Update where the list has a newer version; Available lists mutant.cloud's FM-1 firmwares. If mutant.cloud doesn't answer within a few seconds, the page uses the Firmware Hub's list instead and says so.
  5. Click Add next to one or more, then Apply under Your changes. Your browser downloads each from the same site as the list and checks it against the list's SHA-256. Then it sends it to Outrigger, which checks it again before storing it. Outrigger's screen shows how far it's got. About a minute.
  6. Add more if you like. When you're done, tap Back to MIDI on Outrigger, then plug it back into the hub. The new firmware is on the FM-1 page.

What it changes

Only Outrigger's store, and only by adding: your backups, your saved songs and the firmwares already there stay as they are. If the cable comes out partway, nothing is added; try again.

Outrigger refuses an add, and says why, when:

What isn't on the list yet

The library lists these under Riskier, with the reason:

Switching to an added firmware

The same as switching to the three it came with: see Switching FM-1 firmware. Most switches to an added firmware haven't been tested on a real FM-1, so Outrigger clears the old firmware's data first and keeps a copy on its shelf. Switch back and it comes back.

To remove one, use Remove on the library's On your board tab and Apply. It needs an Outrigger build from after 2026-11-05: if there's no Remove, update Outrigger from the home page, and if there's still none, that build isn't out yet. Its saved songs stay on Outrigger. Stock V15 and the firmware your FM-1 runs can't be removed.

Your backups

Where they live

On the board itself, in its own storage, about 12 MB. Not on the FM-1, and not online. The board tells FM-1s apart, so if you use more than one, each gets its own backups.

What it keeps

There's room for roughly a dozen firmwares plus their songs. Songs are small.

Making a backup

FM-1 page, then Backups at the bottom, then hold the yellow button for two seconds. It reads the FM-1 twice and writes nothing to it. Back up after you change songs or settings, and before trying something risky. (A switch also backs up by itself first whenever the FM-1 changed since its last backup.)

Reinstalling the board keeps them

Installing or updating the board from the Outrigger page never erases your backups or song shelves. The page has no erase option. Only a developer command run from a computer, make flash-store, wipes them, and nothing can bring them back after that.

Coming later

Two things aren't here yet:

For now, your songs come back through each firmware's shelf, and your backups live only on the board. Saving a copy to your computer, including before you reinstall the board, comes later, together with export.

If your FM-1 won't boot

An FM-1 that won't start after a firmware switch can almost always be brought back. The order matters, so go step by step.

1. If the board says the install stopped: don't switch the FM-1 off

If the board's screen says Switch stopped or Install unfinished, with "Don't unplug the FM-1 or switch it off":

  1. Leave the FM-1 switched on, and leave every cable where it is. Its screen is dark because it's still in install mode. That's what lets the board finish the job.
  2. If something came unplugged, plug it back in.
  3. On the board, hold the red Hold: retry … button for two seconds. It carries on where it stopped.
  4. If Retry fails twice, go to step 3 below. Still don't switch the FM-1 off.

Switching the FM-1 off at this point makes things harder: with half a firmware, it can't go back into install mode by itself, and you'd need the recovery kit below.

2. If the FM-1 is dark but the board says the switch finished

  1. Switch the FM-1 off and on again.
  2. If it starts but crashes, or its presets look scrambled, switch back to the firmware you had before, on the board's FM-1 page. Your songs for that firmware come back with it. After a switch to M-VAVE's stock firmware, System > Reset Patches on the FM-1 often fixes scrambled presets.
  3. If it still shows nothing at all, go to step 3.

3. Tell us, before trying anything else

Email [email protected] right away with:

Please don't try other tools or web updaters first. Some of them talk to the FM-1's normal firmware over MIDI. On a half-written FM-1 they fail at best, and at worst leave it harder to recover.

4. The recovery kit: when nothing else works

When an FM-1 shows nothing at all, a small kit can force it into install mode at power-on, whatever state its firmware is in. Then a recovery tool writes M-VAVE's stock firmware back. It brought a fully dark FM-1 back on 2026-10-25.

The parts, about $15, no soldering:

What the recovery looks like:

  1. Three wires go from the XIAO to the FM-1's USB-C port: data+, data− and ground. The fourth wire, power, is taped off. The FM-1 is switched off while you wire it.
  2. The recovery tool reads the FM-1 twice to make a backup, checks the two reads match, then writes only the firmware area and reads it back.
  3. Unwire it, switch the FM-1 on, and it starts on M-VAVE's stock firmware. Then switch to your firmware again from the board.

We'll walk you through it step by step. We'd rather you had this kit before you start testing firmware switches. If you don't have one, tell us before your first switch.

The tools behind it, for the curious: FM-1 Transporter (the XIAO side) and MvaveFM1Unbricker (the recovery tool).

Known issues

A living list. If you hit something that isn't here, email [email protected].

What it has, and doesn't

Firmware switching

Switching is tested on stock and the Felucca family. Every switch between two different firmwares starts on a clean slate: it clears the old firmware's data from the FM-1 first. A community firmware's songs and settings wait on its shelf in Outrigger and come back when you switch back to it. Stock's settings aren't brought back: they're only in the full backup Outrigger takes before every switch.

Setup

The hub

On the board

Getting help