Thanks for taking the time to read through this manual. This is the same text that the app shows in its settings, for Apple Vision Pro first, then for iPhone and iPad.
Table Of Contents
Apple Vision Pro
Playing
Your right hand plays the notes: touching your thumb to a fingertip starts a note and releasing the pinch stops it, and each fingertip plays one note of the current scale:
- Palm down: your index through little finger play the four lower notes of the scale.
- Palm up: the same fingers play the upper half, and the order reverses. Because of this mirroring, rolling your hand over continues the scale in the same direction instead of jumping back.
Turning your palm while you hold a note glides that note to the pitch of the finger's new position, since notes never step while they sound, they always glide.
While holding a note, moving your hand sideways bends its pitch. The bend is measured from the position where the note started, so every note begins exactly in tune, and both hands can bend at the same time with their movements adding up.
The expression sphere
The first note you play places a spherical control region around your hand, drawn as a thin ring with small crystals at its poles. Inside the sphere, the position of your hand controls the expression of the sound:
- Height controls volume: raise your hand to play louder, lower it to play softer.
- Depth controls brightness: push away from you for a brighter tone, pull back for a darker one.
The sphere does not follow your hand, positions inside it are absolute, so the same place always produces the same sound and you can return to a loudness the same way you return to a note. A rectangle drawn between the sphere's axis and your hand displays both values at a glance.
If you want the sphere somewhere more comfortable, pressing Reset the expression sphere in the settings lets the next note you play place it again.
The left hand
Using the left hand is entirely optional, it modifies what the right hand plays.
Levers
While a note is sounding, pinching a left-hand fingertip shifts the pitch in semitones:
| Finger | Palm down | Palm up |
|---|---|---|
| Index | up a whole tone | down a whole tone |
| Middle | up a semitone | down a semitone |
| Ring | down a semitone | up a semitone |
| Little | down a whole tone | up a whole tone |
The levers mirror when you turn your palm over, just like the fingers of the right hand do, and a floating arrow above or below the pinch shows the active shift, a single arrow for a semitone and a double arrow for a whole tone. Combined with the scale, the semitone levers put every chromatic note within reach.
Register
Turning your left palm over raises everything by an octave. The register change waits a moment before it retunes a note that is already sounding, so you can cleanly switch notes and registers together.
The ruler
A floating pitch line is drawn in front of you, at the position you were looking at when you entered the space. It displays absolute pitch, so every note of both registers has a fixed position on it and only the highlights move.
- The lit half of the line is the active register, selected with your left palm.
- The brighter section inside it is the half of the scale your right palm is addressing, its marks and note names light up with it.
- The warm dot is the note that is actually sounding, and it leaves a trail behind while you bend.
- The three bars underneath display bend, volume and brightness. The dials in the corners follow the angle of each palm, with a small graduation at the angle where the palm state flips.
The note names and the highlighting can each be turned off in the settings.
When you pause for a second, the last notes you played appear among the stars of the sky, high above the ruler, as a small constellation for a moment, and it fades out slowly. Look up to find it, it stays out of the way while you play.
Settings
A faint gear is displayed below the ruler, and looking at it while you hold a pinch counts down a ring of dots and opens the settings in a window that you can move wherever it suits you. Touching the panel mutes the instrument so that taps stay taps, and with your hands away from the panel the instrument plays normally, which lets you immediately audition every change you make.
Double-tapping a slider resets it to its factory value.
Sound
- Sound: turns the built-in sound engine on or off. With sound off, Glinster is a pure MIDI controller, everything is still computed and sent to the MIDI output.
- Sound preset: selects which of the five sound presets you hear: Aether, Ember, Fathom, Rime or Pillar. Each preset is a fixed character, not an editable patch.
- Room: how much of the sound comes from the simulated space around the instrument.
- Shimmer: how much of the room's tail returns an octave higher, and then another octave, so held notes keep climbing while they ring out.
- Glide: how long a note takes to reach a new pitch.
- Response: how quickly a note swells in and fades out, from plucked to slow swells.
- Cutoff: the filter's resting place, as a harmonic ratio of the sounding note. Brightness sweeps around it.
- Resonance: the filter's emphasis, up to the edge of ringing.
- Record and Share: takes live here too, see Recording.
Playing
- Note names and Highlights: the ruler's lettering, and its register and palm lighting.
