monolith

every note, then nothing

20 HP

A choir of thirty-two voices singing every note between two pitches at once, each wandering on its own line, so the sound seethes like a crowd that can't agree. Hold NEAR and it comes: louder, wider, higher, until it screams. Let go and it cuts to nothing.

The MONOLITH panel: black, with a gold sunrise in dots behind a tall black slab in the middle, its edges a thin frame of bare circuit board; the sun sits behind WIDTH, the big knob, just over the slab's top, and stony ground runs down either side to the foot. CRAWL and MOUTH either side of WIDTH, FAR and CROWD beside the slab's top, NEAR's jack and CENTRE beside its foot with NEAR's button under it; WIDTH's, CRAWL's and MOUTH's jacks along the top, BASSES and SILENCE, LEFT and RIGHT down the outside edges; NEAR's and SILENCE's jacks ringed with dashes, CENTRE's with ticks. monolith 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. NEAR is a button: hold it and the choir comes; let go and it cuts. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

What you hear is LEFT and RIGHT, with a stand-in line into CENTRE, gates into NEAR and a slow, heavy beat. It's all made in the page as you listen.

example patches

The choir, the approach, the cut and every light here are MONOLITH's engine as it's designed, running in your browser. The line, the gates and the beat are a stand-in for the rest of a rack.

The choir

Thirty-two voices in three sections: basses two octaves down, the choir in the middle, and high voices a ninth over it that only sing once the mouth is open. Each voice wanders on its own slow line, so the chord is never still. It sings whole clusters, not a note at a time.

CENTRE: 1 V an octave, the choir's middle note; 0 V is the C below middle C.
WIDTH, the big knob: how many notes the choir spans. Fully left, one huge note; a semitone of beating a fifth of the way round; six semitones at noon; fully right, every note in two octaves.
CRAWL: how far and how fast each voice wanders. Still fully left; at noon a semitone and a half, slowly; fully right six semitones, three times a second, a swarm.
MOUTH: a closed hum, then "oo", "ah", and a scream. The high voices come in past "ah", and at the top it's driven hard.
CROWD: how many sing, from one lone voice to all thirty-two; sixteen at noon.
WIDTH, CRAWL and MOUTH each have a jack under the same name; its voltage is added to the knob.

Near

While NEAR is held, the choir comes closer. It gets louder by the same amount every second, the mouth opens, the span widens, the restlessness grows and the whole choir rises, an octave by the time it's here. Then it stays, screaming, for as long as you hold it. Let go and it cuts to nothing in a millisecond, its room with it.

NEAR: the button, and a gate in beside it: either one held brings the choir. A gate's fall is the cut, so it lands on the bar line; a clock chops the choir into swells.
FAR: how far off the choir stands. Further means quieter and darker at rest, deeper in its room, and longer to come: a second fully left, under eight at noon, a minute fully right.
The silence: after a full scream, three seconds; after a short swell, less. Then it hums again, coming back from far. Hold NEAR during the silence and it comes at once.
The slab's edges: up each side, where the choir sings, three semitones a cell, the middle on CENTRE, so WIDTH, CRAWL and the rise all show; the high voices across the top, the basses along the foot; as bright as it's loud. All dark at the cut. NEAR's button glows as it comes.

What comes out

LEFT, RIGHT: the choir, its voices spread across the two, the basses in the middle.
BASSES: the bass section alone, two octaves under the choir, for a fuzz or a sub.
SILENCE: a gate, high from the cut until the hum comes back. Into a VCA on the drums, it stops the whole rack with the choir.

Specs

Format

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

Inputs

CENTRE: 1 V an octave, 0 V = C3
NEAR: gate, held high past 1 V
The CVs: WIDTH, CRAWL, MOUTH: ±5 V, each added to its knob

Outputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio, the choir in stereo
BASSES: audio, the basses alone
SILENCE: gate, 0/5 V, high through the silence after the cut