GLIDE v3.7: chord mode, a loop pedal that keeps time, two modes

The biggest update since the jam row. Every key can now be a whole chord, the loop pedal locks to the beat so a progression you record stays tight forever, and a new Basic mode makes GLIDE something you can hand to anyone. Underneath it all, a calmer play screen that shows you only what is switched on.

Two modes: Basic and Advanced. GLIDE is one instrument with two depths now. Basic is the essentials: every key always does the same job, seven scales, a Tilt feel row with four ready maps, and about two dozen settings. Advanced is everything the instrument can do. Settings → Mode, the first row, switches between them, and switching loses nothing: your sounds and settings are the same in both, Basic only hides a row. In Basic, holding fn shows a sound picker, and a key that lives in Advanced (fn+c, say) shows a card naming the feature and where the switch is. A new unit starts in Basic. A unit that updates asks which you want on its first start, with Advanced already lit: press enter and everything you use today stays as it was.

Chord mode. fn+c (Advanced) makes every key a chord: on a seven-note scale the key you press sounds its triad in key, so the I is major, the ii minor, and you cannot really play a wrong chord. Slide a shape and the whole chord glides with you. On the chromatic scale you pick the chord by hand: the bottom row spells maj, min, maj7, min7, dom7, dim and aug, and latches, so you can re-colour a held note under your finger.

The loop pedal keeps time.

• A tap of alt now counts you in, four clicks, and recording starts on the downbeat. A chord struck a hair early lands on the beat.
• The loop closes on the bar line and starts there, not on your tap: close a little late and it still sounds as if you hit the line, and the chord you started with comes in straight away.
• The loop and the metronome share one clock, so chords you played on the click stay on the click however many times the loop comes round.
• The loop point is seamless: a chord held over the line keeps ringing into the next pass.
• In chord mode the loop records whole chords, quality included, so you can loop a progression and solo over it.

A calmer play screen. The status bar shows the sound, key, scale and octave, plus a badge only for what is switched on (the chord type or harmony, the trigger action, solo). Under the scope a live strip stacks the tilt slider, the loop and the backing chords, and stays empty when they are not in use. The harmonograph sits back in the centre.

Smaller things.

• Settings is easier to read: one bright cursor for every kind of row, section names at the left edge with their rows indented beneath, and How to play as a quiet link at the top beside the mode.
• The CREATE section is now CREATE SOUNDS.
• Panic (bksp) during a loop keeps the take; tap alt and it counts back in.
• After a slow SD save freezes the screen for a moment, the loop and the click pick up in time instead of firing everything they missed at once.
• The splash reads v3.7.

Your saved sounds, settings and SD library all carry over, and the sounds already in your bank sound exactly the same. Install the same way as any update: copy GLIDE.bin to /apps/, delete the installed GLIDE in Launcher, then install the new one.

GLIDE v3.6: in the pocket

Tilt reaches the other sound where you can see the screen. The tilt morph used to need a lean past upright to get near the sound you were just on, and at the stock depth it never fully arrived. Now the blend is all the way there at 60 degrees of lean, and a few degrees around flat do nothing, so a steady hand doesn't wobble the timbre. Settings → Tilt reach sets that angle anywhere from 20 to 90 degrees.

Tap tempo keeps everything together. Tapping \ over a running progression used to move the click to your finger while the chords and the arpeggio kept the old beat, until the next chord change pulled the click back. Now from the second tap the chords, the arpeggio and the click all follow your hand together, which is how you lock onto a drum machine. And with the metronome on, the arpeggio's count-in lands on the click, so bar one starts clean.

Harmony fits the pentatonic and the blues. In a scale that has no third over a note (the 4th and flat 7th of a pentatonic, for instance), the harmony voice now plays a fourth instead of borrowing a note from outside the scale, so it always stays in the scale you are playing. The harmony also sits a little under the melody, so your line stays the one you hear.

Swing for the arpeggio. Settings → Arp swing pairs the arpeggio's notes long-short, from 50% (straight, as before) through light, shuffle and heavy at 75%, in the steps drum machines use, so you can match yours. Only the in-between notes move, so the beat, the click and the chord changes stay put. Thanks to the player on the Discord who asked for it.

Take back a chord. shift+bksp removes the last chord you tapped into the progression, for when a finger lands on the wrong key. Plain bksp still clears everything.

Smaller things.

• The harmonograph display no longer shrinks to a single dot when you stop soloing over a running arpeggio or backing; it settles into its idle figure instead.
• The metronome is louder, so it carries over a pad at the same setting.
• The Jam tempo setting moves one bpm per tap (holding still moves fast), so you can match a drum machine exactly.
• In the Chromatic scale every chord step plays the note you tapped. It used to snap neighbouring keys to the same chord.
• The splash reads v3.6.

Your saved sounds, settings and SD library all carry over, and the sounds already in your bank sound exactly the same. Install the same way as any update: copy GLIDE.bin to /apps/, delete the installed GLIDE in Launcher, then install the new one.

