Gravity

Quick Start

Zero to orbit in under a minute:

1. Load Gravity on an instrument track (or launch the standalone, which opens full-screen, as nature intended).
2. Pick a preset. Slow Orbits is a gentle first world.
3. Press PLAY, or run your DAW's transport. The host always wins.
4. Fling an orb. Grab it, drag, let go. The throw becomes its velocity.
5. Drag the gravity well: the circle near the middle. Move it and every orbit in the room bends.
6. Set Pulse to 2 bars on the top bar. Now the well inhales in time, and chaos starts keeping a schedule.

The Machine

Top bar

Play/Stop, tempo (60–240), the INSTRUMENT | SCALE view switch, Pulse, Presets, Silent Mode, Hide Panels, Settings. Under a host, Play/Stop and tempo show the host's transport and dim to a read-only display. The host owns them, and Gravity is already following.

Left rail

Top to bottom: the orb enables; the big Orb Collisions switch; Chord Bursts with the last chord it played; the Plane Shape icons, one tap each; and Quantize. Under Pitch, the Octave and Key Range chips open a small picker beside the rail (pick, or tap anywhere else, to close it; the plane keeps running). A Reset Orbs button sits at the bottom for when the experiment escapes. The rail is the same on every screen. In a very short window (a phone, a small AUv3 pane) the last chord moves up beside the Chord Bursts title, Quantize folds into a chip, and the shapes squeeze into one row, so every control stays one tap away.

The plane

The arena. Everything alive lives here.

Right panel

Five tabs: PHYSICS · SOUND · VISUALS · MIDI · CHORDS.

Scale strip

The key-change timeline, always running along the bottom. Tap SCALE up top for the full-screen editor.

Hide Panels collapses everything but the plane, the correct mode for touch screens and stages. F11 (or Ctrl+Cmd+F) goes fullscreen in standalone.

The Plane

Grab an orb and it follows your finger; release and it flies. Grab the gravity well and drag it anywhere. Stronger well, tighter orbits.

When an orb strikes a wall, the wall flashes in that orb's colour and plays a note. Where it hits is what it plays: each impact point along the boundary maps to a note of the current scale, low at one end, high at the other. Middle of a wall, middle of the scale. Corners get dramatic.

Nine worlds to bounce in

The boundary doesn't have to be a box. The Plane Shape selector offers Rectangle · Circle · Triangle · Hexagon · Pentagon · Octagon · Diamond · Star, plus Custom, a shape you draw yourself. Each one plays differently:

• Rectangle: the classic. Each of the four walls spans the whole scale on its own.
• Every other shape: pitch walks once around the entire perimeter, clockwise from the top. A circle sweeps pitch like a clock face; a star winds in and out through the spikes.
• Sharp corners (triangle, diamond, star) ricochet hard and play jagged. Round-ish shapes (circle, octagon) glide and play smooth.

Switch shapes mid-performance. Orbs get scooped back inside automatically, and the shape saves with the preset.

Draw your own

The last cell in the shape grid (the hand-drawn loop) is Custom.

1. Tap it. The plane becomes a canvas: a frame breathes around its edge, the cell reads CANCEL and the header reads DRAW ON PLANE. The orbs keep playing in the old shape meanwhile.
2. Draw one loop with your finger (or a mouse, or a Pencil). Lift, and that's the new boundary. The orbs are scooped inside and carry on.
3. To redraw, tap the Custom cell again and draw another. Tap CANCEL (or any other shape) to keep what you have.

Don't worry about neatness. Overshoot the start and the loop closes where your line crosses itself; the leftover tail is ignored. Stop short and it closes with a straight line back to where you began. Wobbles get smoothed out. A loop too small to hold the orbs isn't used: the frame flashes, the shape header says TOO SMALL, GO BIGGER, and you can simply draw again.

You draw the scale, too. Where your loop starts is the lowest note, and pitch climbs in the direction you drew, all the way round. A small dot on the outline (and in the cell's thumbnail) marks the low note, and the outline itself shows the climb: faint and thin where the notes are low, brightening and thickening as they rise. Where bright meets faint is the top of the scale wrapping back to the bottom. Draw clockwise or anticlockwise, start at the top or the bottom, and the same outline plays a different tune.

Some things worth trying:

• A long thin corridor: orbs rattle along it, playing runs.
• A pinched waist (two rooms joined by a neck): orbs get trapped in one room, then escape. Very tight necks are gated so an orb wedged in them ticks rather than buzzes.
• Spikes and inlets: each one is a little cluster of neighbouring notes.

