My mk2 is very noisy too… maybe not as much as mk1 as is stated but enough for me to love it 
Not to derail this thread but I heard your comparisons and other demoes of the mk1 (I own an mk2 and love it!) and was surprised how noisey the mk1 was.
However, I’m a nutter who actually likes listening to old sega genesis soundtracks and they usually sound quite clean.
Was there a built in noisegate on the old sega or is the MegaFM tweaking the chip?
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From the website -
This updated version is identical in appearance and functionality but will include a pair of YM3438 chips instead of the YM2612. The YM3438 is a variant of the YM2612 that is identical in functionality and was featured in the Sega Megadrive II. The circuit layout has also been updated to grant access to the FM chips with minimal disassembly.
Indeed the chips are now socketed (removable) and accessible by removing the bottom panel.
This allows you to install alternate FM chips (like the YM2612, modern alternatives or even custom sound chips).
You can also mix different versions of FM chip as there are 2 slots that can be configured individually.
MEGAfm MKII features the same audio circuitry and analog distortion as the MKI, as a result both chips sound very similar inside of MEGAfm.
The firmware will work identically on both versions.
You just need a couple of blobs of solder on the PCB if you swapped to YM2612 chips. The manual has all the details.
I don’t think you’d want to mix two different chips tbh because of how the stereo modes work, might be ok with Wide3/unison? Or if you just used a mono output I guess.
Sorry, I reread your post, not sure on that one tbh. Are the soundtracks you’re listening to recorded on original hardware or on an emulator? I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a low pass or something on the original that the MEGAfm doesn’t use, it certainly captures the full raw range of the chips AFAICT.
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Good question. I’m not sure how the music was created.
I’ll look into it.
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Yes, I did try to look up the Strider soundtrack but could only find results generated with YM3438, the vast majority of results seemed to be emulated and thus a more perfect imperfection.
There is some amount of distortion by design, though! Gainstaging seems engineered towards extremity in a way that the Genesis implementation would certainly have avoided. From the Modwiggler thread-
Yeah I found some more demos that seemed to focus on a less noisy sound and also one were the guy raised the volume up all the way and you could really hear the difference in the last bit of volume boost, almost like some wave shaping type distortion kicking in.
Pretty wild and man the more demos I listen to the more I’m really falling for this machine. This synth just seems to ooze character.
_
Yeah the volume knob is a digital volume control on the chip, not a control over the analog signal. This is as I understand a deliberate choice, to pull out the heckin dirty distortion. Downside is using a lower volume for more delicate sounds requires a good amount of post-gain. Which is one reason I don’t think a Kasser Synths Genesis isn’t redundant, as it can do the more delicate, traditional sounds.
So, you may be correct in that this noiser (in some circumstances) than the original implementation, in that it is leaning into “character” by pushing the chip into clipping territory in more extreme parameter ranges.
Through the random patch generation I was coming across this more often, which was great for industrial sounding grime but less so for the more melodic Phantasy Star-like tones in the initial MEGAfm demo tracks, subtlety takes a bit more work to get that JRPG ethereal gorgeousness tuned-in.
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It can be quite smooth as long as you tweak the levels into the sweet spots; enough level for a good tone/noise ratio but not enough so that the operator starts to clip. The parallel algos are more forgiving, in serial it’s much easier to push things into the ‘red’.
Well, just ordered the MK2 from Thomann 
Looking very much forward to hearing it out.
@GurtTractor Thanks for pointing out your earlier comparison posts. Quality content! I wish I could have ordered the MK1, because as you point out, the hiss and extra harmonics seems so absolutely stunning. It’s actually something I’ve been trying to emulate through various plugins (distortion, drive and tape) for some time now, so having it built in seems lovely
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Well if you happen to find two YM2612 chips you could still get that sound in theory, that’s the nice thing about the Mk2. The YM3438 still has a lot of its own unique character and the cleaner sound is often more desirable in some mixes depending on what you’re trying to do.
Has anyone here successfully done a chip swap on the Mk2? I’m not sure how common the chips are. I wonder if it would be possible to mod a MEGAfm with a switch that toggles between either set? Seems like it should be possible though it’s probably more work than it’s worth.
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I actually bought a couple of old mega drives with the aim of one day swapping out the chips. One day!
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I imagine provenance is also important at the moment, considering how counterfeit chips are omnipresent.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SEGAGENESIS/comments/11mi4c5/are_there_ym2612_clones_now/
https://www.tindie.com/products/denjhang/real-yamaha-fm-synthesis-chip/ ← can’t verify these but just noting that people are selling as NOS as opposed to AliExpress trash.
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R3.5 Updated November 21st 2023
-Added finer preset tuning:
Hold voicing and engage tuning mode by moving the vol/tune knob
Now you can also use the fat/glide knob to get a finer resolution (1 semitone range).
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Were you ever able to sort this out? I just realized that MIDI clock sync is no longer working for me either, and I know for sure that it used to work fine because I used it that way all the time. When the Sync setting was enabled via the settings function on the MegaFM, the rate knob displayed a different set of values: more like tempo-synced values such as only 2, 4, 8, 16. When it was disabled, it showed incremental values like 1,2,3,4…23,24,25, etc. As of now, I can only make it display the latter set of values and it definitely does not sync to tempo.
(I’m on v3.3 of the firmware)
Nope. I’ve not done too much extensive troubleshooting of it recently and I don’t think I tried it in older firmwares tbh. I’ll have to try it again soon, and email Alex if it just won’t work at all.
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Yeah I have a mk1 and think I want a mk2.
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I love my mk2 so much! 
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I have the mk1 and now I’m curious about the mk2!
If there’s anyone in Sweden looking to trade a Mk1 for Mk2…
Is there some method to save patches to empty slots and not unintentionally overwrite existing patches? Right now, it seems to me the of no way to find out if there is the init patch or user patch stored in a given slot when choosing a slot to store the current patch.
Would anyone like to share some patch ideas/settings for the Megafm? I’ve come across some interesting sounds on YouTube, but it’s hard to get responses.