- Scale and Root: six scales and twelve roots, immediately redrawn on the ruler.
- Pitch: the reference frequency of A, every root follows it.
- Pitch Quantize: a bent note that you hold still glides onto the nearest scale note and locks there, and it releases again as soon as you move, so vibrato and slides are not affected. Off, or three speeds, with Medium as the factory setting.
- Hands: swaps which hand plays, for left-handed players, and lets you turn off the other hand's levers and register entirely.
- Palm flip: the angle at which a turning palm changes state, for both hands.
- Reset sphere: the next note places the expression sphere again.
MIDI and Network
The MIDI tab and the Network tab have chapters of their own: MIDI, and the network MIDI session under Recording.
About
- Guide and Manual: replay the in-space tour, or open this manual, beside the app version.
- Factory reset: puts every setting back to its shipped value.
MIDI
Glinster publishes a virtual MIDI source named Glinster that any app on the device can listen to, and you can additionally send directly to the MIDI input of another app, selected under Send to.
- MPE mode, the default, assigns a fresh member channel to every note so release tails ring undisturbed, cycling through as many Members as you choose, from 1 to 15. The MPE zone and the bend range are declared through registered parameter messages, and every pitch influence, bends, levers and register glides, is sent on the pitch bend wheel. Note: the default range of 48 semitones up and down is the MPE convention, set it manually in the receiver if it does not follow the declaration.
- Single channel mode sends everything to one chosen channel, for receivers that do not support MPE.
- Send MCM sends the MPE configuration and the bend range again. Glinster sends them whenever a MIDI setting changes and whenever the port it sends to appears, but a receiver that you start or reset afterwards has not heard them yet.
- Volume and Brightness select the message type for each expression: channel pressure, CC 7, CC 11, CC 74, CC 1, or off. Both are absolute, in the sense the MPE specification gives that word: the value sent with a new note is the hand's actual position in the expression sphere, not a neutral starting point, so a note attacks at the volume and brightness you are already holding.
- Bluetooth devices scans for and connects to Bluetooth LE MIDI hardware, and Bluetooth advertise makes this device discoverable as a peripheral. Connections made here appear as MIDI ports for every app on the device.
Recording
Glinster records itself: pressing Record, under Takes in the Sound section, makes the instrument write exactly what you hear, before any spatial processing, as a lossless 32-bit float WAV file, and after you press Stop, Share sends the take wherever you want. Takes are also visible in the Files app, under Glinster.
Play sounds a take back, with the same elapsed counter the recording shows. It offers the take you just made, and on a visit where you have not recorded anything it offers the newest one on disk. The instrument stays live while a take plays, so you can play along with it, and pressing Record stops the playback first.
The Network section holds the Apple network MIDI Network Session, the same name it has in the Send to list. With it on, a network MIDI session that you make in Audio MIDI Setup on a Mac can connect to this device, and that session then appears under Send to in the MIDI section like any other port, so Glinster can play any app on the Mac.
Tips
- Make the first note of a visit a comfortable one, since it places the expression sphere and that position becomes the center of everything.
- The bend is measured from the start of the note, so a small sideways drift when you land is absorbed instead of bending the pitch.
- For fast chromatic lines, stay on one finger and walk the semitone levers with your left hand.
- A hand that drops out of tracking releases its note instead of holding it, so an arm at rest never leaves a note hanging.
- Pressing the Digital Crown leaves the space, and the welcome card is always the way back in.
iPhone and iPad
Playing
You start by resting the side of your thumb anywhere comfortable. The thumb makes no sound of its own, it anchors the layout, and a grid of marks appears around it that shows where the notes are.
- The resting row: your four fingers, resting where they naturally fall next to your thumb, play the first four notes of the scale, with the root note under your index finger.
- The second row: the same four fingers, moved up a step, play the next four notes, up to the octave under your little finger.
- Rows above: on a screen with room above the second row, more rows appear at the same spacing, each one continuing the scale by four notes, so a tall iPad gives one hand a range the space does not have. How many rows you get is decided when your thumb lands and holds until it lifts, a row that nearly fits is fitted by tightening the spacing a little, and a row you had moments ago is kept as long as it still fits, so a thumb landing a little lower does not flip the layout. Only the rows around your playing finger show in full, the rest fade, so the grid stays calm.