Your drawing saves with the preset and the session. The first time you pick Custom it starts as the shape you were already playing, so nothing jumps until you draw.

Orb Collisions

The big Orb Collisions switch on the left rail, right under the orbs. When on, orbs colliding with each other also play: a note split between the two orbs' last wall notes, snapped to scale. Cheap harmony, occasionally profound.

Physics

The PHYSICS tab. This is where the feel of the universe lives.

Pulse (top bar: Off / 1 / 2 / 4 / 8 bars) makes the well surge on a bar-locked schedule. It is the closest thing Gravity has to a metronome. If a patch feels arrhythmic, turn it on before touching anything else.

Chord Bursts

Every orb remembers the notes it plays. Turn on Chord Bursts and, after a set number of hits, an orb bursts: it plays a chord built from the notes it collected, sends out a shockwave, and flies on with an empty charge. The hits are the melody; the burst is where the phrase lands.

Chord Bursts sits on the left rail (Off / 4 / 6 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 24 hits) so your left hand can change it mid-performance. The CHORDS tab holds the rest.

Reading the orb. A ring of beads around each orb fills one bead per hit. Inside it, small marks sit on a clock of the key (its home note at the top, clockwise), one per note collected; a mark grows each time that note repeats. The clock has one position for every note of the tuning: 12 in Western tunings, 24 in quarter-tone maqam, 53 in Turkish makam. Marks in the orb's colour are the notes the chord would use right now, so you can watch the chord form before it fires. A full orb waiting for the beat pulses.

The chord's root is voiced low, at or below the lowest note the orb played. Every chord fits the key that is playing when it fires: if the scale changed while the orb was charging, each collected note moves to the nearest note of the new scale (down, when it sits exactly between two). The last chord is named under the Chord Bursts picker, and the CHORDS tab lists the recent ones.

Naming a chord in any tuning

Chord names like Cmaj7 belong to Western harmony; maqam, raga and makam are melodic traditions that don't name chords. So the readout speaks the tuning's own language:

• Western 12-TET, Pythagorean, Just Intonation: the chord name and its notes (Cmaj7 · C E G B).
• Indian systems: sargam, from Sa (R M P N; lowercase is komal, M is tivra ma).
• Chinese systems: the five tones, from the mode's home note (Zhi Yu Gong Shang).
• Arabic, Persian, Turkish and your own Scala tunings: the chord's places in the mode (2 3 5 7, with the mode name beside it).

Next to each name, a small ring draws the chord on its mode: one tick per note of the mode, the home note at the top, the chord's notes joined into a shape in the orb's colour. Shapes read the same in any tuning, so you learn them by eye. The CHORDS tab also lists each chord's notes in cents above the home note.

Sound

The SOUND tab. One shared plucked-string voice plays all four orbs polyphonically: four hands, one instrument.

The instrument (global)

Brightness

Dark and woody → bright and glassy.

Decay

Short pluck → piano-length ring-out.

Warmth

Metallic and nasal → dark and mellow.

Stiffness

Zero is an ideal string; raise it and the overtones bend upward into piano-like inharmonicity.

Body

How much wooden-box resonance sits under the string.

The reverb (global)

Size × Mix

Closet → cathedral, dry → drowned.

Damp × Width

Bright glassy tails vs dark plates; mono → full stereo.

Per orb

Pick an orb with the selector, then:

Pitch / Volume

Pitch (±24 semitones) and Volume share one XY pad.

Quantize

Global · None · 1/32 … 1/2. A collision either sounds instantly (None) or waits for the next grid line. Mix per-orb values for instant polyrhythm: one orb on 1/4, one on 1/16, one feral.

Mass

Global/Custom toggle, for one deliberately heavy planet.

Scales, Keys & Other Worlds

Everything Gravity plays is snapped to scale. There are no wrong notes, only surprising ones.

The scale timeline

The strip along the bottom is a chain of segments, each one a root + scale + bar count (1–16 bars, up to 16 segments). The playhead sweeps; when it enters a new segment, the whole instrument re-harmonises, locked to the transport. One segment = a static key. Four segments = a chord progression your orbs play through without being told.

• Tap a segment to edit root / scale / bars; ADD and DEL in the header; drag an edge to resize.
• Tap individual keys on a segment's keyboard to sculpt a custom scale, note by note. A * marks your mutations (C Maj*). Tap any preset root/scale to revert.
• The SCALE view (top bar) is the same thing full-screen, with a circle of fifths, orb-coloured activity dots, and a live output monitor showing what's actually sounding.

