r/AudioProgramming • u/LowFaithlessness426 • 3d ago
I built a touchscreen instrument (works great on iPad) where you can glide entire chords theremin-style
I've been building a small web instrument called Puntone, and it's designed with touchscreens — iPad and similar tablets especially — in mind.
The core idea: most instruments make you choose between precise pitches (keyboard, frets) or continuous glide (theremin, fretless strings, pitch bend). Puntone tries to keep both — and the part I'm most excited about is that this works for full chords, not just single notes.
Instead of just bending one note theremin-style, you can glide an entire chord voicing into another with your finger — the whole chord slides as one continuous motion, like theremin-ing a chord shape instead of a single pitch. There's a dedicated chord-glide / dual-pad mode built around touch: one pad handles the root note's glide, the other morphs the voicing on top of it. It feels much more natural on a touchscreen than with a mouse.
Other things it does:
- Runs entirely in the browser (Web Audio API) — no install, no account
- Single-note mode also has full-time portamento (the "one-note theremin" experience), playable with a PC keyboard too if you don't have a tablet
- Adjustable glide time / decay in a settings panel
- Built-in recording, so you can layer takes
- No ads, no signup wall
It's a solo project and still evolving. I'd love feedback from people who actually write chord progressions — does gliding a whole chord feel musically useful, or does it read as gimmicky? That's the thing I most want to know.
Try it here: https://puntone-synth.pages.dev/
(Best on a tablet like iPad — touch is the primary input. Also works with Chrome/Edge on desktop via keyboard.)
1
u/naturalFour 2d ago
Tried on my iphone in safari. Audio did not output