- Bending: while a note plays, sliding that finger sideways bends the pitch and draws a warm trail from the note's mark to your fingertip, and sliding it up and down changes the brightness.
- Loudness: sliding your resting thumb up and down changes the volume, and it draws the same trail.
- Legato: with Mono on, touching a new finger while another one is sounding lets the new one take over, and lifting it again returns the note to the finger that is still down, with a glide instead of a new attack. Polyphonic, there is no taking over, every finger is its own note.
The grid is not a target, it follows your hand. Every note you play adjusts it a little, sideways and upward, and you can watch it move. Thin lines between the marks light up around your fingers and fade a couple of notes away, so you see the layout exactly where you are playing. When you lift your hand, the last notes you played stay behind for a moment as a small constellation, and fade out slower than the grid.
On an iPhone the grid compresses to fit the space above your thumb, so the second row always stays on screen, and the octave arrow of the other hand is often more comfortable than reaching up. Laying the device flat on a table makes it easier to use both hands.
The buttons
Six capsule buttons sit in the top corners: Mono, Record, Play and Share on the left, Fit hands and the settings gear on the right. Play and Share appear once there is a take to hear or to send.
The glass plays several notes at once. Each finger plays its own note, with its own bend and its own brightness slide, and lifting a finger ends only that note, while the thumb's volume slide applies to all of them. The MIDI output follows suit, each note on its own MPE member channel with its own expression and the volume sent for the whole zone, so a polyphonic synth plays the chord. Mono switches to one note at a time, the way the headset plays, where a new finger takes over from the one sounding. The choice is kept across launches.
The buttons hide while you play: they fade out the moment your thumb lands on the glass and come back when you lift your hand, so a playing hand can never hit them by accident.
The other hand
While your playing hand stays down, resting a fingertip of your other hand clearly beside it, on the side away from the notes, makes that fingertip the anchor of the other hand, and arrows appear above and below it.
- One step up: a semitone up. One step down, a semitone down.
- Two steps: an octave, up or down, drawn as a double arrow.
- Combinations hold: every held arrow adds, so an octave up held with a semitone down sounds eleven semitones up.
- Sliding works too: a finger on the arrows can slide from one arrow to another instead of lifting and tapping again.
- Bending and vibrato: sliding the anchor finger sideways bends every note that plays, like a pitch wheel, and so does wiggling a finger on the arrows. Each finger counts from where it landed, one scale step per finger spacing, the way a bend on the playing hand is read, up to a step each way, and with several fingers down the one that has moved furthest sets the bend, so a finger holding an arrow still never gets in the way.
The arrows do not need a perfectly vertical hand, roughly up or roughly down is enough.
Fitting your hands
The first start asks you to fit your hand, and the Fit hands button repeats it whenever you like. You hold two poses with your playing hand, keeping each one still until the ring fills:
- The hand at rest: the side of the thumb and all four fingertips on the glass, relaxed, wherever feels natural. This is where the first four notes will be.
- The same hand with the thumb kept in place and the four fingers moved up one comfortable step, not stretched as far as they go. This is where the next four notes will be, and every row above it keeps the same spacing, so a modest step leaves room for more rows.
The other hand needs no pose of its own, its arrow spacing comes from the measurements of the playing hand and keeps adjusting while you use it.
The measurements describe your hand, not the screen, so they survive restarts and window sizes, and they are kept until you fit again. The layout also follows the hand you fit: rest a left hand and the notes run leftward from the thumb, with the other hand resting on the right.
Pitch Quantize
With Pitch Quantize on, which is the factory setting, a bent note that you hold still glides onto the nearest scale note and locks there, and it releases again as soon as you move, so vibrato and slides are not affected. The three speeds decide how still and for how long your hand has to be before the pitch is corrected.
A warm dot on the grid line shows the pitch that is actually sounding: it eases onto the note's mark while the correction takes hold and springs back to your finger the moment you move.
Settings
The gear opens five tabs.
Sound
- Sound: turns the built-in sound engine on or off. With sound off, Glinster is a pure MIDI controller, everything is still computed and sent to the MIDI output.
- Sound preset: selects which of the five sound presets you hear: Aether, Ember, Fathom, Rime or Pillar. Each preset is a fixed character, not an editable patch.
- Background audio: keeps the engine running when the screen locks or the app leaves the foreground. Off by the factory setting, an engine kept alive in the background uses battery even while silent.
