Glinster
An MPE MIDI controller and instrument that learns your hand.

On Apple Vision Pro you play it in the air with your bare hands. On iPhone and iPad, you place your hand anywhere on the glass and the notes appear under your fingers. Glinster measures the shape of your hand and follows as you play.


AT A GLANCE

Released: November 3, 2026
Platforms: Apple Vision Pro with visionOS 26, iPhone with iOS 18, iPad with iPadOS 18
Price: $9.99, one App Store purchase for Apple Vision Pro, iPhone and iPad, AUv3 plugins included. No free version and nothing to unlock.
MIDI: MPE or single channel, Bluetooth, virtual port, network
Sound: Five presets, sixteen scales, twelve roots
Recording: Lossless takes, played back with the instrument still live
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6800377951
Website: https://uwyn.com/glinster/
Brief: https://uwyn.com/briefs/glinster.html
iPad demo video: https://youtu.be/kJZiEliDnf8
Press contact: info@uwyn.com


ON APPLE VISION PRO

Glinster tracks both of your hands, so there is nothing to hold while you play. Touching your thumb to a fingertip plays a note and releasing it stops the note, and turning your palm reaches the rest of the scale. The first note you play places an expression sphere around your hand. After that, where your hand is inside the sphere sets the volume and the brightness.

A ruler floats in front of you and shows which note is sounding, how far it is bent, and the angle of each palm. Watch it while you play rather than your hands. When you pause, the last notes you played hang above the ruler as a small constellation, then fade.


ON IPHONE AND IPAD

Glinster measures your hand once, by having you rest your playing hand flat and then reach up. It records how far apart your fingers are, how far you reach, and how your fingers arch. After that, wherever you put your thumb the notes appear beside it, the rows curve the way your hand does, and the grid keeps following your hand while you play. Left-handed players are detected from the way they rest their hand.

Sliding a playing finger sideways bends its pitch, sliding it up and down changes its brightness, and sliding your thumb up and down controls the volume. Every finger plays its own note. On iPad, more rows continue the scale above your hand, and there is room for both hands.


MIDI

Glinster sends MPE, so every finger's note goes out on its own MIDI channel with its own pitch, brightness and volume, and a polyphonic synth can follow each finger separately. It has its own sounds too. It runs as an AUv3 instrument and as a MIDI generator inside your DAW, and connects over Bluetooth MIDI, a virtual MIDI port, or a network MIDI session with a Mac.


WHO MAKES GLINSTER

Geert Bevin, Uwyn

I worked on the Eigenharp, created GECO, helped create LinnStrument, I'm one of the authors of the MPE specification, and I created the Moog apps. Glinster continues what I started over a decade ago with GECO, which turned hand movements over a Leap Motion sensor into music. On Apple Vision Pro that needs no extra hardware, and on iPhone and iPad it works on the glass you already have.
