lanterns

hang one on every hit

20 HP

Every hit lights a lantern: its moment frozen into a glowing tail that hangs in its own place across the field, a shimmer over it. As it dims it crushes. They sway, and every kick pushes them all down; they breathe back before the next.

The LANTERNS panel: black, gold dots of a dark vault, its pale ribs arching over from the top corners and its piers running down both sides to the foot. Hung in the middle under the name, eight paper lanterns of bare circuit board on gold strings: two on the spine and three pairs stepping down and out. LEFT and RIGHT in at the top corners, SWAY and CRUSH under them; KICK's and LIGHT's gates either side of GLOW's big knob, BREATHE and HIGH beside it; the LIGHT button under GLOW, GLOW's and CRUSH's jacks either side of it; AGLOW and LIT out under those, LEFT, LANTERNS and RIGHT out along the foot. lanterns 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. LIGHT is a button: press it to light a lantern from whatever is sounding, or hold it down to keep lighting them. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

A slow, dark loop in A minor: a high voice into LANTERNS, an 808 into KICK and beside it. Listen plays the patch from its top.

example patches

Everything LANTERNS does here is its engine as designed, running in your browser. The loop is a stand-in rack.

Lighting them

LANTERNS hears each hit in what comes in, a voice, a pluck, a snare or a whole mix, and lights a lantern for it. The lantern catches the moment just after the hit and freezes it: its pitch and its colour held, its rhythm gone, a small glowing tail of its own.

LEFT, RIGHT: the sound in. It comes out as it went in, with the lanterns over it.
LIGHT, a lit button: light one now, from whatever is sounding, no hit needed. Hold it and it keeps lighting them, one every eighth of a second, so a phrase hangs in eight.
LIGHT, the jack: a gate does what the button does. Patched, the hits light nothing by themselves, so a sequencer picks the moments.
Eight hang at once, each in its own place across the field, the first in the middle, then out to the sides. The ninth relights the oldest.
The lights: each lantern on the panel is one of them, lit as it's lit and dimming as it dims, its upper half going first so an ember is left at its foot.

How they hang

GLOW, the big knob: how long and how bright they hang. Fully left a short flare, a fifth of a second; five seconds at noon; at full three minutes, so nothing goes out before it's relit. Its jack adds to it.
CRUSH: how rough they get as they dim. Each starts a little crushed and gets warmer, rougher, lower in rate and in bits the further it fades, until it's a stutter of clicks. Towards full they crackle, and tear out for a moment now and then. Its jack adds to it.
SWAY: each lantern swings on its own slow pendulum, in pitch and in place. At noon a slow chorus; at full they swing out of tune against each other, most of a semitone, and the field wheels round.
HIGH: the shimmer, an octave over each lantern, growing as it dims; past noon two octaves as well, so the old ones turn to glints.
The lights flicker as they crush, and go dark while one tears.

The breath

BREATHE: how far each kick pushes them down. Fully left not at all, about 10 dB at noon, at full gone on every kick. They come back slowly, then quickly, over most of the time to the next kick, so at any tempo they're back just before it.
KICK: what they breathe with, a kick drum or its trigger. Left empty, they breathe with the sound's own lows: the kick in a mix, or a bass's notes.
Only the lanterns breathe: the sound that came in never moves.

What comes out

LEFT, RIGHT: the sound and the lanterns over it.
LANTERNS: the lanterns alone, both sides together, to send anywhere else.
LIT: a trigger as each lantern is lit.
AGLOW: how much is glowing, a volt a lantern at full, 0 to 8 V. It dips with the breath.

Specs

Format

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

Inputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio, ±5 V; RIGHT takes LEFT when it's empty
KICK: a kick's audio or a trigger, past 1 V
LIGHT: gate, high past 1 V
GLOW, CRUSH: CV, added to the knob, 5 V the whole way

Outputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio
LANTERNS: audio, mono
LIT: trigger, 5 V
AGLOW: CV, 0 to 8 V