Shift Register

An eight-stage analog shift register. Each clock pulse samples a voltage and pushes it down a chain of eight holds, so a single melody or modulation line ripples outward into eight time-delayed copies of itself. A classic source of canons, evolving harmonies, and self-generating patterns.

How it works

On every rising edge at the clock input, the value present at Val is sampled and dropped into the first stage. At the same instant, each stored voltage shifts one stage further down the line, and the oldest value falls off the end. Between clocks every stage holds steady, so the eight outputs are snapshots of the input — the value just sampled, then one, two, three, and so on out to seven clocks ago. Feed it a changing voltage and the chain becomes a moving echo of the recent past.

Inputs & outputs

• Clk — the clock; each rising edge takes a new sample and advances the chain one step.
• Val — the voltage to capture. Patch a sequencer, an LFO, a random source, or even one of the outputs back into it.
• Out 1–8 — the eight taps, newest to oldest. Out 1 is the value just sampled, and each output down the line is one clock older, so Out 8 holds the value from seven clocks ago. Each holds until the chain shifts again.

Tips

• Patch the same melody CV into Val and the outputs into several voices for instant rounds and canons, each voice trailing the last by one step.
• A slow random voltage on Val turns the eight taps into a shifting chord that reshuffles itself one note at a time.
• Loop an output back into Val to recirculate voltages — the register starts feeding on its own history, generating patterns that drift and repeat.