black sand

the tide comes in

20 HP

A piano voice left on a beach. Two hands play an old upright: felt hammers, up to three strings a key, a wooden body. Then the water climbs its legs: keys stick down and ring on, the waves slap the body and play the keys you played, and at the top of the tide it's under.

The BLACK SAND panel: black, gold dots of an old upright piano standing on a beach at night, surf round its feet and lines of foam across the foot. The piano's keyboard is a strip of 22 windows of bare circuit board under the big TIDE knob, and eight wavy windows of water rise from the shore up its legs towards it. BASS and TREBLE at the top corners with a STRIKE under each, WAVES and SALT either side of TIDE, the TIDE and SINK jacks beside the water, SWELL and SURF out under them, the WAVES and SALT jacks by the shore, LEFT and RIGHT out at the foot corners and the SINK button between them. black sand at the top, daylight noise at the bottom.

Turn a knob: drag it or tap either side of it, roll the wheel over it or use the arrow keys; a double click puts it back. SINK is a button: hold it down. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

A slow figure in A minor from the rack's sequencer, both hands into BLACK SAND. Listen plays the patch from its top.

example patches

Everything BLACK SAND does here is its engine as designed, running in your browser. The figure, the pad and the drums are a stand-in rack.

Playing it

An upright with all 88 keys and two hands. Up to ten keys ring at once, one to three strings each.

BASS and TREBLE: the left hand and the right. Each picks the nearest key (0 V is middle C); with TREBLE empty, the right hand plays BASS an octave up.
STRIKE, under each: the key goes down as the gate rises, as hard as the gate is high, and comes up when it falls, dying over a second on old dampers. Empty, the hand plays whenever its pitch moves.
The keys: the strip under TIDE, four keys a light. Each lights as it's struck, glows while held, brighter while stuck.

The tide

The water takes the piano in: the low strings go damp, the body booms as each wave slaps it, and wet keys stick down, ringing on until the tide goes out.

TIDE, the big knob: dry sand fully left. At noon the water's round its legs and one strike in ten sticks; from three o'clock it's under: only the low strings come through, the hammers soft and slow, bubbles rising.
TIDE, the jack: its CV, 5 V the whole way.
The water: the eight lines under the keys, lit up to the tide, each wave running up past it.

The sea

WAVES: how much the sea plays it. Calm fully left; at noon a wave every seven seconds or so, striking a few keys softly; at full a storm, a wave a second, up to eight keys rolled.
Only yours: it plays only the last sixteen keys the hands struck, and plays on when they stop.
WAVES, the jack: its CV.

Salt

SALT: years on the beach. Fully left, in tune. Turned up, each key drifts out its own way (nearly a quarter-tone), its strings beat against each other, sand buzzes on the loud notes, and keys die, knocking with no string sounding: a quarter or so at full, the same ones first.
SALT, the jack: its CV.

Over the side

SINK, a button and its gate: hold it and the piano goes over the side: a plunge, bubbles, the whole sound pulled down into deep water until it hits the bottom; let go and it comes back up. Nothing changes speed or pitch, and it never clicks.

What comes out

LEFT, RIGHT: the piano, low keys to the left; the body and the slaps in the middle; the wash and the bubbles wide.
SWELL: the water's height, 0 to 8 V, each wave's swash on top.
SURF: a trigger at every wave.

Specs

Format

Width: 20 HP
Controls: a big knob, 2 knobs, a button

Inputs

BASS, TREBLE: 1 V/oct, ±5 V, the nearest of 88 keys; TREBLE empty takes BASS up an octave
STRIKE: gates, one a hand, rising past 1 V; their height to 8 V is how hard
CVs: TIDE, WAVES, SALT: added to the knobs, 5 V the whole way
SINK: gate, over the side while high

Outputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio, exact to ±7.5 V, soft past it
SWELL: CV, 0 to 8 V
SURF: trigger, 0/5 V, 10 ms