the shepard–risset accelerando. five pulse trains locked in tempo octaves (every layer exactly twice the speed of the one below, every tick of a slow layer shared by the faster ones) all accelerating together. a layer that races off the top fades to silence while a new one is born at the bottom, so the machine speeds up forever and never gets faster. escher's staircase, turned sideways into time. one doubling every 30 seconds; reverse for the slowing that never arrives.
click the canvas or press space to play · esc stopstap the canvas or play to start · pause silences it · the circles are fixed tempo rulers · the players fall through them