I was Sitting in a Room

Do you like delays?

Working on the CellF project brought two members of our group into contact with Alvin Lucier. Originally, we planned to take CellF to NYC and hook the neurons directly to Alvin. Then covid happened, then Alvin passed away in Dec 2021. Prior to his passing, he supplied Guy and Nathan with a vial of his blood which was used to grow neurons. We used these for a performance with Darren Moore at the 2023 Venice Biennale (Music for Surrogate Performer).

Anyway, when in Venice, all the discussion about Alvin Lucier got me thinking about a module to (sort of) recreate one of his best known works; I’m Sitting in a Room

This module has nine PT2399 chips in series. The 1st has voltage controlled delay time, the following 8 have fixed delays. It is noisy, but that is the whole point. At certain settings, you can get some interesting effects such as an illusion of reverse delay.

By default, out6 is fed to the feedback input, but feel free to try different outs. The effect is usually quite different using odd or even numbered outs as feedback. Even better, take one of the outs and process it thru a VCF or Phase shifter and then feed it back.

There are outputs for stages 1-8, 9 misses out but is summed into the ALL output with everything else.

This module can also be used for pseuedo stereo, multi-phonic or spatialization effects.

There are a number of options to consider when building this module, please read thru the build guide.

Also note, it sucks a LOT of current on the +12V rail, at least 220mA.

https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/sittinginaroom