three knocks

it comes back worse

20 HP

A percussion voice with a will of its own. It knocks in threes round your clock and croaks after its knocks: in the gaps while it's small, on the beat as it grows, then over everything. Deny it and it goes quiet, then comes back bigger. Feed it and it goes down below, for a while.

The THREE KNOCKS panel: black, an old four-panelled door in gold dots filling it edge to edge, two hands with long thin fingers curled round both its edges from the other side, a keyhole in the middle. A thin gap of bare circuit board runs up both of the panel's edges and along its foot, like the light round a closed door. FEED and DENY jacks in the top corners with their buttons beside HOUSE, KNOCK, the big knob, and CROAK down the middle over the keyhole, HUNGER and HUSH under the fingertips, THREE and NEAR down the edges, DOOR and THROAT either side of the keyhole. three knocks 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. FEED and DENY are buttons: press them. The patches step on by themselves until you touch anything.

What you hear is THREE KNOCKS on DOOR and THROAT, in a dark half-time groove: kick, clap, hats, bass and a pad, and a drone that NEAR fills as it comes nearer. It's all made in the page as you listen.

example patches

Its knocks, its voice and how it grows and settles here are THREE KNOCKS's engine as it's designed, running in your browser. The drums, the bass, the pad and the drone are a stand-in for the rest of a rack.

Its knocks

It knocks in threes, the last the heaviest. While it's small and far off it knocks in the gaps of your groove, off the grid and late; as it grows it comes nearer, louder and on the beat, rushing a little ahead of it; grown right up it knocks on every beat, a gallop of threes over your four. The light round the door climbs as it comes nearer.

Deny it

Push it away and it grows. Denied, it finishes the three it began and goes quiet, all but a scratching behind the door; on the next bar line it comes back, three knocks landing on the downbeat, bigger than before. Five denials take it from the walls to over everything. It never goes completely.

Feed it

The only thing that settles it. Fed, it goes down below on the beat: muffled under the floor, slow and far off, the light only a thin line under the door. It stays there content for a while, then gets hungry and comes up the stairs to where its size puts it. Fed again before it gets hungry, it shrinks a little; left hungry, it grows.

What comes out

Specs

Format

Width
20 HP
Controls
4 knobs (KNOCK's big), 2 lit buttons

Inputs

HOUSE
clock, rising past 1 V, sixteen to a bar
FEED, DENY
gates, rising past 1 V

Outputs

DOOR, THROAT
audio, ±5 V: the knocks, its voice
THREE
gate, 0/5 V, one a knock
NEAR
CV, 0 to 8 V