16 scales ship, from Major to Whole Tone to both Diminisheds, plus Key Range (left rail: 6–48 semitones) controlling how much of the scale a wall spans. Small range hugs the tonic, big range leaps.

Other tuning worlds

The TUNING chip on the scale strip (top right of the strip) sets the global intonation: not which notes, but where the notes actually are. Eleven systems: Western 12-TET, Pythagorean, Just Intonation, Arabic 12-tone and 24-tone maqam, Turkish 53-comma makam, Indian raga and 22-shruti, Persian dastgah, Chinese pentatonic and 12-lü. Pick a non-Western world and the SCALE view becomes a tuning wheel with the system's pitches at their true positions; the internal voice plays them exactly, and MIDI out carries them as per-channel pitch bend so your external synths follow.

Bring your own tuning. + IMPORT SCALA TUNING (.scl) at the bottom of the TUNING picker (on the strip or the SCALE page) loads any Scala .scl file: 19-EDO, a just-intonation lattice, Bohlen-Pierce, whatever you have. It lands under YOUR TUNINGS in the picker, and a preset that uses it carries the tuning inside it, so the preset still plays on another computer or the iPad. Tap keys on a segment to pick the notes you want, then SAVE AS MODE in the segment editor keeps that set as a mode of the tuning (named by its note count, e.g. 7a), one tap away next time.

If your DAW or the TouchMachines Liveset pushes a global key, Gravity obeys and shows FOLLOWING HOST KEY. The scale surfaces go read-only until the host lets go.

MIDI Out

Every orb is also a MIDI instrument. Per orb, on the MIDI tab:

Channel / Notes

Channel (1–16; defaults 1/2/3/4) and Notes On/Off. Each orb can drive its own synth, or all four can gang up on one piano.

Gate

60 ms · 120 ms · 250 ms · 500 ms · 1 s · 2 s · HOLD (default 120 ms): how long each MIDI note is held. Short for plucks and drums, long for pads; HOLD sustains every note until that orb's next hit. Gravity's own pluck ignores it (its length is the SOUND tab's Decay).

CC Out

The orb's X and Y position stream as two CCs (defaults 16/17). An orb drifting in low gravity is the most organic modulation source you own.

SOLO (per CC axis)

Mutes every other CC Gravity sends so you can MIDI-learn one axis cleanly: solo, wiggle, map, next. Notes are never affected, and solo isn't saved. It's a mapping tool, not a performance state.

Routing ideas: four channels → one poly synth (the four-handed pianist), four channels → four synths (a physics-driven ensemble), or notes off + CC on (the orb becomes a slow expression pedal).

SILENT: Gravity as a pure modulator

SILENT MODE (top bar, next to Hide Panels) switches off Gravity's own audio engine. Everything else keeps running exactly as before: the orbs fall and collide, the MIDI goes out, the OSC goes out, the plane still flashes on every hit. You just don't hear Gravity. You hear whatever it is driving.

While it's armed the button breathes, a slow cyan swell. Silence is the one state that gives you no audible confirmation, so the lamp keeps saying it: if Gravity has gone quiet and you can't remember why, look for the pulsing button.

Use it when Gravity is the player, not the instrument: four orbs driving four synths, or an orb's X/Y steering a video rig over OSC. It also costs almost nothing on the CPU with the engine bypassed, so you can run several instances as modulators without paying for pluck voices nobody listens to.

Two things worth knowing:

• Silent Mode is not part of a preset. It belongs to this instance, not to a sound, so loading a preset, including one you built for MIDI-only use, never silences a Gravity that was making noise, and never un-silences one that wasn't. It is remembered with your session.
• The SOUND tab stays open, half-lit. The instrument and reverb pads dim out (they're switched off), but the orb selector, Orb Dynamics and Quantize stay live, because those still shape what goes down the wire. Pitch transposes the note you send, Volume becomes its MIDI velocity, and Quantize still snaps its timing. In Silent Mode that half of the tab is your modulator's control panel.

Gesture Control

Gravity listens for MIDI CC gestures, so a wiimote, or anything that can send CC, can play it from across the room:

Touch always overrides gesture. The screen wins arguments.

Presets, Themes & Settings

The preset slot sits on the top bar: 005 DEEP WELL, with a stepper on either side. The steppers walk to the previous or next sound in one tap. The number is that sound's place in the running order, not a name tag. Tap the name and the drawer slides in from the left without stopping the music: scroll it, tap a row to load, + SAVE, make folders, rename, delete, or drag rows to reorganise. Folder order is step order, so arranging the drawer is arranging your set list. A preset captures the whole world: parameters, progression, theme, and the exact positions and velocities of the orbs and well.

