BOP-1

Music and synthesis for children, on the M-VAVE FM-1

Switch it on and music plays. Nothing a child can press sounds wrong, and every knob changes something they can see: a friend whose body is the sound. Its shape is the waveform, its mouth the filter, its hop the envelope, its wobble the LFO, its size the pitch, its place the echo. The same toy grows with the child: from pressing things (age 3), to beats, loops and songs (6 to 8), to a real subtractive synth by its real names (9 to 12 and up), with lessons and games along the way.

BOP-1's Play door: Bloop, a round blue friend, singing in a bedroom at night, the band beside it

BOP-1's Make door: the beats' sixteen steps, four layers and parts A to D

BOP-1's Lab: the signal flow, a scope showing the filtered wave, and the knobs by their real names

The four doors

Play 3+	Music already playing. The white keys sing in the scale; the black keys are drums and funny sounds. Turn the knobs and the friend changes shape, opens its mouth, wobbles, and the room grows from a bedroom to outer space. Surprise! makes a new song; magic tricks while a button is held; Loop me records what you play.
Make 6–8	Four layers like four friends in a band: Beats, Bass, Tune, Sparkle. Tap steps, record in time, ask for help, build parts A B C D into a song over happy, sad, brave or sleepy chords. Eight songs kept.
Lab 9+	The real synth: two oscillators, a filter, an envelope, an LFO, an arpeggiator, effects; a signal-flow picture and a live scope. Each knob shows its real name and the toy's word. Sounds made here become My Friends and play in Play and Make. Ten lessons, each with a try-it.
Games all	Follow the lights (public-domain tunes), Copy me, High or low, Beat copy, Sound match, Name the friend. Stars fill a sticker book; nothing is ever taken away.

Made for children

A grown-up chooses which doors show (Play alone for a three-year-old: nobody gets lost), the volume cap, calm lights, the screen's brightness, a sleep timer for bedtime, and whether music starts at power-on. An always-on limiter keeps the output under the cap; resonance and the highest notes are held back where children play; flashes are limited to three a second (and none in calm mode). Nothing is deleted with a tap.

To go back to the official firmware, use the installer's "Back to the stock firmware", or M-VAVE's updater, M-UPGRADE, from m-vave.com/download. M-VAVE and FM-1 are trademarks of their owners. BOP-1 is independent: it is not affiliated with M-VAVE, and its friends, music, sounds and pictures are its own. Children's synths such as Blipblox were an inspiration, in ideas only.