ORPHEUS: Music Synthesizer

ORPHEUS is a musical instrument you play by touch. Tap cells on a glowing grid and it plays them back as a loop. Columns are time and rows are pitch, so a pattern you can see is a melody you can hear. No musical training needed. THREE LAYERS, PLAYING TOGETHER Build a bass line, a melody and a countermelody on three separate layers. Each has its own pattern, loop length (4 to 16 steps), instrument, scale and octave. Give the layers different loop lengths and they drift in and out of step, so the music keeps changing. SIX WAYS TO PLAY • Sweep: tap notes on and off while the playhead loops across the grid. • Floor: every lit cell becomes a bouncing ball that strikes a note each time it lands. • Order: your notes play one at a time, in the order you tapped them. • Draw: drag a finger to paint a melody that plays for a few loops, then fades away. • Hold: touch and hold to sustain a note, and slide up or down to change its pitch. • Free: play the rows live, like a keyboard, or slide across them for a run of notes. A SEQUENCER FOR WHOLE SONGS A single grid is a loop. The sequencer turns your loops into a song: chain your saved patterns into a series and they play back to back with no gap between them, each one at its own tempo, starting again after the last. A sequence holds up to 80 patterns and there are 100 sequences to fill, so a verse, a chorus and a bridge can live side by side. Tap any pattern while the song plays and it carries on from there. FIVE INSTRUMENTS Standard piano, kalimba, marimba, plucked string and bell, all synthesized on the device for quick, responsive sound. EIGHT SCALES Chromatic, harmonic major and minor, major and minor hexatonic, major and minor pentatonic, and the Japanese hirajoshi scale. Pick a pentatonic scale and every combination of notes sounds good together, which is perfect for children and first-time players. AN 88-KEY PIANO One tap turns the grid into a full 88-key piano keyboard. Slide your finger for a glissando, or switch to two keyboards side by side and play a duet with a friend. PATTERNS THAT COME ALIVE Turn on Life and your pattern evolves by the rules of Conway's Game of Life, a new generation every loop. Mirror symmetry paints each note in mirror image, left and right, top and bottom, or both at once. MAKE IT YOURS • 100 save slots for your patterns, each with the date and time of its last save • Everything saves automatically as you play • Seven colour themes and square or round cells • Tempo from 60 to 180 BPM • A full-screen mode with nothing between you and the grid • A built-in guide behind the question-mark button Works on iPhone and iPad, upright or sideways. No ads, no account, and no data collected: everything stays on your device.