MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) pioneer Geert Bevin has introduced Glinster, a unique MPE controller and instrument for iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro.

Bevin has a long history of contributing to some of the most influential expressive electronic instrument designs, including the Eigenlabs Eigenharp, the Roger Linn Linnstrument and Moog Music’s multitouch iOS applications. He also authored the original Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression specification draft – which led directly to what we now know as MPE.

His latest creation, Glinster, is an expressive MIDI instrument that uses hand tracking and touchscreen gestures to turn Apple devices into an adaptive MPE performance controller.

“On Apple Vision Pro, you play it in the air with your bare hands,” he explains. “On iPhone and iPad, you place your hand anywhere on the glass and the notes appear under your fingers.”

Rather than presenting musicians with a fixed keyboard or grid, Glinster measures the shape and reach of the player’s hand and adapts its musical interface accordingly.

On Apple Vision Pro, the instrument uses spatial hand tracking to let musicians play notes in the air without holding a physical controller. On iPhone and iPad, the touchscreen becomes an expressive playing surface, with notes positioned according to the player’s measured finger spacing and hand shape.

Glinster also functions as an MPE controller and AUv3 instrument, allowing its expressive gestures to control compatible synthesizers and other music software.

Features:

• Five sound presets: Aether, Ember, Fathom, Rime and Pillar
• Room, Shimmer, Glide, Response, Cutoff and Resonance
• Sixteen scales, from the seven modes to the blues, Whole tone and Double harmonic, and twelve roots, with a reference pitch from 432 to 446 Hz
• An octave setting that moves the whole instrument two octaves either way, so notes above and below what your hands span stay within reach
• MPE MIDI output that assigns a new channel to every note so that release tails don’t get cut off, with the number of member channels your choice, or single-channel output, and a Send MCM button to repeat the MPE configuration for a receiver that started late
• Volume and brightness sent as channel pressure, CC 7, CC 11, CC 74 or CC 1, and a pitch bend range of 2, 12, 24, 48 or 96 semitones
• A virtual MIDI source, direct output to the MIDI port of any app, Bluetooth LE MIDI in both directions, and Apple’s network MIDI session, so a session made in Audio MIDI Setup on a Mac can connect straight to the device
• Records takes as lossless 32-bit float WAV files, and plays them back in the app with the instrument still live, so you can play along with one

Pricing & Availability:

Glinster is available now for Apple Vision Pro, iPhone, and iPad, with a price of $9.99. The App Store purchase includes AUv3 functionality.