two three six

down, forward, hit

20 HP

Special moves on a stick. Roll it from down to forward, press a button and a whole fill comes out on the beat: gates, a note, its own hits. Moves have weight and recovery, a clean combo climbs, hits fill a meter, and a heavy one stops the rack's clock dead.

The TWO THREE SIX panel: black, with an old arcade cabinet in gold dots square on, a round rose of bare circuit board in its dead screen, the stick and three buttons on its deck, four knobs, the biggest at the foot, a four-way switch and thirteen jacks.

The stick: drag the ball, or use the arrow keys, with Z, X and C for LIGHT, MEDIUM and HEAVY; a game controller works too. 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. FIGHTER clicks between four stops. The patches step on by themselves until you touch something.

A dark rack on STALL's clock, a hand on the stick. Listen plays the patch from its top; take the stick whenever you like.

example patches

Everything TWO THREE SIX does here is its firmware's engine, running in your browser; the stick's spring is the page's. The drums and bass are a stand-in rack.

The stick

It reads a shape, not a position, the way a fighting game does: sixty times a second, the last sixty-four things your hand did in memory. A button alone is one hit; a shape, then a button, is a move.

The stick: a ball on a short lever in a square gate. Where it is comes out as FORWARD and UP, so every shape is a sweep too.
LIGHT, MEDIUM, HEAVY: a hat, a snare and a kick on their gates; low with the stick held down, high held up. After a shape, the same move at three sizes. Two at once, for a third of a stock: the biggest it comes.
Buffers: a press while you're recovering comes out when you're free; a button held through the shape counts when you let go.

FIGHTER

Four stops, four people, each with their own scale and kit.

First, the all-rounder: ↓↘→ a shot, which keeps going while you're free, one at a time. →↓↘ a rising run. ↓↙← a spin. ↓↘→↓↘→ the super.
Second, the charger: hold ←, then → a bolt. Hold ↓, then ↑ a flash. Hold ←, then →←→ the super.
Third, the heavy: a full circle, a grab. →↘↓↙← a swing. →↓↘ a stomp. Two circles: the super.
Fourth, the rushdown: ↓↘→, three times running, a run in three parts. ↓↙← a sweep. ↓↙←↓↙← the super.

Combos

A combo is a fill that climbs: LIGHT, LIGHT, MEDIUM, MEDIUM, HEAVY, HEAVY, a move, a super, each landing while the last still rings. NOTE climbs the scale with the count and the kit grows.

Dropping it: back down the ladder or a moment late, and it's gone: a whiff, the count to nothing. A fluffed shape comes out as the plain hit.
METER: three stocks round the rose, filled by every hit that lands. Fully left it never fills; at full, a super every bar.
A super: a shape, a button and the whole meter. The clock stops, the rose lights, and the longest fill goes out.

How much it forgives

LENIENCY: fully left, only exact shapes, no buffer, nothing put on the beat: you're the clock, and a hit off it drops the combo. At noon, as fair as an arcade. Fully right, a tilt and a button is a move and nothing drops.
CHARGE: how long a move winds up and a held direction takes. Fully left, at once; at noon, the next eighth; fully right, a bar, and it lands on the one like a truck.
HITSTOP: a heavy hit stops STALL, from nothing to a beat, the note shaking. The ticks it owes come out in a rush.

What goes in

CLOCK: sixteenths. Unpatched, it keeps the last tempo it had.
RESET: the next pulse is the one.
ROOT (1 V an octave): moves every note.
HIT: each rise fills the meter a little. Land a move on one for a counter-hit.

What comes out

IMPACT: its own hits and stabs.
LIGHT, MEDIUM, HEAVY: a gate on every hit.
NOTE: the hit's note, climbing with the count.
FORWARD, UP: the stick. Let go and they twang.
SUPER: high while a super runs.
STALL: CLOCK, until a heavy hit stops it. Clock your rack from it.

Inside

One board sits 10 mm behind the panel, everything on its front, the USB-C in a notch. The stick stands on a small board of its own behind a cutout, on four screws and a lead, so a worn one's out in a minute. Each of the rose's 27 LEDs has its own cell in a black baffle.

The TWO THREE SIX panel: an old arcade cabinet in gold dots square on, a quarter circle lit in the rose in its dead screen, HEAVY's cap lit, the ball leaning forward in its gate.

Drag it or use the arrow keys to turn it; click it to take it apart.

Specs

Format

Width: 20 HP
Depth: 20.8 mm behind the panel; the ball stands 23 mm in front
+12 V: about 52 mA at boot, 233 mA at the busiest, 244 mA at the most (estimated)
−12 V: about 9 mA (estimated)
+5 V: not used
Controls: a ball-top stick, 3 lit buttons, a big knob, 3 knobs, a 4-way switch

I/O

CLOCK, RESET, HIT: gates, past 1.6 V
ROOT: 1 V an octave, −6 to +6 V, 24-bit, calibrated
IMPACT: audio, ±5 V
LIGHT, MEDIUM, HEAVY, SUPER: gates, 0/5 V
STALL: clock, 0/5 V
NOTE: 1 V an octave, ±5 V
FORWARD, UP: CV, ±5 V

Engine

Brain: RP2350, two cores, 32-bit float, 46.875 kHz
The stick: read 4,000 times a second; 60 frames a second
STALL: 0.3 ms behind CLOCK, never a tick dropped or added
Light: 27 white LEDs, a kite lit within 20 ms of your hand (estimated)
Power cycle: nothing kept: an empty meter, no combo