What Is FMJ-Software and What Tools Does It Offer?

Updated

FMJ refers to FMJ-Software, a small independent software developer whose catalog centers on audio and image utilities. The two flagship products are Awave Studio, an audio and synthesizer instrument file format converter, editor and player, and Image Eye, a free image viewer. The rest of the catalog covers batch audio conversion, batch image conversion, instrument tuning, a 3D planetarium, and audio CD ripping. Most of these are shareware: you can evaluate them, and a purchased license includes a defined period of free major-version updates.

The FMJ-Software product lineup

Product What it does Notes from the site
Awave Studio Audio and synthesizer instrument file format converter, editor and player The most actively developed product; frequent releases
Awave Audio Audio file format batch converter v11.4 added metadata multi-editing
Image Eye Fast, lean, free image viewer v10.0 added AVX2 SIMD, AVIF and BigTIFF support
Any Image Image file format batch converter —
Chromatia Tuner Chromatic instrument tuner —
StarStrider Photo-realistic, real-time 3D planetarium using the Hipparcos database —
ACDR Free Audio CD ripper —

The split is fairly clean: Awave Studio and Awave Audio handle audio, Image Eye and Any Image handle images, and the remaining three are single-purpose tools.

Awave Studio: the centerpiece

Awave Studio is where most of the development effort goes. It converts, edits and plays audio and synthesizer instrument files, and the release history shows the scope of formats it targets — mostly sampler and synthesizer banks rather than everyday consumer audio.

Recent releases illustrate the direction:

  • v12.16 (2026-09-09) — bug fixes and many small improvements
  • v12.15 (2026-07-07) — improved Wine compatibility for running on macOS or Linux, ZIP file opening, and read support for Kurzweil K2700 and PC4 files
  • v12.14 (2026-05-05) — E-Mu Emulator IV and X banks (.E4B, .EXB, .EBL), AKAI S5000/S6000/Z4/Z8 multis (.AKM), Bitwig multisamples (.multisample), mod-wheel crossfading, loop counts
  • v12.13 (2026-03-12) — Windows Dark mode and NTFS long path support
  • v12.12 (2026-01-01) — read support for Fairlight CMI I/II/IIx voice files (.VC)
  • v12.11 (2025-10-02) — Yamaha Montage M files (.Y2U/.Y2L/.Y2A), background waveform loading
  • v12.10 (2025-08-12) — Yamaha MODX, Montage and MOXF support; improvements to Motif XS/XF conversion; read support for E-Mu Emulator III/IIIx CD-ROMs
  • v12.9 (2025-04-02) — read support for E-mu Emulator I/II/III/IIIx/ESI-32 and E-max I/II banks; improved "Read from Sampler CD" and MIDI SDS Transfer
  • v12.8 (2025-02-10) — usability improvements; a new way of working with loops and play sections using markers
  • v12.7 (2024-12-02) — Renoise instruments (.XRNI), Unicode texts, image and marker metadata, FLAC compression for .SF3 files

Two practical takeaways from that list. First, if you work with vintage sampler or workstation formats — E-mu, AKAI, Kurzweil, Fairlight, Yamaha — Awave Studio is built around exactly that problem. Second, the v12.15 Wine improvements mean running it on macOS or Linux is a supported path rather than an accident.

Image Eye and the image tools

Image Eye is described as a fast, lean and free image viewer. Version 10.0 added AVX2 SIMD instructions for increased performance, plus support for AVIF and BigTIFF, Windows dark mode and NTFS long paths. If you need to convert between image formats in bulk rather than just view them, Any Image is the batch converter in the same catalog.

Licensing and update policy

FMJ-Software's products are generally shareware. One policy detail is worth noting because it affects purchase timing: the minimum period during which you are eligible for free major-version updates after buying a license was extended from one year to two years, effective immediately as of the 2026-01-01 announcement. In practice, that means a license bought today covers major upgrades for at least two years — relevant given how frequently Awave Studio ships new versions.

How to decide which tool you need

  • Converting or editing sampler/synth instrument files → Awave Studio
  • Batch-converting ordinary audio files → Awave Audio
  • Just viewing images quickly, for free → Image Eye
  • Batch-converting image formats → Any Image
  • Tuning an instrument → Chromatia Tuner
  • Exploring the night sky in 3D → StarStrider
  • Ripping an audio CD → ACDR

If your work is audio-format conversion, start with Awave Studio and check whether the specific source and target formats you need appear in its release notes; the changelog is the most reliable indicator of current format coverage.