launch code

the tune is in the noise

20 HP

Every step starts as a wrong note, a different one each time it plays. One by one, in a random order, the steps lock, and the melody comes out of the noise: yours, from TARGET, or one it makes up. When the last step locks it launches: the drop. Then a new code.

The LAUNCH CODE panel: black, with a steel console in gold dots: two keys turned in their locks beside the LAUNCH and ABORT buttons, and under them a round dial: sixteen bolt-shaped windows of bare circuit board round the big CRACK knob, and two arcs of bare board round them for its rim. CLOCK, TARGET and RESET across the top, the LAUNCH and ABORT gates down the sides with CRACK's own jack over the dial, NOISE and SPIN either side of it, LAUNCHED and LOCK below them, the STEPS switch with its five dots and MISS lower in, CODE and DIGIT in the bottom corners with FOUND between them. launch code 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. STEPS clicks from stop to stop the same ways. LAUNCH and ABORT are buttons: press LAUNCH to lock every step now, ABORT to throw them all back into noise. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

What you hear is a rack played by LAUNCH CODE: its sixteenths into CLOCK; CODE and DIGIT on the lead, FOUND opening its filter, MISS crushing its wrong notes, LOCK on a bright ping, LAUNCHED bringing in the drums and bass. All made in the page as you listen.

example patches

The steps, locks, wrong notes and lights here are LAUNCH CODE's engine, the module's own code, running in your browser; the clock, riff, lead, ping and drums stand in for the rest of a rack.

Cracking

Each clock plays the next step. A found step plays its note; an unfound one plays a wrong note. Every so often a step due in the code's order locks the next time it plays, with a trigger at LOCK.

CLOCK: each rising edge plays the next step. RESET: the next step is step one.
TARGET: the tune to crack, 1 V an octave, read on each step: patch a sequencer on the same clock. Unpatched, it makes up its own minor tune, a new one every code.
STEPS: the code's length. Its five stops, left to right, are 4, 6, 8, 12 and 16 steps.
CRACK: how fast the steps lock. Fully left it takes sixty-four times round the code to find it; at noon eight; fully right every step locks the first time it plays, the code found in one.
CRACK, the jack: a CV added to the knob; 5 V takes it the whole way round.

The noise

NOISE: how wrong the wrong notes are. Fully left, a semitone off: the tune played sour. At noon up to a fourth either way; fully right anywhere across four octaves.
SPIN: how fast they change. Fully left an unfound step keeps its one wrong note until it's found; at noon a new one every time it plays; fully right a roll of four in every step.

The launch

When the last step locks, the drop comes in at the top of the code: the tune plays clean for as many times round as it took to find, and then a new code begins, every step back to noise.

LAUNCH: lock every step now; the drop waits for the top of the code. Held, the drop doesn't end. Its cap is lit through the drop and blinks with one step left.
ABORT: throw every step back into noise now, the same tune found again in a new order. Held, nothing locks.
LAUNCH and ABORT, the jacks: gates that press the buttons.

What comes out

CODE: the code as it plays, 1 V an octave. DIGIT: a gate for every note, rolls included.
LOCK: a trigger as each step locks.
LAUNCHED: a gate through the drop, once a code.
FOUND: the share of the steps found, 0 to 8 V: patch it to a filter and the patch opens as the tune appears.
MISS: how wrong the note playing is, 0 V on a found step up to 8 V four octaves off: dirty noise, clean tune.

Inside

One board sits 10 mm behind the panel with everything on its front: the jacks, the knobs, STEPS's switch, the two buttons, the 44 LEDs and the whole circuit, the USB-C in a notch in its left edge. Each bolt has its own cell in a black printed baffle, lit by its own two white LEDs, so a step's bolt lights alone, and each arc of the rim its six. An RP2350 plays the code 4,000 times a second.

The LAUNCH CODE panel half cracked: eight of the dial's sixteen bolts burning steady and the rest flickering, its knobs, jacks, STEPS and the two buttons on.

Drag it or use the arrow keys to turn it; click it to take it apart.

Specs

Format

Width: 20 HP
Depth: 20.8 mm behind the panel
+12 V: about 45 mA dark, 90 to 130 mA cracking, 190 mA at the most (estimated)
−12 V: about 5 mA (estimated)
+5 V: not used
Controls: a big knob, 2 knobs, a five-way switch, a lit button, a button

I/O

CLOCK: gate, a step on each rise past about 0.9 V; unpatched, nothing moves; safe to ±12 V
RESET: gate, past about 0.9 V: the next step is step one
TARGET: 1 V an octave, −6 to +6 V, to the nearest semitone; a 24-bit converter, calibrated; unpatched, it makes up its own tune
LAUNCH, ABORT: gates, past about 0.9 V, as the buttons
CRACK: CV, added to the knob, 5 V the whole way; −6 to +6 V
CODE: 1 V an octave, −5 to +5 V, 16-bit, calibrated
FOUND, MISS: CV, 0 to 8 V
DIGIT, LAUNCHED: gates, 0/5 V
LOCK: trigger, 5 V for 10 ms

Engine

Brain: RP2350, 4,000 steps a second
Codes: 4, 6, 8, 12 or 16 steps, found in 1 to 64 times round
Light: 44 white LEDs under the dial's sixteen bolts and its rim, 125 frames a second
Power cycle: keeps only its calibration; it wakes to a new code