docs(design): pick the schematic direction for the FX rack and record why

Four directions were mocked at the real 292px panel width — hardware
silkscreen, vintage test equipment, risograph, schematic — and schematic was
chosen.

It won because it is the only one that adds information rather than decoration.
Chain order is load-bearing in audio (a limiter first and a limiter last are
different sounds) and nothing in the panel said so. Drawing the rack as its
signal path also lets bypass be a route rather than an opacity, gives a preset
a visible brace over the nodes it wrote, lets an automated parameter draw its
lane instead of showing the stale number the lane replaced, and marks a
measuring module with a second ring — which is the static-versus-script
distinction from section 4 delivered as drawing rather than prose.

Drops the 3px coloured rail from the first pass. It is the single most overused
device in dashboard UI, and forcing each direction to find another answer is
what separated them.

Adds .impeccable.md with the design context the direction was chosen against —
users, personality, principles, palette, anti-references — so the next session
does not re-derive it or re-ask.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: vanceingalls

plans/audio-fx-presets.md

@@ -294,16 +294,44 @@ Eurorack case. Worth leaning into: a faceplate recognised by colour and
 lettering before the label is read. Carve already gets a distinct treatment
 (`hf-fx-carve-module`); this generalises it.
 
-**Three carriers, no layout change:**
-
-1. **A 3 px rail down the left edge** in the family hue. Cheapest possible
-   signal at this width — survives collapse, reads down a stack of ten, costs
-   no room.
-2. **Lettering per family** — filters tracked-out mono caps, dynamics heavy and
-   tight, nonlinear italic serif, time light and airy, smart mono with a badge.
-   The *kind* of module is legible with the label out of focus.
-3. **A tint step per module within its family**, so two filters differ without
-   reading as two families.
+**Direction chosen 2026-08-09: schematic** — picked from four mocked
+alternatives (hardware silkscreen, vintage test equipment, risograph,
+schematic). Recorded with its principles in `.impeccable.md` at the repo root.
+
+The rack is drawn as the signal path it is: numbered nodes on a dashed spine
+running from an `IN` terminal to an `OUT`, leader-dotted dimension lines,
+three-letter stage tags, family colour restricted to the node ring and the tag.
+
+**Why it won over the louder options:** it is the only one that *adds
+information*. Chain order is load-bearing — a limiter first and a limiter last
+are different sounds — and nothing in the panel communicated it. It is also the
+quietest, which matters on a surface authors stare at while mixing.
+
+**What the drawing carries that the current rack cannot say:**
+
+| Drawn as | Instead of |
+| --- | --- |
+| `IN` names the source, `OUT` names the destination and the FX tail | nothing — the tail was invisible |
+| Numbered nodes 01…06 | implicit top-to-bottom order |
+| Bypassed node: ring drawn open, wire beside it solid and unbroken | a row at 50% opacity |
+| Preset nodes gathered under a right-hand brace with its name | no grouping at all |
+| An automated parameter draws its lane shape; the value column reads `lane` | a stale number the lane already replaced |
+| A measuring module gets a second ring | nothing distinguishes carve from a hand-set chain |
+
+That last pair is the static-versus-script distinction from §4, delivered as
+drawing rather than documentation.
+
+**The preset menu preview is the chain** — each row previews the nodes it will
+draw as small connected rings in their family colours, so the shape you pick is
+the shape you get. Smart entries read `MEASURES` instead.
+
+**The empty state keeps the wire.** `IN` and `OUT` remain, connected, with "no
+effects, signal passes straight through" between them — which teaches that the
+rack is a path before the author has added anything to it.
+
+**Not carried over from the first pass:** the 3 px coloured rail down each
+module's left edge. It is the most overused device in dashboard UI, and
+forcing each direction to find another answer is what separated them.
 
 **Family hues**, chosen to sit on `#0C0C0E` without competing with the studio's
 `#3CE6AC` accent: