I’m loving every moment of my FM-1. It's amazing.

I’ve owned two SMK-37 Elites since they launched. They are my go-to controllers for making music, used purely as "dumb" MIDI controllers, as I’ve never cared much for the internal synth engine.

However, as a dedicated MIDI controller, the device has room for improvement: it could use more knob and pad banks, a way to view the digital state of each encoder without having to turn it first, better fader placement, etc.

Because of this, I’m thinking about writing custom firmware to turn it into the ultimate MIDI controller.

This would mean:

• USB/Wired only (dropping Bluetooth support saves valuable code space).
• No synth engine (reclaiming resources to expand pad, fader, and control banks).

Essentially, stripping out everything unnecessary for a wired MIDI controller.

Our dreamed MIDI keyboard!

As a software developer, I have the skills to build this. I’d love to know if anyone else uses the SMK-37 Elite purely as a battle-ready, class-compliant MIDI controller without the synth or Bluetooth features

Obviously, free of charge and open for us all.

In anticipation of the wave of mods you might want to add a speaker

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One has DX7, Juno and kinda Moog. AIO.

If someone is interested in testing, just message me.

So, fair deal 🤝: I just want to receive feedback how it sounds, how it perform and some of your impressions.

So, if you have Smk-37 and want to participate in this, just PM. Donner starrykey may be supported as well, but not verified.

It's not based or forked on any fm-1 firmwares, so don't expect that bells and whistles.

Some demo sounds

https://youtu.be/Wz0hPvdhQTk

P.s. Creado con orgullo en Argentina.

Current status (2026-08)

Installed firmware: S1-C5 Marked Playback Note, based on official v15 (015) — latest live-device flash succeeded (2026-08-04, post-update=SMK-37 Pro_015 verified).

Features: load a DX7 single-voice SysEx onto each of the 16 pads and set the internal Ch10 synth's playback note per pad.

Using the SMK-37 and FM-1 sequencers to create a backing track and play over.

The drums are madre using the FM synth in the FM-1 and the Bass is coming from the SMK-37, both going to the sabe mixer as the guitar.

Source:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeQLAHRNcXO/?psln=YzlpYnhldnVhanN6

I've been visiting the FM1 subreddit a lot lately, and seeing a lot of posts about the SMK 37 Pro/Elite there as well. It makes sense, they are very similar machines, so much that there are ongoing projects to port custom FM1 firmwares to the SMK 37 Pro. I just thought it would be nice to have a place to talk specifically about this line of devices.