Six factory worlds: Init (blank lab), Slow Orbits (perpetual smooth motion), Jade Pond (heavy, sticky, pentatonic), Pendulum Bells (bright and bouncy), Deep Well (dark inward spiral), Scatter (roaming and collision-happy).

Settings holds eight colour themes (all colour-vision-safe, so the four orb colours stay tellable-apart in every one), full custom colours, and licensing. Gravity runs as a full-featured demo until it is licensed: every feature works, but the output politely goes quiet at intervals, enough to explore, not enough to record with. The pill on the top bar takes you to activation; feed it a license and the silences stop.

The VISUALS tab controls the eye candy: motion trails (length × opacity), collision particles, and the glowing sphere's bloom and intensity. All cosmetic, all worth it, and the first things to turn down if CPU complains.

Recipes

Field Notes

• Start from a preset, not Init. The parameter space is a wilderness; presets are the marked trails.
• Low gravity + low damping = evolution. High + high = rhythm. Everything else is in between.
• Nothing playing? Check orb enables, per-orb volume, and that a transport is actually running. Expecting external MIDI? Notes On.
• Orbs moving and hitting, but silent? Look at Silent Mode in the top bar. If it's lit and slowly breathing, the audio engine is off on purpose and Gravity is running as a MIDI/OSC modulator. That's also why the top half of the SOUND tab is dimmed.
• Transport looks stuck on STOP in your DAW? It isn't. Under a host those buttons are a dimmed read-only display of the host's transport; Gravity follows the host's tempo and position whatever the buttons look like.
• Physics gone strange? Reset Orbs, bottom of the left rail. No shame in it.
• Orbits spiralling into a doom-pile at the centre? Lower the well strength. It's always the well.
• Collisions feel sloppy? Raise Quantize, or raise Damping so orbs settle instead of micro-bouncing.
• CPU hot? Particles off, Glow down. The universe is expensive.
• Touching the plane draws a line instead of grabbing an orb? You're in Custom's draw mode. Finish the loop, or tap CANCEL in the shape grid.
• Orb-orb collisions silent? The toggle is off, or both orbs haven't hit a wall yet, and there's nothing to harmonise.

What's New

1.1.41 · October 2026 · Windows, macOS, iPhone + iPad

• Chord Bursts. Every orb remembers the notes it plays. After a set number of hits it bursts into a chord built from them, sends out a shockwave and flies on. Choose the hits, the chord size, and how it fires: at once, on the beat, or strummed, with strum speed and direction.
• Chords in any tuning. Each burst is named in its tuning's own language: chord names for Western tunings, sargam for raga, the five tones for Chinese modes, and scale degrees for maqam, makam and your own tunings. A small ring draws the chord's shape.
• Your own tunings. Import Scala .scl files and save a scale as a one-tap mode. Presets carry the tuning with them.
• MIDI Gate per orb (60 ms to 2 s, or HOLD) for playing external synths.
• A reorganised left rail: Orb Collisions up front, plane shapes one tap away, Octave and Key Range on chips, the same layout on every screen. The right panel's new CHORDS tab holds the burst controls.

1.1.37 · October 2026 · Windows, macOS, iPhone + iPad

• Draw your own plane. The new Custom shape turns the plane into a canvas: draw one loop and the orbs live inside it. Where you start is the lowest note, and the outline glows brighter as the pitch climbs.
• Tuning moved house. The World selector left the top bar and became the TUNING chip on the scale strip, right next to the scale it tunes. The top bar breathes easier, and on the iPad the PULSE label finally fits.
• Desktop catches up with iOS 1.1.34: the whole interface zooms with the window, text and rails included; Hide Panels also hides the scale strip; the MIDI tab picks CCs with a stepper and a grid of all 128 instead of drag strips; and Gravity stops drawing while your DAW hides its window, so it sits lighter in a big session.

1.1.34 · September 2026 · iPhone + iPad

• The interface zooms as one piece and finally fills an iPad.
• On the phone, the pulse grid and World selector show up whenever there's room for them.
• Hide Panels also hides the scale strip, for a plane and nothing else.
• New MIDI CC picker: a stepper plus a grid of all 128 numbers.

1.1.30 · September 2026 · iPhone + iPad

• Gravity Machine lands on the App Store: standalone, plus AUv3 for AUM, Loopy Pro, GarageBand and Logic. Same physics, smaller glass.

1.1.28 / 1.1.29 · September 2026 · Windows + macOS

• Launch. 1.1.29 followed two days later so the Windows installer runs on PCs without Microsoft's extra runtime installed.