roll

a ball that picks up your sound

20 HP

Every hit it rolls over sticks to it and comes round as it turns. The more it picks up, the heavier it gets: slower, lower, harder to turn. Small, it can only take quiet things; anything too big for it knocks pieces off.

The ROLL panel: black, with a beetle in gold dots seen from above, its forelegs reaching up round a ball of 169 small lights of bare circuit board in rings under the name, its spiked head under the ball, its ridged back down the middle to IN, three legs a side. STICK and BURY at the foot of the ball, the big PUSH knob on the beetle's shield, the STAR and BUMP buttons either side of it, LUMPS on its back. Down the left edge SIZE, STUCK, STICK's and STAR's ins and OUT L; down the right SPEED, TURN, BURY's and BUMP's ins and OUT R; PUSH's and LUMPS's ins under the buttons. roll 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. STAR and BUMP are buttons to press. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

What you hear is the ball, with the song it's rolling over under it. The drums, the bass, the lead and the pad are made in the page as you listen.

example patches

The ball, what sticks and what knocks it, its weight and every out here are ROLL's engine as it's designed, running in your browser. The song is a stand-in for the rest of a rack.

Pushing it

The ball is a loop. What it picks up is stuck round its outside, and as it turns each piece comes round past you: quiet behind it, swinging past on the left, loud and centred in front, off to the right. PUSH is a force, not a speed. The heavier the ball, the slower the same push turns it, the lower it plays, and the longer it takes to get going and to stop.

PUSH: how hard you push. Full on a small ball, a buzzing blur nearly two octaves up; the same push holds a minute of sound two octaves down. Its CV adds, 5 V half the travel: an envelope shoves it.
LUMPS: how lopsided it turns. What it picks up bunches where it touches the ground, and the lump drags on the way up and lurches down. Full, a low push can't get it over the top: it rolls back, the loop playing backwards, swings, and settles.

What sticks

Every hit it rolls over meets its reach, a level that rises as the ball grows. Under it, the hit sticks: a piece of it, from just before the hit to its tail, where the ball touches the ground. Over it, nothing sticks: the hit knocks the newest pieces off, each dropping an octave as it falls, and the lighter ball lurches forward. So it finds its size against the music. Quiet parts grow it, a break lets it grow, a loud part chips at it, and a big drop after a quiet one bashes it apart.

IN: the sound it rolls over.
The reach: −28 dB empty, 3.5 dB more for each ring it grows, −3.5 dB with all seven.
STICK: how sticky: how far over its reach it still grabs. Down, only what's well under it; at noon, 4 dB over; full, everything, and it grows without end.
BURY: how deep the old layers sink. Everything stuck on top of a piece makes it quieter and duller; full, only the newest few come round clear, over a dull mass.

Shedding it

BUMP: knocks the newest things off, the last four or the newest eighth of it, each falling an octave as it drops. Lighter, it speeds up and climbs. Its light flickers as things stick.
STAR: throws the whole ball into the sky: everything it holds at once, each from its own place, rising three octaves in a second and a half. Then it's empty. Its light glows brighter as the ball grows.
Each has a trigger in beside it.

What comes out

OUT L and OUT R: the ball alone. Mult IN to the mixer to hear what it's rolling over.
SIZE: 0 V empty to 7 V full, a volt a ring.
SPEED: 2 V at the speed the sound went in, 8 V flat out, negative rolling back: its momentum, patchable.
TURN: a trigger each turn, a clock that slows as it grows.
STUCK: a trigger each time something sticks.