silencio

the song goes on

20 HP

A stage for one lead. Everything you play is taped as you play it, one take behind you, so you and the tape are one. Stop, and the song goes on: your own part, note for note, plainly a recording now, and sung with more feeling than you gave it.

The SILENCIO panel: black, gold dots of a big old microphone on its stand alone on a dark stage under a spotlight, velvet curtains hanging from the top down both sides, each gathered by a tie-back with a tassel. The microphone's head and the curtains are windows of bare circuit board. WHISPER at the top under the name, SINGER and COUNT either side of the microphone's head, the big FEELING and HOUSE knobs either side of the rest of it, FALL's and THUNDER's buttons over their jacks, TAKE's switch with five dots on the stand, and LEFT, EMPTY and RIGHT along the bottom. silencio 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. TAKE clicks round its five stops the same way. FALL and THUNDER are buttons: hold FALL down; press THUNDER. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

A rack round SILENCIO: a slow, sad lead singing into SINGER over a dark slow pulse. Listen plays the patch from its top.

example patches

Everything SILENCIO does here is its engine as designed, running in your browser, with a shorter tape (44 seconds; the module's is 65). The singer and the rest are a stand-in rack.

The take

Everything that comes into SINGER is heard as it is and taped, always: there's no record or play button. The tape plays one take behind you, so a part that repeats, a sequenced lead or a riff, is the same there, in time: you hear one performance, and can't tell which of the two it is.

SINGER: the part: a voice, a lead, a played line.
COUNT, the clock in: quarter notes, four to a bar. Unpatched, it keeps the last tempo (80 BPM at first).
TAKE, a five-way switch: how long the take is. Fully left one bar, then two, four (straight up), eight, and fully right sixteen. Too long for the tape, it halves.

The song goes on

Stop playing and the tape takes over at the first note of the take you don't play, note for note, in time (after a bar of silence, anyway). It records itself while it plays alone, so the take stays yours. Play again and you're back in front of it. Every handover is a 10 ms crossfade, so a part that repeats goes on without a click or a gap.

FALL, a button and its gate: while it's held, or the gate is high, you're down and the tape plays alone, whatever you play. Pulling SINGER's cable is a fall too.
The microphone is yours: it glows while you're on stage and its bands fill with your voice.
The curtains are the tape's: lit while it plays alone.

Feeling and the house

Both change only the tape, so whatever they do is heard the moment you stop.

FEELING, the big knob on the left: how much more the tape feels than you did. Fully left, nothing: the take, sample for sample. Turned up, its notes come in softer and swell, held notes are held longer (the pitch kept) so the next comes late, a vibrato widens as a note goes on, and long notes catch. At full it weeps.
HOUSE, the big knob on the right: the club round the tape. Fully left, dry. At noon a velvet room, the PA's hum, a little hiss and a slow wow; fully right a vast theatre, seven seconds of room, the hiss loud and the reel wowing a fifth of a semitone.

Thunder and the whisper

THUNDER, a lit button and its gate: the trick shown. For three seconds you're down, thunder rolls under everything, and the tape is grabbed, sagging below half speed and wobbling, then snapping back. The lights flicker; the cap burns.
WHISPER, the gate in: the end. A whisper, then the tape and you stop dead and the room rings down into silence. The take is wiped; the stage stays dark at least five seconds, and while the gate is held, then opens at your next note.

What comes out

LEFT, RIGHT: the stage: you or the tape in the middle; the room, the thunder and the whisper wide.
EMPTY: a gate, high while the tape plays alone. Patch it to drop the drums when you stop.

Specs

Format

Width: 20 HP
Controls: 2 big knobs, a five-way switch, 2 buttons (THUNDER's lit)

Inputs

SINGER: audio, ±5 V
COUNT: clock, rising past 1 V, a beat
FALL: gate, down while high
THUNDER, WHISPER: gates, rising past 1 V

Outputs

LEFT, RIGHT: the stage, ±4.5 V
EMPTY: gate, 0/5 V, while the tape plays alone