siren

it never forgets a tune

20 HP

Teach it up to five phrases, each a name on its list. Then it listens to everything you play, and when one of them comes round again, in any key, the siren wails, the panel flashes and that name is struck off. Strike off all five and the list comes back.

The SIREN panel: black, in gold dots the point of a broad blade held upright, its two edges catching the light from under the name out to the foot corners. Under the name a dome of seven upright glass ribs, bare circuit board; under it the big MERCY knob; down the middle five names, each a line of bare circuit board in four pieces with a short stroke beyond each end; NAME under them, five dots round it. TUNE and NOTE at the top corners, TEACH's and MERCY's jacks either side of the dome, WAIL and SPIN either side of MERCY with their jacks, the TEACH and CLEAR buttons either side of the list, FOUND and END under them, WHICH and LIST either side of NAME, LEFT and RIGHT at the foot. siren 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. NAME clicks from name to name the same way; TEACH and CLEAR are buttons: hold TEACH while a phrase plays. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

A dark groove in E minor and a lead whose notes go into TUNE and NOTE. Listen plays the patch from its top.

example patches

Everything SIREN does here is its engine as designed, running in your browser. The groove and the lead are a stand-in rack.

The list

The five lines down the middle are the five names. A name on the list glows, fills from the left as its phrase comes round, and once found is struck through and past both ends. It keeps its list with the power off.

TEACH, a lit button and its gate: hold it while a phrase plays and the phrase is written against the name NAME points at, three notes to sixteen. A tap with no tune empties that name.
NAME: which of the five names TEACH writes, a click a name, the first fully left; its line glows brighter.
CLEAR: forget the whole list.

Hearing it again

TUNE, NOTE: the tune it listens to, a note on every rise of NOTE (unpatched, every new semitone). It hears the steps between the notes, not the key and not the timing, so a phrase is found in any key and at any tempo, at its last note.
MERCY, the big knob: how exact it must be. Fully left, note for note; at noon each step may be a semitone out as long as it goes the same way, so a phrase in minor finds its twin in major; past two o'clock a note or two may be wrong; fully right only the shape counts, and it sees the list everywhere.
MERCY, the jack: its CV, added to the knob.

The siren

WAIL: how big the sting is on every find. None fully left, a short two-tone call at noon, four seconds of loud, driven siren fully right. Its two tones are the found phrase's last note and a fourth above, so it wails in the key the phrase came round in.
SPIN: how fast the beacon turns as it wails. One slow swoop fully left, a two-tone siren at noon, a yelp whirling round the stereo fully right. The dome under the name turns with it.
WAIL, SPIN, the jacks: their CVs, added to the knobs.

What comes out

LEFT, RIGHT: the siren, panned with the beam, silent between finds.
FOUND: a gate as long as the sting on every find: drop the drums, duck the mix, fire a light.
WHICH: which name it was, 1.6 V a name, held until the next.
END: a trigger when the last name is struck off. The list comes back at once.
LIST: how many names are still on the list, 1.6 V each.

Specs

Format

Width: 20 HP
Controls: a big knob, 2 knobs, a five-way switch, a lit button, a button

Inputs

TUNE: 1 V/oct, ±5 V
NOTE: gate, rising past 1 V
TEACH: gate, high while it writes
CVs: MERCY, WAIL, SPIN: added to their knobs, 5 V the whole way

Outputs

LEFT, RIGHT: audio, the siren, up to ±4 V
FOUND, END: gates, 0/5 V; END a 10 ms trigger
WHICH, LIST: CV, 0 to 8 V in 1.6 V steps