disguise by daylight noise

disguise

it never stays in character

20 HP

Your sound goes through in another voice. Now and then it sticks on what it just played and rolls down to a buzz, and on the next downbeat it splits open, the bass first, then the middle, then the top, until it's your own sound underneath. Then the disguise closes over it again.

The disguise

Whatever goes through wears another face: lower, slower, boxed in, as if heard through a metal mask.

STRANGER: how far the face is from yours. None fully left; to about ten o'clock only the mask, a hollow colour at your own pitch; then a fifth down, an octave at noon, an octave and a fifth from two o'clock, somebody else entirely.

STRANGER, the jack: its CV, added to the knob.

LEFT, RIGHT: the sound in, a stereo pair; LEFT alone goes to both sides.

The malfunction

Now and then it sticks on what it just played and repeats it on the clock: twice, then half of it twice, then half again, down to a sixty-fourth of a bar, a buzz. As it rolls the face slips between the disguise and your own. Every roll ends on a phrase line, so what comes next lands on the one.

GLITCH, the big knob: how often and how badly. Fully left never; then every sixteen bars, eight, four at noon, two, and every bar it can; the further it's turned, the more the face slips.

GLITCH, the jack: its CV, added to the knob.

REPEAT: what it sticks on: a sixty-fourth of a bar fully left, a beat at noon, a whole bar fully right. A fill is four times as long, a bar at noon and four bars at full.

CLOCK: a pulse a beat, four to a bar; empty, its own 120 BPM. Stop it for a second and a half and the next pulse is the one.

BREAK, a lit button and its gate: stick now. Held, it holds the roll at its buzz; let go and the plates open on the next beat. Its cap is lit while anything is stuck.

The plates

When the roll ends it splits open in three plates, low, middle and high, one at a time: your own sound through each as it opens, the shut ones still repeating. All three open, what comes out is exactly what goes in; then they close, and the disguise is back.

OPEN: how they open and how long it stays bare. Fully left a bar between plates and only a beat bare; at noon a beat between and a bar bare; fully right all three at once and four bars bare.

The windows: the three across the top light as their plates open. The seven up the middle are the roll, a bar at the bottom to a sixty-fourth at the top, the one repeating now lit.

What comes out

LEFT, RIGHT: the sound, disguised, stuck or bare.

STUCK: a gate, high while anything repeats.

BARE: a gate, high while it's bare.

PLATE: a trigger as each plate opens.

ROLL: a volt a halving, 0 V for a bar to 6 V for a sixty-fourth: sent to a pitch, it climbs an octave a step.

Specs

Format

Width: 20 HP
Controls: a big knob, 3 knobs, a lit button

Inputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio, ±5 V
CLOCK: a pulse a beat, a rising edge past 1 V; empty, its own 120 BPM
BREAK: gate, high past 1 V
GLITCH, STRANGER: CV, added to their knobs, 5 V the whole way

Outputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio
STUCK, BARE: gates, 5 V
PLATE: trigger, 5 V, 10 ms
ROLL: CV, 0 to 6 V