shadow

it climbs the stairs

20 HP

A delay whose echo comes for its source. It starts far down, a faint echo seconds behind, and climbs a step at a time, nearer and louder, until it's on the sound and its hands close: the sound is squeezed and the shadow takes its place. Only DAWN lets go.

The SHADOW panel: black, gold dots in the shape of a narrow stone stairwell, a stooped shadow on each wall; up the middle a flight of thirteen steps in bare circuit board, narrowing as it rises, and either side of its top a long clawed hand, also bare board. DAWN, a button, under the name, REACH, the big knob, under it at the top of the stairs; STAIRS and CLIMB down the left, GRIP and NIGHT down the right; HEART and REACH in at the top corners, STEP and DAWN either side of the button, CLIMB and NIGHT beside the stairs; SHADOW and GRIP out, then LEFT and RIGHT out, at the foot corners; dashed white rings round STEP and DAWN. shadow 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. DAWN is a button: hold it down and it's day, the shadow gone; let go and night falls. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

What you hear is a rack played through SHADOW: a lead line into HEART, with its drums and bass beside it, straight to the speakers. It's all made in the page as you listen.

example patches

The climb, the grip, dawn and every out here are SHADOW's engine as it's designed, running in your browser, eight seconds of memory as the module has. The lead, the drums and the bass are a stand-in for the rest of a rack.

The climb

The shadow is the sound's echo. It starts at the foot of the stairs, far behind and faint, and climbs thirteen steps toward the sound, each one the same bit nearer and a little louder. Every step is a swoop up in pitch as the echo catches up, wider the faster it climbs and the further it has come.

STAIRS: how far down it starts: a fifth of a second behind fully left, about a second at noon, eight seconds fully right.
CLIMB: how fast it climbs by itself: not at all fully left, the whole flight in half a minute at noon, a second and a half fully right.
STEP, a gate in: one step up, now. With CLIMB fully left a clock here walks it up a step a tick.
REACH, the big knob: how big the shadow is beside the sound, from a faint echo to 6 dB over it, an octave under it and wide past noon.

The grip

On the top step the shadow is twelve milliseconds behind the sound, and its hands close. Whenever the shadow sounds, the sound itself is squeezed, thinned and drained, and what's squeezed out of it pours into the shadow, which swells and holds on harder the longer it feeds.

GRIP: how hard the hands close: fully left they never touch the sound, at noon they halve it, fully right they strangle it.
NIGHT: how dark the shadow is and how long its fingers: clear and short fully left, black with a seven-second smear fully right.
The lights: the step the shadow is on, its body faint on the steps below; the hands light finger by finger as they close, and pump with the grip.

Dawn

DAWN, a button and a gate in: while either is held it's day, the shadow gone at once and the sound itself again. Let go and night falls: the shadow rises at the foot and climbs again. A short trigger is a moment of day.
REACH, CLIMB, NIGHT, CV in: each added to its knob, 5 volts the whole way round.

What comes out

LEFT, RIGHT: the sound, squeezed by the grip, and its shadow, spread by REACH.
SHADOW: the shadow alone.
GRIP: the squeeze as a CV, 0 to 8 volts, exactly what the hands take off the sound. Put it on anything else in the rack.

Specs

Format

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

Inputs

HEART: audio, ±5 V
STEP: gate, rising past 1 V
DAWN: gate, day while it's over 1 V
CVs: REACH, CLIMB, NIGHT: ±5 V, added to the knobs

Outputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio, the sound and its shadow
SHADOW: audio, the shadow alone
GRIP: CV, 0 to 8 V, the squeeze