GLIDE v3.5: smooth morph and harmony

Tilt morph is smooth all the way across. Leaning between two sounds used to work well until the two were very different, where the blend jumped at about half lean. Now the waveform and the filter shape themselves crossfade, so a soft sine can lean into a bright saw, or any sound into Big's highpass bark, without a seam. Where the two sounds have different echo settings, the echo time glides with the lean like a tape delay's time knob.

Harmony. Press fn+h and every note you play brings a second voice a third above, in the key. The interval is read from the grid the same way the trill is, so it is the scale's own third in every scale and never clashes. Slides, pull-offs and octave sweeps carry the harmony along. It is also a G0 action ("harmony") for the top button, momentary or latched, so you can bring the harmony in for one phrase. fn+h is a session switch and is off at every boot, like the arpeggiator.

A new brass in the bank. Slappy Brass, a saw brass that swells into each note with a dotted-eighth slap echo and a room behind it, takes slot y on fresh units and after a bank re-roll. It sat too close to Hollow before, so Fat Square makes way. Slappy Brass is in the SD library too.

The harmonograph keeps moving. Scope mode 6 used to collapse to a dot when you stopped playing. It now settles into a quiet figure that breathes at rest, and blooms again on the next note.

Smaller things.

• The splash reads v3.5.

Your saved sounds, settings and SD library all carry over, and the sounds already in your bank sound exactly the same. Install the same way as any update: copy GLIDE.bin to /apps/, delete the installed GLIDE in Launcher, then install the new one.

GLIDE v3.4: tuned by ear

Randomize learned from real ratings. Testers rated 202 random sounds, and every sound type that scored poorly was fixed toward what its best rolls do:

• Chip sounds lose their harsh whine.
• Pads open up instead of sitting muddy.
• Kalimba plucks and round basses keep their brightness and punch.
• Whistles are softer, the music box rings out, and cathedral organs are less washed out.

The sound types that already scored well are untouched, and you'll still meet every type as often as before.

LISTEN finds the song's key, not yours. Holding fn+k used to fit the answer into whatever scale you were already in, so a Blues player could never get out of Blues. Now it lands exactly the key and mode the song is playing, whatever you were in before.

Better second guesses. If LISTEN's answer is close but not right, tap space on the result card:

• First comes the relative key (same notes, different home note).
• Then the next most likely keys.
• Then the pentatonic, the blues, and two long shots.

The card now says what each guess is. In our tests, the right answer is within two taps far more often than before.

When unsure, fewer notes. LISTEN now hears at least five seconds before it decides. If it never gets sure, it lands on the pentatonic, so nothing you play sounds sour. The card says "unsure - safe pent".

Smaller things.

• The splash reads v3.4.

Your saved sounds, settings and SD library all carry over, and the sounds already in your bank sound exactly the same. The new tuning applies to fresh Randomize presses and to a re-rolled bank. Install the same way as any update: copy GLIDE.bin to /apps/, delete the installed GLIDE in Launcher, then install the new one.

GLIDE v3.3: the randomizer grows up

More kinds of sounds. Randomize can now land on two brand-new types. Drone is a calm note that holds forever, great for meditating or playing over. Gate is a held note that chops on and off in time with the beat.

Same type, different flavor. Two bells don't have to sound alike anymore. Each sound type now comes in styles, like a gong bell or a glass bell, a kalimba pluck or a funky stab. The sound card shows the style name, so you know what you just rolled.

No repeats in a row. Press Randomize twice and you'll always get two different types of sound.

Better names. New sounds get names that match what they actually are. Sounds you already have keep their names.

Louder whistles and bells. These used to get lost on the built-in speaker. They now come through clearly, and bells have a little mallet click when you strike them.

Smoother arpeggiator. With the arp running fast, sounds with glide used to smear together. Each arp note now lands cleanly on its step. Normal playing still glides like before.

Smaller things.

• Saved sounds now remember how they were rolled, which helps us keep improving the randomizer.
• The splash reads v3.3.

Saved sounds, settings and the SD library carry across as always. Install the same way as any update: copy GLIDE.bin to /apps/, delete the installed GLIDE in Launcher, install the new one.

GLIDE v3.2 — trill, and a reverse gear

Reverse gear for the cycle keys. fn+shift+k/s/a steps the key,
scale, or arpeggiator ring backwards — a one-step move that used to mean
going the long way around (eleven taps for the key, three for the arp) is
now a single tap the other direction. Requested by a player for live
noodling.

Trill. A new G0 trigger action: 16ths alternating your held note with
the next scale degree, read straight off the grid, so it's always in key,
in every scale. Depth is in-or-out rather than a blend — half an interval
would be out of key.

Wah is now the default trigger, latched. G0 ships as a wah pedal that
keeps sweeping hands-free once you tap it on, instead of the previous
synth-morph throw. Morph is one settings step away if you preferred it, and
your own choice sticks once you've made it.

The wah now reaches notch patches. A notch's resonance behaves opposite
to every other filter mode, so the wah's usual resonance push used to
silence the sweep instead of driving it. Fixed — notch patches (like
Hollow) now sweep like everything else.

Smaller things.

• Root-key and arp reverse now correctly hand off to the other gesture on a
  specific key combo that used to ghost on the keyboard's scan matrix.
• The splash reads v3.2.

