set to stun

it can overload

20 HP

A deep, liquid phaser with a dial that gets more dangerous as you turn it. Hold OVERLOAD and the feedback climbs past one: a whine climbs out of your sound and eats it. Twelve counts you can walk back, four you can't, then a crack and a hole in the mix.

The SET TO STUN panel: black, with a crater in cracked ground in gold dots and a column of dust standing in the air above it. Up the middle, in bare circuit board, a tall beam of forty small cells in two columns, and twelve slats round the SETTING dial, six a side. RANGE, DEPTH, AIM and BEAM knobs, SETTING and SWEEP big knobs down the spine, OVERLOAD a white button at the foot, ten jacks.

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. OVERLOAD is a button: hold it, and let go in time. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

Drums, a pad, keys and a bass at 124 BPM, all of it through SET TO STUN. Listen plays the patch from its top.

example patches

The phaser, the charge and the lights are SET TO STUN's engine as designed, running in your browser. The drums, the pad, the keys and the bass are a stand-in rack.

The phaser

Up to twelve stages a side, the two sides a quarter of a sweep apart. At noon, a deep slow phaser you never turn off. A whole mix is the idea.

SETTING: four stops, a dot each, and it sizes the blast too. Stun: four stages, two soft notches. Heavy: eight, four notches. Disrupt: twelve, six notches, the feedback at the edge. The last: twenty-four stages, and the notches only climb, for ever.
SWEEP, the big knob, and its jack (1 V doubles it): one sweep in a minute, about five seconds at noon, a tearing 40 Hz at full.
DEPTH: how deep the notches go, from the plain sound to right down, the sound in slices.
BEAM: the feedback, broad up to about two o'clock, then narrowing, and at full one tone that sings by itself.
RANGE: how far a sweep travels: nowhere, three octaves at noon, six at full.
AIM and its jack (1 V an octave): where it all happens. The stages and the tone follow the note, so a sequence plays it.
LEFT, RIGHT: the sound in. RIGHT follows LEFT with nothing in it.

Overload

Hold it and the feedback climbs past one. A whine climbs, faster and higher, in pips that double as it goes, while your sound goes under. Let go in time and it winds down in a falling purr. Hold on and it goes off: a flash, a crack, then nothing.

OVERLOAD, a lit button and its gate: sixteen counts to the blast. Let go in the first twelve and it winds down. After the twelfth it goes off whatever you do.
COUNT: a clock. Beats make it four bars, eighths two, and it counts from the nearest pulse, so a press a moment early lands on the bar. With nothing in it, eight seconds.
The hole: two counts on the first stop, then four, eight and sixteen. A faint ring fades through it, and it all comes back at once on the last count.

The lights

The beam is the phaser's shape, low end at the foot, left side on the left. The notches are the dark bands moving through it. A charge fills it from the foot.
The twelve slats round the dial show each side's sweep. A charge lights them one a count. When all twelve are lit, it's too late.

What comes out

LEFT, RIGHT: the sound, held under a ceiling, the blast included.
SWEEP: the sweep. In a charge it climbs out of its swing to 8 V, so whatever it moves climbs with the whine.
BLAST: a gate from the crack to the end of the hole. Patch it to anything that should die.

Specs

Format

Width: 20 HP
Controls: a four-stop switch, a big knob, 4 knobs, a lit button

Inputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio, ±5 V
AIM: 1 V an octave, added to its knob
SWEEP: CV, 1 V doubles the rate
OVERLOAD: gate, high past 1 V
COUNT: clock, rising past 1 V

Outputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio, ±5 V
SWEEP: CV, −5 to +8 V
BLAST: gate, 5 V