Nine tone fields — a central ding and eight around it — synthesised live from oscillators that never stop running. Nothing on the instrument is a recording; every note is a fundamental, its octave, a compound fifth and some inharmonic shimmer, shaped by how hard and where you land. Because every field is tuned to the same scale, there is no wrong note to strike — any combination of them is intentional.
- Strike
- Loudness comes from how fast your hand was moving before it touched the field, not from how hard you press — a mouse click and a firm poke report the same pressure, but not the same speed. Where you land matters too: the centre rings warm and plain, the rim brings out the overtones.
- Resonance
- Striking one field quietly excites the neighbours it shares a harmonic relationship with — a fifth, an octave — the way one part of a steel shell answers another. It is audible as a faint undertone and visible as a second, dimmer glow arriving a beat after the one you made.
- Memory
- Play three or four notes and stop. After a short pause the shell answers on its own — quieter, shifted to a related note, fading out over a few repeats. Its own strikes glow a cool blue rather than the warm amber of yours, so the two are never mistaken for each other by ear or by eye.
- Tuning
- A groove runs low across the rim, in front of the ding. Drag its bead — or tab to it and use the arrow keys — and the whole scale glides from D Kurd toward a Celtic minor tuning while any notes already ringing slide along with it, live.
- Keys
- b v n f j r u 4 7 climb the nine fields in scale order, alternating hands the way the pan's own layout does. Every field is also a plain button, so Tab and Enter reach all nine without the key map.
- Damping
- Hold a field down past a beat — with a hand, a finger, or a key — and it mutes like a palm laid on real steel. A quick tap always just rings.