played out

the held notes go first

20 HP

A chord voice of tape. One V/OCT plays a whole chord, voiced from the last, and under every key is its own strip of tape with one note on it, about eight seconds long. The voices that move get fresh tape; the notes the chords share keep running theirs, so a long chord comes apart voice by voice.

The PLAYED OUT panel: black, and in gold dots the inside of an old tape keyboard, its tapes hanging side by side from a row of small rollers, a row of rubber pinch rollers and a steel capstan across the foot. Four of the tapes, between the columns of knobs and jacks, are printed in glass.

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. QUALITY and HEAD are switches: they click from stop to stop the same ways. HOLD is a button: hold it down and the chord stays down. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

A slow dark loop in G minor at 76 BPM: one sequencer lane into ROOT and one into QUALITY, soft drums and the bass beside it, the module through a small room. Listen plays the patch from its top.

example patches

Everything PLAYED OUT does here is its engine as designed, running in your browser: the tapes, the springs, the motor and the players' notes are made, not recorded. The rack round it is a stand-in.

The chord

It plays on the keys of a tape-replay keyboard of the 1960s: thirty-five keys, G to F, and under each a strip of tape with one note on it. Four hands, the voices, go down on the four keys that spell the chord and move the least from the last one, low to high, never crossing.

ROOT: 1 V an octave, 0 V is C. Only the note's name counts, so a bass line's lane can drive it as it is.
QUALITY, an eight-stop switch: major, minor, dominant 7, minor 7, major 7, sus4, diminished and minor add 9. Its jack adds a volt a stop, so with the switch on major a lane at 0 V and 1 V plays major and minor. The dot lit is the quality playing.
HAND: where the hand sits on the keys, an octave and a half of reach round its middle, from D3 to G#4 (B3 at noon). Its jack moves it 12 semitones a volt. However long the progression, the chord stays near the hand.
Four voices: a three-note chord doubles its root, or its fifth if that moves less. Each voice is within 3 cents of equal temperament at noon.

The keys and the tapes

KEYS: a gate. The keys are down while it's high. With nothing in it, every chord presses them and they stay down until the next.
The tape: a key held down plays its tape, off a capstan that never stops turning. At the end the splice goes past the head and the note just stops. Let the key go and a spring pulls its tape home, taking its time; press it again before it's there and the note starts that far in.
HOLD: hold it and the chord stays down, whatever the sequencer does, until its tapes run out under your hand, the notes held over from the chord before going first. Let go and the tapes wind home.
LENGTH: the tape under every key, eight seconds at noon. Fully left a quarter of a second, so only the voices that move are heard, a rhythm the chords play; at full 24 seconds, a pad that never runs out. Its jack adds a tenth of the knob a volt.
SPIDER: how much the hands mind spent tape. Fully left, never. Past noon they crawl: before a tape runs out the chord is played again on another inversion, fresh keys, as players used to keep one going past eight seconds. At full it never ends and never stays still.

The machine

HEAD, a three-stop switch: every tape holds three sounds side by side, and the head reads one: soft flutes, clarinets, horns.
SPEED: the motor, every tape bent together, from an octave down to an octave up, in tune at noon. A fast motor runs the tapes out sooner. Its jack bends it an octave a volt.
WEAR: the machine, from fresh to left in a shed. At noon a little wow and hiss. At full the pitch sags and swims, the tapes drop out, every tape has a crinkle that flutters past the head at its own place, and the top's gone dull.

The light

Four of the tapes are the voices, lowest on the left. Each is lit from the pinch roller up as far as its tape has left to play: bright while its key is down, dim while it winds home. When the chord changes, the ones that moved light full and the ones that held keep sinking.

What comes out

LEFT, RIGHT: the four voices, the lower ones to the left. Either one alone is the whole chord. Every quality and every register at about one loudness, at noon soft enough to sit under a voice.

Specs

Format

Width: 20 HP
Controls: 5 knobs, an eight-stop switch, a three-stop switch, a lit button

Inputs

ROOT: V/OCT: the chord's root, 0 V is C, any octave
QUALITY: CV, a volt a stop, added to the switch
KEYS: gate: the keys down while it's high
CVs: HAND, LENGTH, SPEED: 12 semitones a volt; a tenth of the knob a volt; an octave a volt

Outputs

LEFT, RIGHT: the four voices: audio, about ±3.5 V