Things – Motor

Where does it come from?

Like our previous collaboration with Hainbach (the Soviet spy recorder turned echo, Wires), Motors takes cues from history: “The Crystal Palace” built by Dave Young for the BBC Radiophonic workshop. This one-of-a-kind tool allowed speed-dependent switching of up to sixteen audio channels. It did so in an almost steampunk fashion, by employing a big capacitor rotating on a Motor. The effects it created reached from sublime to almost granular, a major achievement at the time. You can hear it on the soundtrack to the Doctor Who episode “The Krotons” by Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire.

What is new?

Things Motor focuses and expands on this peculiar tool by allowing the combination of two signals via sidechain, which makes it work easily across platforms. Switching is controlled via a variable waveshape LFO instead of the fixed physical waveform of the original. This allows for smooth morphing or aggressively chopped sounds, and worlds in between. You can even use it for audio rate modulation of signals, which results in ring-modulation-like artifacts.

To make it a truly versatile tool, we added a vibrato and a panner synced to the “motor” LFO, as well as some of our classic analog-like sound shaping. Together with the variable time on the motor start/stop this becomes the sound morphing rotary effect you never know you needed – until you hear it.