Long awaited firmware update has just been released.
Before I get to ordinary release notes, three important changes must be pointed out here:
- Electra One can be now used as a serious and time-precise MIDI sequencer. An internal event scheduler has been introduced, it allows very accurate timing of outgoing MIDI. The MIDI events processed with the scheduler are not affected by the UI actions, page repaints as it was in prior firmware versions
- Electra One router can be controlled with Lua. This allows low-latency filtering, processing, merging, transposing, adding midi effects, you name it.
- The source code is now free of any Renesas proprietary code (that came with a restrictive license). From this perspective, the source code is ready for going public.
The above three changes resulted in major changes in the firmware, especially point 3. I spent last two months testing and verifying that existing presets work correctly. I was not alone, I received help and feedback from many of you. Thank you for that. But still, there can be issues. If you notice anything strange, please report it to me. It is perfectly safe to downgrade back to 4.1.4 if you encounter problems. Of course, 5.0.0 presets will not work on 4.1.4.
Just as much work has gone into the web editor as into the firmware. This time I decided not to release features in - Lua developer friendly way only - as was often the case in the past. Every new firmware feature now has its counterpart in the web editor. Let’s be honest, Claude Code worked a lot there. It was like having a team of web developers here.
The release notes:
- Improved captures to support multi-message recordings, timed, and tempo-synced playback. Captures use the SMF MIDI file format and can be exported/imported to/from the computer software.
- Added a snapshot toolbar to manage snapshot variations, A/B against the edit buffer (like compare function on synths), retake from the page, plus morph and randomize over MIDI.
- Extended Lua API and allowed preset editing from Lua: controls, groups, overlays, pages and device definitions built, edited and saved by a script. In a way, somebody can create a preset that would be a preset editor now.
- Added new Lua modules: json, osc, midici, bytes, schedule, snapshots, captures, controls.
- Added management of router with Lua.
- Added MIDI 2.0 CI, the controller answers MIDI-CI and publishes preset parameters over Property Exchange, host can see names, ranges and display values. Remote Knobs can be used in combination with that to control legacy hardware with sysex, NRPN with CC messages.
- Added support for running on controller unit tests. To make it easier to develop complex Lua and to have safeguards when modifying some else’s or AI generated presets.
- Added the textBox control, in four font sizes, with an on-screen keyboard as its detail. It can be used to type in patch names and any other text input.
- Added fonts, multiple sizes, weights, and spacings for controls where it makes sense.
- Added linking of faders. Faders can be linked in run-time for instant macro function.
- Improved detail windows, full-screen on mk2, envelopes drawn over one another, all twelve knobs shown.
- Added user defined acceleration to pots to allow less (or more) sensitive knobs.
- Increased number of pages on Mini to 16, there are two page sets now.
- Resolved collection of issues and smaller requests reported here on the forum.electra.one, between feb-2026 and sep-2026.
As always, thanks to everyone for their input. I have tried to learn from the feedback and incorporate the ideas in a way that is consistent with my vision of how Electra One should work.
Of course, I was not able to implement everything. Some things were simply to hard to do properly, others were not in line with the hardware itself, and some looked good when discussed, but weird when implemented.
NOTE
Unfortunately, the recent releases of Chromium based browsers (Chome, Edge, …) are not working 100% ok on Windows (that runs the new MIDI stack). Workarounds are now in place. I am hoping it will be resolved soon. If you browser freezes, kill it using the Task Manager.
The “early” version of the offline editor is available for download on the website. This version does not suffer from that issue.
NOTE II
Several Demo presets can be found now in the Public presets library. I created them when I was testing the AI integration to the offline editor. Quite some of them served the purpose of zero-lua-coding approach. All their functionality was developed using the ordinary layout editor and the AI prompts. Not that I prefer that way of creating presets, but I totally understand that for many of you, learning a programming language is a waste of time.