limbo

the music is slower down here

20 HP

What you play is heard again a level down, many times slower and falling in pitch, and a level below that, slower still. A riff becomes a slow horn a level down and a glacier at the bottom. Kick it and every level races up to land together on the beat, then sinks again.

The LIMBO panel: black, with a pale figure in gold dots sinking down it, arms raised either side of the name, her dress drifting up round the middle. Down the middle under DEPTH, the big knob, three flights of six narrow windows of bare circuit board, each step a little narrower than the one above. KICK, a button, under the name between BEAT and KICK; DROP and DREAM in the top corners with their jacks under them; AWAKE and DEPTH beside DEPTH's foot; UNDER and HAUNT at the edges with their jacks; BELOW and BOTTOM between the second and third flights; LEFT and RIGHT in the bottom corners; a dashed white ring round BEAT and KICK. limbo 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. KICK is a button: press it and every level races up to land together on the next beat. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

What you hear is LIMBO's LEFT and RIGHT with a band playing into AWAKE, and the band's drums beside it, dry. It's all made in the page as you listen.

example patches

The levels, the kick and every out here are LIMBO's engine as it's designed, running in your browser; the band and its drums are a stand-in for the rest of a rack. The page keeps a minute of what it hears, where the module keeps three, so here the levels are lost sooner.

Going down

Three levels. The top is what you play. The second plays it again, slower, and lower; the third plays the second's way again, slower and lower still. All three follow the same playing, live, each at its own pace. Silence takes no time down here: a level never waits through a pause it was sinking into.

AWAKE: what goes in, and the top level.
DEPTH: how many times slower each level is than the one above: twice fully left, about nine at noon, nineteen at three o'clock, thirty-nine fully right, and the bottom one that much again.
DROP: how far each level falls in pitch, the bottom twice as far: none fully left, then a fourth, a fifth round noon, an octave from three o'clock. It glides between them.
DREAM: how strange the levels get going down, the bottom more than the one above it. Fully left, faithful; turned up, longer grains wander off their place, blur, sometimes play backwards, reach back for an older moment, and darken.

The kick

A kick brings everyone up at once. Every level races through what it hadn't got to yet, faster and faster, its pitch sweeping up and its dark lifting, and lands with the top on the beat. Then they slow and fall away again. The lights climb every step from the bottom up, and flash together as they land.

KICK: the button and its gate. The cap flashes at the kick, glows through the rush, and breathes while a level is lost.
BEAT: the rack's beat. A kick lands on the first beat a quarter of a second or more after it; with nothing patched, three quarters of a second after it.
Lost: with DEPTH turned all but fully right, the bottom stops and holds one instant for good, and only a kick brings it back. Left down there longer than the memory holds, either level is lost the same way.

The mix and the seep

UNDER: where LEFT and RIGHT sit: the top alone fully left, all three at noon, the bottom alone fully right.
HAUNT: how much of each level seeps back into what it follows. A level hears itself again a moment later, fallen again; the bottom hears what the level above it left there. Fully right, with DROP fully left, it can go on for good.
The jacks under the knobs: each knob's CV, ±5 V added to it.

What comes out

BELOW and BOTTOM: the second and third levels alone, whatever UNDER says.
LEFT and RIGHT: the mix. The top in the middle, BELOW spread a little, BOTTOM wide.

Specs

Format

Width: 20 HP
Controls: 5 knobs (DEPTH's big), a lit button

Inputs

AWAKE: audio, ±5 V
BEAT: gate, rising past 1 V: where a kick lands
KICK: gate, rising past 1 V
CVs: DEPTH, DROP, DREAM, UNDER, HAUNT: ±5 V, added to their knobs

Outputs

BELOW, BOTTOM: audio, each level alone
LEFT, RIGHT: audio, the mix, to ±8 V