It works for me (tested on MacOS/Brave+Firefox)
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Give it another go? Claude Artifact
Also, the place to watch when the alpha drops … GitHub - joegiralt/chimera-releases: Chimera firmware for the PreenFM3: releases and tester bug reports · GitHub
Alpha is live! Releases · joegiralt/chimera-releases · GitHub
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A bit surprised no source code.
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Yeah, that’s intentional, at least for now.
A lot of what’s in Chimera is stuff I’ve developed myself, including the FM engines, formant synthesis, physical modeling, reverbs, etc. Some of it is inspired by hardware I’ve collected over the years, but the implementations are my own.
The thing is, while Chimera is free, I might eventually want to reuse some of those DSP engines in other projects, whether that’s VSTs, firmware for other hardware, or maybe even a synthesizer of my own someday. I don’t know if any of that will happen, but I’d like to keep the option open.
I’ve put a pretty substantial amount of my free time into developing this stuff, so I’m a little hesitant to release all of the source code just yet.
That said, I’m not against open source at all. I’m just not ready to make that decision for this particular project.
I want to open source the bones of this, though, the UI elements, the “plumbing” so to speak if anyone wants to build there own firmware in the future. but nothing is established yet, and everything is still in alpha.
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Thanks, now it’s working.
Even if you share the source, you still are the author, you retain the copyright and therefore you yourself can do with the code whatever you like. Only other people are bound by the license you attach to the code. And even then you can negotiate a different license-agreements specific people if you wish.
But all that is your choice, and I know these things take time and deliberation.
Meanwhile I am excited to try the new firmware.
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Does anyone’s PreenFM3s have push encoders?
When I ordered my kit, I asked whether getting push encoders was of any use, and got this response:
Clickable encoders are useless. Really
I thought it was going to be usefull, but they are never easy to click, so i gave up with them.
Thus I ended up getting non-push-encoders, and would (wildly) guess there are not many in the wild?
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Yep. I have push encoders.
Too bad there are no unit available around, right now, I’d live to try this out.
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I wish every unit had push encoders! It would give me one more thing to play with for UX. In the Chimera firmware, the push encoders will do something, they just won’t be integral to the operation of the unit.
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Well, since I haven’t built mine yet, I could still order push encoders and build with those. If there was a compelling reason… 
Honestly, right now there isn’t a compelling reason to go out of your way to install push encoders. They’re a nice convenience, but Chimera doesn’t depend on them (My unit doesn’t have them, for example.).
In the next release, if you enable them under Settings > System > Push Encoders, they give you finer control over parameter adjustments, and pushing an encoder resets the parameter to its default value.
I’ve made it a point to ensure that everything in Chimera can be done without push encoders (my own unit doesn’t even have them).
I’m actually curious how many people have installed them. The firmware can’t tell me unless the setting is enabled, so I figured I’d ask here. If enough people have them, I might add a few more shortcuts down the road. But they’ll always be optional.
here’s a little teaser of the Tape engine and its modes. some of these might get scrapped because im having a hard time trying to get audio streaming to work reliably from the SD card.
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Your PreenFM3 is fine, and the bootloader hasn’t been affected. It looks like you accidentally flashed the wrong file.
My assumption is that you are using MacOS
macOS creates hidden files when copying things to an SD card. In this case, _CHIME~1.BIN is just a small metadata file (about 4 KB), not the actual firmware. The correct firmware file is CHIMER~1.BIN .
Here’s how to fix it:
- Enter the bootloader: Turn on your PreenFM3 while holding MENU .
- Access the SD card: Press button 3 and connect the PreenFM3 to your Mac.
- Remove the hidden files: Open Terminal and run
dot_clean /Volumes/<card name>, replacing<card name>with your SD card’s name. Alternatively, open the SD card in Finder, press Cmd+Shift+. to show hidden files, and delete any files starting with._. - Flash the correct firmware: Eject the SD card from your Mac, press MENU , then button 1 . Select
CHIMER~1.BIN(the file without the leading underscore).
That should get you up and running.
Meanwhile, I’m going to update the readme for mac users.
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These MacOS resource forks on FAT drives are a pain in the ass. The most sustainable way is the bootloader ignoring these files. Other fixes either involve the terminal (dot_clean or find & rm) which requires the user locates the path to their volume, or paid software (BlueHarvest).
Played around with the Chimera a bit, to get a feel for the UI. Haven’t yet looked at the manual, because there’s only one chance to document a first impression. I find it’s for the most part very intuitive, here’s a few things that stand out to me:
- in the menu, only the leftmost encoder moves between the rows. I’d expect all of them to do that.
