This live piece consists of a bowl with 5 contact microphones attached to a computer running Max/MSP, with 8 channels output feeding an octagonal array around the audience. To make sound, objects are rolled into the bowl by hand. These spin down and eventually exit from the hole at the base, where they are collected and returned. Four of the microphones are arranged in a square around the exit, and so can directly capture the spatial movement of the objects, and spatial reverberations in the bowl. The fifth microphone is attached to the exit funnel. Output consists exclusively of the sound of the microphone input, and live manipulations of this.

The MSP patch is fairly simple but is carefully deisgned for expression and control. It consists of two delay lines, one with a fixed tap and the other with moveable tap. The moveable tap can be made to scan its delay in a sawtooth manner with finely controllable rate. Fast rates produce granular results, while slow rates provide distinct phrases. A window prevents glitches, and the winow shape is controllable. Increasing the scan speed eventually brings playback to a standstill. Further increase plays the current delay contents in reverse. A feedback control enables the layering of sounds, to create thick sandwiches across the spectrum. The fixed tap delay feedback is mainly used to store material for repeated injection into the variable tap delay. In addition to the delay lines, a high quality multi channel reverb is included, with controllable mix, providing a balance to the raw direct material. All control is made through an Oxygen-8 keyboard, with the modulation control assigned to reverb level, volume to overall volume pre-reverb, and the 10 control knobs to the various parts of the delay cotnrol.

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