- Room: how much of the sound comes from the simulated space around the instrument.
- Shimmer: how much of the room's tail returns an octave higher, and then another octave, so held notes keep climbing while they ring out.
- Glide: how long a note takes to reach a new pitch.
- Response: how quickly a note swells in and fades out, from plucked to slow swells.
- Cutoff: the filter's resting place, as a harmonic ratio of the sounding note. The brightness slide sweeps around it.
- Resonance: the filter's emphasis, up to the edge of ringing.
Playing
- Scale and Root: six scales and twelve roots, redrawn on the grid at once.
- Pitch: the reference frequency of A, every root follows it.
- Pitch Quantize: a bent note that you hold still glides onto the nearest scale note and locks there, and it releases again as soon as you move, so vibrato and slides are not affected. Off, or three speeds, with Medium as the factory setting.
- Note names: letters the grid's marks.
- Haptics: a small tick under the finger for every note and every arrow.
MIDI
- MIDI out: turns the MIDI output on or off, and off hides the rest of the tab.
- Mode and Members: MPE with a chosen number of member channels, the default, or a single channel for receivers that speak no MPE.
- Send MCM: repeats the MPE configuration for a receiver that started late.
- Bend range: matched on the receiving synth when it does not follow the declaration.
- Volume and Brightness: the message type each expression travels as.
- Send to: the destination port, beside the always published virtual source named Glinster.
- Bluetooth MIDI: connects to or advertises for Bluetooth gear, without wires.
Network
- Network Session: Apple's own network MIDI, so a session made in Audio MIDI Setup on a Mac can connect to this device. See Recording.
About
- Guide and Manual: replay the playing guide, or open this manual, beside the app version.
- Factory reset: returns every setting to how it shipped, without restarting the guide.
Double-tapping a slider resets it to its factory value.
Recording
Pressing Record makes the instrument write exactly what you hear, before any spatial processing, as a lossless 32-bit float WAV file, and after you press Stop, Share sends the take wherever you want. Takes are also visible in the Files app, under Glinster.
Play sounds a take back, with the same elapsed counter the recording shows. It offers the take you just made, and on a visit where you have not recorded anything it offers the newest one on disk. The instrument stays live while a take plays, so you can play along with it, and pressing Record stops the playback first.
The Network tab holds the Apple network MIDI Network Session, the same name it has in the Send to list. With it on, a network MIDI session that you make in Audio MIDI Setup on a Mac can connect to this device, and that session then appears under Send to in the MIDI tab like any other port, so Glinster can play any app on the Mac.
As a plugin
Glinster is also available inside other music apps as two Audio Unit extensions, which are listed wherever your host shows instruments:
- Glinster: the full instrument on a track, with its surface in the plugin window and its sound in the host's mixer.
- Glinster MIDI: the same surface without sound, sending its MPE stream into the host's MIDI routing to play other instruments.
Each plugin has its own settings, behind the gear beside Fit hands. They are separate from the app's: a new instance starts at the factory settings, and what you change is saved in the host's project, so reopening a session brings back the sound and the scale you left it with. The hand fit is remembered for the plugin itself, so you fit once and every instance you add uses it.
Routing is the host's, so neither plugin offers the Ports section, and the instrument plugin, which plays into the host instead of sending MIDI of its own, leaves out the MIDI and Network tabs as well.
Tips
- On an iPhone you can feel the instrument, with a tick for a strike, a firmer press for a lever, and a soft pulse when the quantize settles on its note. Most iPads have no Taptic Engine and stay still, and the ticks can be switched off under Playing.
- The home indicator hides while you play, so a first swipe from the bottom edge only reveals it and a second swipe is needed to actually leave the app.
- An iPhone tracks at most five touches at once, and when a sixth one lands, iOS briefly stops all of them: sounding notes end, but your resting hands keep their place and playing continues as your fingers touch again. An iPad tracks more than five.
- When fitting, let your fingers rest where they naturally fall instead of stretching toward where you expect the notes to be.
- The bend is measured from the start of the note, so a small sideways drift when you land is absorbed instead of bending the pitch.
- With Background audio on in the Sound tab, the sound keeps playing while the screen is locked, and with it off the instrument sleeps with the screen and saves battery. A running take always keeps the sound alive.