Heard

Heard An instrument shaped by the room it's in, and a room you can hear.

Heard listens through the Organelle's built-in mic, or whatever you plug in, and turns the room into part of the instrument.

With AUX off, the keys play a warm voice, four notes at once, shaped by what the room sounded like the last time Heard listened.

Press AUX and Heard rings a soft ding-ding to hear itself, then starts listening. Now the keys make no sound. They pick a chord: hold one to four keys and four sympathetic strings tune to them, and the screen shows the chord. The only notes you hear are the ones the room plays. Sing, pick a guitar, talk, clap: every attack plucks the strings. When what comes in has a note, the string nearest that note rings, so a melody played into Heard comes back in your chord. Claps, shakers, strummed chords and anything else without a clear note ring the whole chord. Your own sound floats underneath as a ghost an octave down, in a soft halo reverb, and K2 bends whatever the room just rang.

It knows its own voice. The ding tells it how loud its speaker comes back through the mic, and it only lets through what stands well clear of that. Turning the volume up afterwards won't start a feedback loop. For the biggest sound, use headphones or a speaker away from the Organelle.

Controls

• Keys: AUX off: a warm voice, 4 notes. AUX on: silent; hold 1–4 keys to set the chord
• K1 Listen: how far it turns up a quiet input, from only loud things to a quiet room humming
• K2 Bend: the notes and the strings, an octave down to an octave up
• K3 Room: from just the ghost to the strings ringing out
• K4 Tone
• AUX Listen (latching, LED on): the room comes in, and the keys become the chord

The screen shows what it's doing: "LISTENING (mic)" or "(line in)", the chord you've set, and what it heard and rang ("heard F > rang E").

Install: place Heard folder in Patches with the Organelle M Usb. Works on the Organelle's stock Pure Data.