marrow

a kit that goes off

20 HP

Five drums made of vegetables: a knife into a cabbage, celery snapped, a melon split, radish tops torn, oil spitting in a pan. Over the night they rot, from crisp to soft to wet to slop. FRESH restocks them.

The MARROW panel: black, with half a cabbage in gold dots filling it, its cut face a maze of veins round a white core rising from the foot. A row of ten small lights of bare circuit board runs across the middle with the FRESH button in it. Down the left, STAB and SNAP, each a trigger over its out with a round light between; down the right, TEAR and SIZZLE; SPLIT down the middle. FORCE, ROT, ROOM and SIZE, the knobs, with their jacks under them; FRESH's jack under the button and MIX at the foot. marrow at the top, daylight noise at the bottom.

Turn a knob: drag it, roll the wheel over it or use the arrow keys; a double click puts it back. FRESH is a button: press it to restock. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

What you hear is MARROW's MIX and a pad. The beat, the pad and every hit are made in the page as you listen. The page rots thirty times as fast as the module.

example patches

Every hit, the rot, the rooms and the lights here are MARROW's engine as it's designed, running in your browser. The beat and the pad are a stand-in for the rest of a rack.

The hits

Five hits, each a trigger in and its own out, each something done to a vegetable. They're made fresh every time, so no two crunches are the same. A trigger's height is how hard: 5 V is the knob's, 1 V a fifth of it.

STAB: a knife into a cabbage. The blade's tick, the leaves cracking, the dull thud of the head: the kick.
SNAP: a stick of celery snapped. The crack, the strings tearing, a spray: the snare.
SPLIT: a melon split open. A hollow knock, the split running down it, then the splatter landing: the crash.
TEAR: radish tops torn off. A short dry rip: the hats.
SIZZLE: oil spitting in a pan. A hiss with spits all through it: the ride.

The rot

The vegetables rot while you play, in real time. The crunch thins and dulls, the attacks go soft, a squelch comes up under every hit, and in the end it's slop: the celery bends instead of snapping, the melon collapses, the oil goes black and bubbles. Each goes at its own pace: the radish tops first, the oil last. It keeps through a power cycle.

ROT: how fast. Full left they keep for ever, noon is an hour to slop, full is twenty seconds. It only goes one way: turning it back slows the rot, it never undoes it.
FRESH: the button, or a trigger at its jack. Every vegetable fresh again at once. It lights when they've gone over, brighter as they go to slop.
The lights: the row across the middle goes out from both ends in as the kit rots, to FRESH. Each hit's own light flashes as it plays, bright and quick while it's fresh, dim and slow once it's gone.

The knife and the room

FORCE: how hard. Full left a knife eased in: every crunch a slow creak, the celery bending before it breaks, quiet. Noon a firm chop. Full a cleaver: straight through to the board, the pieces thrown wide, driven into clipping.
SIZE: a radish to a pumpkin. Every hit two octaves up at full left, an octave down at full, and longer as it gets bigger.
ROOM: where the mic is. Full left it's inside the vegetable, bone dry, every fibre close. Noon a close mic in a dead room. Full is the room next door: muffled through the wall, a long dark tail, and a projector's shutter chattering through it.
The CVs: a jack under each knob. FORCE, ROT and ROOM take ±5 V across half the knob's travel; SIZE takes 1 V an octave, so a sequencer plays the vegetables in tune.

What comes out

STAB, SNAP, SPLIT, TEAR, SIZZLE: each hit on its own. Patching one takes it out of MIX.
MIX: the hits you haven't patched out, together.

Specs

Format

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

Inputs

Triggers: STAB, SNAP, SPLIT, TEAR, SIZZLE: rising past 1 V, the height the hit's force
FRESH: trigger, rising past 1 V
CVs: FORCE, ROT, ROOM: ±5 V half the knob's travel
SIZE: 1 V an octave

Outputs

Hits: STAB, SNAP, SPLIT, TEAR, SIZZLE: audio, ±5 V
MIX: audio, the hits not patched out, ±5 V