disassemble

pull them out one at a time

20 HP

A vocoder, and every band of it is a clear rod standing in the panel, lit by its band. Draw one out and that band fades, and the whole voice sinks with it, flatter, slower, younger. Push them back and it comes back to itself.

The DISASSEMBLE panel: black, gold dots of a long dark corridor of glass blocks running to a door behind the big knob. Eight holes for the rods fill the top half, four either side of the spine. FREEZE over SAG's big knob on the spine, SAG's jack, MISSING and GONE out under it; SLUR, SIBILANCE, GLASS and FORMANT across the middle; SPEECH, SING, FREEZE's jack and CARRIER under them; LEFT and RIGHT out at the foot corners. disassemble at the top, daylight noise at the bottom.

Pull a rod: drag it up. It stays wherever you leave it, and past the top it comes free and its hole goes dark. Or tap a rod to take it out and tap a hole to put one back, roll the wheel over it or use the arrow keys. 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. FREEZE is a button: press it to hold the voice, press it again to let it go. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

Its own voice saying nothing, and a stand-in rack in A minor where a patch wants one. Listen plays the patch from its top.

example patches

Everything DISASSEMBLE does here is its engine as designed, running in your browser. Its talker is made of formants, no samples, and the drums and pad are a stand-in rack.

The rods

Eight clear rods, four either side of the spine, each carrying two bands a fourth apart. The lowest pair stands at the foot of the block and the highest at the top, the chest under the breath, and each rod glows with its bands, so they pulse with the words.

Draw one up and its bands fade as it rises: half way, half gone. It stays wherever your hand leaves it, so eight rods at eight heights are a shape you can see from across the room.
Past the top, 13 mm up, it comes free in your hand. The hole goes dark.
Any rod goes in any hole. Push it home and the band comes back.
Each rod's bands come out of the side it stands on, so the voice leaves the way you take it apart.

What it does to the voice

A rod out doesn't only take its band. It takes something from everything that's left: the voice goes flatter and slower, its consonants go first, and it grows simpler. Seven out and one rod is singing alone, a falling third, very slowly, at the bottom of its range. Push them back, in any order, and with the last one home it says everything it fell behind on, in a rush.

SAG, the big knob: how much it loses. Fully left a rod takes only its band; noon a semitone a rod; full three, and a twenty-fourth of its speed with seven out. With every rod in it still sinks as it talks: each long phrase tires it, flatter and slower, and it recovers in the pause. Its jack adds to it.
SLUR: how slowly everything moves. Fully left the bands are crisp and the sag lands at once; at full they take a second and run into each other, the words melt, and the sag takes eight seconds to land.

The voice

SPEECH: the voice, or a drum machine, or anything with a shape. The words slow in the bands, so the pitch stays the carrier's own. Left empty, it speaks by itself: a small talker made of formants, saying nothing.
CARRIER: what it speaks with. A carrier that comes in sags too. Left empty, its own throat.
SING: its own throat's note, a volt an octave. Left empty, the throat follows the talker's tune.
SIBILANCE: the unvoiced part. Fully left, no noise, and every consonant is a thud; at noon it comes as it comes; at full the throat is gone and only the breath and the esses get through.
FORMANT: the mouth against the throat. Fully left a giant, at full a child, twenty semitones either way.
GLASS: how narrow the rods are. Soft and overlapping fully left, a plain vocoder at noon, and at full each rod rings as two glass notes, so the voice plays a chord of fourths and a rod pulled takes two notes out of it.
FREEZE, a lit button, and its jack: holds it on what it's saying, a vowel for ever, its cap lit. Press again to let it go. With it held, the rods are drawbars on that vowel.

What comes out

LEFT, RIGHT: the voice, the left-hand rods mostly left and the right-hand rods mostly right.
GONE: everything the rods have given up, still speaking. LEFT, RIGHT and GONE together are the whole voice, so a band pulled doesn't end, it moves.
MISSING: how far the rods are out, a volt a rod, rising with your hand. Patch it to the rest of the rack and it goes down with the voice.

Specs

Format

Width: 20 HP
Controls: eight rods, a big knob, 4 knobs, a lit button

Inputs

SPEECH, CARRIER: audio, ±5 V
SING: 1 V/oct
SAG: CV, added to the knob, 5 V the whole way
FREEZE: gate, held while high

Outputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio
GONE: audio, mono
MISSING: CV, 0 to 8 V