Palettecore
Digital rain
Forty-eight notes, C2 to B5, falling as luminous code. Each column of rain carries one note of the Palettecore pitch-colour helix: hue is the pitch class, lightness is the absolute pitch. C2 falls first, and the rain introduces all forty-eight in order before it runs free.
The screen starts the rain
The screen starts the rain.
C2 falls first,
then C♯2, D2, D♯2, E2.
Each drop finds another pane of glass.
F2, F♯2, G2, G♯2,
A2, A♯2, B2.
The first octave dissolves into static.
Higher now.
C3 C♯3 D3 D♯3 E3,
F3 F♯3 G3 G♯3,
A3 A♯3 B3.
Green symbols bloom and vanish,
remembering nothing.
Rain keeps translating silence.
C4, C♯4, D4, D♯4, E4.
F4, F♯4, G4, G♯4.
A4, A♯4, B4.
Every note becomes a droplet.
Every droplet becomes a pixel.
The sky scrolls again.
C5 C♯5 D5 D♯5 E5,
F5 F♯5 G5 G♯5,
A5 A♯5 B5.
Forty-eight notes descend
into luminous code,
never repeating the same rain,
yet always composing
the same quiet song.
Three pieces
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Digital rain
The full study: the rain with the colour-vision toggles and the audit of these exact colours reported on screen as you watch.
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Ambient
The rain alone, fullscreen and edge to edge: background sound and colour for working. Click anywhere for sound.
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Live
The screen reads the room. Microphone or a dropped audio file; every drop is born in the colour of the music at that moment, and loudness thickens the rain. Audio stays in the browser; nothing is recorded or sent anywhere.
Sound on. The pieces open fullscreen and the interface fades when the pointer rests.
What the audit says
The mapping is a designed convention: Newton and Scriabin disagreed about the colour of C. So the colours are generated by the Palettecore engine and audited on the exact values the artwork displays, and the result is reported here.
Forty-eight chromatic notes over four octaves is a demanding resolution for a colour code, and the audit splits. In normal vision the colours clear the package's exploratory design floor, because lightness climbs with absolute pitch and does most of the separating work. Under every simulated dichromacy the code collapses.
| Vision | Smallest step | Steps below floor |
|---|---|---|
| Normal | 7.1 | 0 of 47 |
| Protanopia (simulated) | 0.9 | 23 of 47 |
| Deuteranopia (simulated) | 1.1 | 26 of 47 |
| Tritanopia (simulated) | 1.8 | 23 of 47 |
This is art built on the mapping, and never an accessible encoding. The study piece carries the vision toggles, so the collapse can be watched. The ladder that does survive simulated dichromacy is the four-class one in Waves to the shore.
The rain suits the same rooms as the waves: hospitals, libraries, university spaces, digital art festivals, science museums, and music museums with sound-art programmes. Contact hello@vahtian.com.