- EDIT / SEQ for navigation feel flipped to me, both in the menu and when going through the pages of a section
- font is rather small, might not work for older folks
- I find the display of the current part is not prominent part. a large “P1” in the top left corner might do that, would povide better separation with the header (“Sound Filter”). or a graphical representation, e.g. 6 dots (2 rows, like the buttons), empty circles, and the active one filled and in the accent color. maybe put that to the right of the top row
- the lag of the value display feels odd, I expect the value to change while I turn, but it needs to stop the moment I stop
- screen saver default is distractingly short, 60s max is also on the short side, is there a reason for that?
- its unexpected that buttons 1-6 don’t select the sections and pages, took a while to find that out.
- selecting parts with buttons 1-6 somehow feels counterintuitive, it’s usually a secondary function. it have a hunch it might be faster to use 1-6 for selecting a section and toggling the pages, and having -/+ for the latter function als well. however that would probably require to lay out the sections in 2 rows on the screen, the way it’s done in the original OS is not intuitive.
- my expectation for +/- is to increase/decrease the current value, I find I often change pages when I want to adjust the big parameter with the buttons
- it might not be necessary to have the currently selected value that big, plus the algorithm visible
- algorithm morphing is an interesting idea, although I think the visual representation can be improved, i can’t imagine to learn the structure of all algorithms so that I can pick the right one for ALG B. I guess the workaround is to morph over and then select it. that being said, algos look a lot better than on the original firmware
- navigation in mod matrix is weird at first. probably gets better with use
- using SEQ to select in one place (and label als “OK” instead of “select”) in dialogs (wehre “MENU” is BACK), but as BACK in another context is confusing
- toggling between mixer/fx and sound with the button of the currently selected sound is unexpected, and also requires looking at the screen (or changing the part)
- mix + button apparently changes the part in the mixer view. why?
I understand that some things may be odd because the labels on the front plate don’t fit the UI.
But all in all it looks like you put a lot of though into it.
Will read the manual next, and then plug it into my mixer to see how it sounds.)
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Stumbled onto this thread and as a Preenfm3 (and 2) owner I am really excited for this new firmware.
I bought mine 2nd hand and it has the metal Van Dahl electronics case and mine has push encoders too.
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This is quite the report!
Thanks for taking the time to write all this up. This is exactly the kind of feedback I need, especially since you wrote it before reading the manual. It gives me a much better idea of what the experience is like for someone using Chimera for the first time.
Regarding the macOS files, I agree that the ideal solution would be for the bootloader to ignore ._ files. Unfortunately, that’s part of the stock PreenFM3 bootloader, which I don’t modify. I’ve updated the README to warn users about _CHIME~1.BIN, and starting with version 0.2.0, the firmware will ship as CHIMERA.BIN, so the correct file should be easier to identify.
Based on your feedback, here’s what I’m planning for 0.2.0:
- Parameter values: The displayed value will stop changing when you stop turning the encoder. Only the sound will glide.
- Screen saver: A longer default timeout, a much higher maximum, (I’m not sold on it and might remove it entirely.).
- Menu navigation: Any encoder will be able to scroll through menu rows.
- Current Part indicator: I’ll make it easier to see which Part you’re editing. I particularly like your idea of using six dots.
- Button labels: SEQ will behave consistently, and confirmation dialogs will use OK.
- Mixer shortcuts: I’ll look into using MIX + a Part button to select Parts directly from the mixer.
- ALG B selection: The algorithm picker will show a diagram for each algorithm, so you won’t need to morph over just to see what it does.
- Text size: I’ll look into providing a larger-text option.
A few of the other things you mentioned are intentional design decisions. For example, SEQ moves up, EDIT moves down, buttons 1–6 select Parts, and PLUS/MINUS navigate between pages. These choices were largely made to stay consistent with the labels printed on the PreenFM3 panel.
That said, just because something was intentional doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best approach. Your suggestion to use buttons 1–6 for sections is worth considering, and I’m keeping track of where the interface causes confusion. If other testers run into the same problems, I’ll revisit those decisions.
Thanks again for the detailed feedback. It’s really useful, and quite a few of your suggestions are already making their way into the next release.
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Personally I dislike screen savers. I always find it annoying to have to move something to get the screen to turn on if I want to look at a value on the screen.
You’re right. The idea was behind the “screen saver” is that it an an oscilloscope and it tells you some music theory information while you are playing. For example, you might be playing an A 440 note but because of the harmonic content, it might be heard as a C (FM and modal synthesis can be wild!) it was there to help players trouble shoot while playing. but its annoying when you are programming the synth, “the screen saver,” is kind of useless.
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