wormsign

20 HP · effect and voice

Something under the sand that listens for rhythm. Keep a steady beat and it comes, a rumble rising and the mix sinking, until it erupts at HOOK and swallows the bar. Play loose and it loses you.

The WORMSIGN panel: black, with a dune at night in gold dots, its crest falling away either side of a round button at the top and its rippled face running down both sides. Down the middle, twenty ripples of bare circuit board spread out from the button, small near it and wider toward the foot, broken round seven jacks. White labels: HOOK on the button; V/OCT and GATE either side of it; DISTANCE and WORMSIGN below them; THUMP in the middle; ERUPT and RUMBLE near the foot. IN L and IN R at the top corners, HUNGER and DEPTH down the left, SCENT and SAND down the right, OUT L and OUT R at the bottom corners. wormsign at the top, daylight noise at the bottom.

Turn a knob: drag it, roll the wheel over it or use the arrow keys; a double click puts it back. Make rock: click a jack in the sand to plug a cable into it, and click it again to pull the cable out. HOOK is a button to press and hold: press it as it erupts to ride.

The rumble, the eruption and the ride are WORMSIGN's own. The beat, the bass and the pad it listens to are made in the page as you listen.

example patches

The hearing, the way through the sand and the sound here are WORMSIGN's engine as it's designed, running in your browser: what it hears, how steady it judges you, where it goes and when it erupts. The rest is a stand-in for a rack.

What calls it

Every hit it hears runs out from HOOK through the sand as a ring. It listens for how machine-like the beat is: how close each hit sits to an even grid, and whether the pattern keeps coming. The steadier the beat, the faster it comes. Swing, rush or drop a hit and it hesitates; stay loose and it loses the scent and drifts back under.

THUMP: the hits it hears, gates or triggers. Empty, it hears the hits in the mix at IN.
HUNGER: how steady a beat it needs, and how fast it comes. Down, only a rigid machine beat brings it, over minutes; up, anything with a pulse will do, and it's on you in about four bars.
SCENT: how far off it starts, and how long it holds your scent. Down, it starts at the foot of the sand and one loose bar loses it; up, it starts far out and, once it's coming, keeps coming through anything but silence.

Rock

A jack in the sand with a cable in it is rock. The sand round it goes dark and the wake goes round it, so where you patch changes its way and how long you've got. Patch THUMP, DISTANCE and WORMSIGN and there's a wall right across: it prowls along it, the rumble at its loudest, and can't erupt until a cable comes out.

The sand: V/OCT, GATE, DISTANCE, WORMSIGN, THUMP, ERUPT and RUMBLE. Patch any of them and it's rock.

What it does to the mix

As it comes, a sub rumble rises under the mix and the mix starts to sink. At HOOK it erupts and swallows the mix: a huge sub drop, the mix pulled down into it, its pitch diving and its top gone. Then it goes back under and starts again.

DEPTH: how huge. A low thud you feel more than hear, up to a roar an octave under the floor; and how much it swallows, from one beat's gulp to two whole bars.
SAND: how far the mix sinks as it comes. Down, the mix is untouched until it erupts; up, it's pulled under as it closes in, darker, a little slower, shaking with the rumble.
RUMBLE: the rumble on its own, with the eruption and the ride.
IN L, IN R: the mix. OUT L, OUT R: the mix with it in it.

The ride

Hit HOOK as it erupts, within a sixteenth either side, and you're on: instead of swallowing the mix, the rumble becomes a bass you play from V/OCT for as long as you hold HOOK. Let go and it goes back under. Miss, and it swallows the mix as before.

HOOK: a lit button. It flashes with every hit it hears, blazes as it erupts and glows while you ride.
GATE: a rising edge in the window hooks it, as HOOK does; held high, you stay on.
V/OCT: the ride's pitch, 1 V an octave.

What comes out

DISTANCE: how far off it is, 8 V where it starts down to 0 V on you.
WORMSIGN: a gate, high while it's close: the top third of the sand, at a wall, erupting or ridden.
ERUPT: a trigger as it erupts.

The panel

Twenty HP, every part on the line's staggered grid and mirrored about the middle. The sand is twenty ripples of bare circuit board lit from behind, centred on HOOK and broken round every part. The art is a dune at night in gold dots.

In the sand: HOOK under the name, V/OCT and GATE either side of it, DISTANCE and WORMSIGN below them, THUMP in the middle, ERUPT and RUMBLE near the foot.
IN L and IN R at the top corners; HUNGER and DEPTH down the left, SCENT and SAND down the right; OUT L and OUT R at the bottom corners.