pass it on

it only walks

14 HP

Four voltages are four people. It walks toward one of them at one steady pace and never stops, and TOUCH fires when it gets there. Pass it on and it goes after the next one; if they're caught, it turns round and walks back down the line.

The PASS IT ON panel: black, a long dark hall in gold dots running away to a lit doorway with a tall dark figure standing in it. From the doorway four trails of small footprints of bare circuit board lead out, two up and two down, to four jacks, ONE, TWO, THREE and FOUR, each with a little standing figure beside it. PACE, the big knob, at the top between its jack and PASS's; the PASS button under it; GAIT and FEAR either side of the doorway, NEAR and TOUCH under them, IT at the foot. pass it on 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. PASS is a button: press it to pass it on. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

What you hear is the rack through PASS IT ON. The sequencers, the lead, the drums and the band are made in the page as you listen.

example patches

The walk, the line, the footprints and every out here are PASS IT ON's engine as it's designed, running in your browser. The sequencers, the lead, the drums and the band are a stand-in for the rest of a rack.

The walk

It walks straight at whoever it's after, at the same pace however far away they are. It never runs and it never slows, so a small step is quick and a wide leap takes its time. When it gets there it lands on them exactly.

PACE: the big knob, its pace in volts a second. Fully left a volt takes four minutes; noon is an octave in half a second; fully right it keeps up with most audio and wears the rest down.
PACE (the jack): each volt doubles the pace, each volt under halves it.
GAIT: fully left a glide. Turning up, it walks in strides: it stands, then steps, a semitone a stride at noon, so it walks every semitone between two notes and still gets there on time. At full it lurches, up to an octave at once.

Pass it on

It keeps the line of who passed it to whom. When the one it's after is caught, it turns round and walks back to the one who passed it on, then the one before them, all the way back to the first, whom it never leaves.

ONE to FOUR: the four people, sequencers, LFOs or audio. An empty jack is nobody, and it's skipped; with only ONE patched it's a plain steady slew.
PASS: the button, or a gate at its jack. The one it's after passes it to the next in turn, round ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, and it turns toward them where it stands. The cap stays lit while it's been passed on.
FEAR: how often the one it reaches passes it straight on instead of being caught. Fully left, everyone is caught; at noon it wanders up and down the line; at full nobody is, and it walks round all four for ever, the distances between them its rhythm.
The lights: a figure for each person, lit as it comes for them, and a trail of footprints to each, lit where it is now. It's never lit itself.

What comes out

IT: the walker. On a sequence, a glide that remembers a chain; on audio at a quick pace, triangles and grit.
NEAR: 0 V as it sets off, rising to 5 V as it gets there, a ramp on every walk. Into a filter, the sound opens as it closes in.
TOUCH: a gate as it gets there, held while it keeps step with them.

Specs

Format

Width: 14 HP
Controls: 3 knobs (PACE's big), a lit button

Inputs

The people: ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR: CV or audio, ±10 V
PACE: CV, ±5 V, a volt doubles the pace
PASS: gate, rising past 1 V

Outputs

IT: the walker, ±10 V
NEAR: CV, 0 to 5 V on each walk
TOUCH: gate, 5 V, at least 5 ms