Saved sounds, settings and the SD library carry across as always. Install
the same way as any update: copy GLIDE.bin to /apps/, delete the
installed GLIDE in Launcher, install the new one.

GLIDE v3.1 — the arpeggiator

The arpeggiator. fn+a breaks the backing into notes. Tap a chord on the
jam row and it runs root-3rd-5th-octave in time, hands-free; tap four and the
run walks your progression. fn+a cycles up, down, up/down and off; fn+z
steps the note rate (1/8, 1/8T, 1/16, 1/4); fn+x widens it to two octaves.
The speed is the jam tempo, so tap tempo on \ moves it. It is a texture on
the progression rather than a new mode: no key changes meaning, the strip over
the scope reads ARP^ while it is armed, and it is off again on every restart.
The walk is clocked on the audio engine, and the first chord takes a one-beat
count-in so a quick run of taps lands on the grid.

Jam octave. Settings → Jam octave puts the backing register anywhere from
two octaves under the grid to two over. The default is now one octave over: an
octave under was a fine bass pad on headphones and mud on the built-in speaker.
Above C7 the backing folds down instead of whistling, and the setting auditions
live while a jam runs. Drones and the progression follow it alike.

LISTEN's second guesses. While the result card is up, space cycles the
runner-up readings (the sibling mode, the safe pentatonic, the relative twin),
each applied live with a fresh six seconds to judge it. ` or enter
keeps what is showing.

Smaller things.

• The help screen, the manual, the keymap and the printed playing guide carry
  the arpeggiator; the settings row for the older per-beat drone walk now reads
  arp (1 drone/beat) so there is only one thing called "arp".
• A one-shot tip mentions fn+a the first time you solo over a spelled
  progression without having found it; it retires the moment you use the key.
• The splash reads v3.1.

Saved sounds, settings and the SD library carry across as always. Install the
same way as any update: copy GLIDE.bin to /apps/, delete the installed
GLIDE in Launcher, install the new one.

GLIDE v3.0 — custom themes, wah, gate

Three additions and one correction. No new gestures, no new settings rows —
everything below rides controls that already existed.

Custom themes

The Theme setting gains an eleventh entry, custom, after the ten built-in
palettes. Selecting it reveals five dials directly beneath it:

• Hue — the instrument's colour. Everything else is defined relative to it,
  so turning this one dial rotates the whole palette.
• Accent — the angle from that hue to the annunciator colour. Shown as a
  relationship (same / near / wide / triad / split / opposite).
• Vividness — saturation.
• Ground — the background, from black through dusk and ash up to
  paper and bright. Crossing into the light half switches the instrument to
  its light-background colour model.
• Contrast — how far the text and trace sit from the background.

A sixth row, Roll look, generates a complete palette at once.

Cycling onto custom from a palette you were already using starts you with a
copy of that palette rather than a default. Every combination is held to a
minimum contrast against the background, so no dial position can make the
screen unreadable.

The dials are hidden unless Theme is set to custom, so nothing changes for
anyone who doesn't use it. Your palette is stored on the device, not in the
firmware, so it survives future updates.

Two new G0 trigger actions

Settings → TRIGGER → Trigger action:

• wah (sweeps) — a resonant filter peak sweeps 350 Hz to 2.4 kHz, one sweep
  every two beats. At full depth the sweep replaces the patch's own cutoff, and
  resonance goes to maximum. Both the solo and the backing layer sweep.
• gate (16ths) — the output is chopped on sixteenth notes, including the
  reverb tail. The metronome is not gated.

Both lock to the instrument's tempo, so tap tempo (\) and the BPM setting move
them. Both restart their cycle each time you press G0. Trigger depth scales
them from subtle to extreme, and both do nothing at 0%. Latch mode works as it
does for the existing actions — tap G0 once and the effect keeps running.

The ` key now says "restart"

Holding ` saves your work and reboots, and the Cardputer boots straight
back into GLIDE — the Launcher does not appear. The labels said "exit", which
was wrong. They now say "restart".

To reach Launcher, press BTN RST (the left trigger on the top edge) and tap
any key as the device comes up.

Documentation

docs/manual.md now documents the Theme setting and the custom palette dials,
which it had never covered, and its trigger-action list now includes synth morph, which was missing.

Install

Copy GLIDE.bin to /apps on your SD card, or update through M5Launcher.
NOTICES.txt is the third-party licence attribution and should ship with any
copy of the binary.

GLIDE v2.9 — autokey breathes again

Autokey is back. v2.8 quietly starved the auto-key listener's memory —
pressing fn+k on a well-loaded unit said "no memory" and gave up. v2.9
fixes the cause, not the symptom.

What was wrong

Moving your sounds to the SD card (v2.8's headline) kept the card driver
resident in memory at seven times its expected size — and the listener
needed exactly the room it took.

What changed

• The SD driver now runs lean (a third of its former footprint) and settles
  in once at boot, so the instrument's memory layout stays identical from
  the first minute of a session to the last.
• The listener now counts its memory honestly: it only ever needed one
  large unbroken buffer for recording, and it no longer refuses to run when
  the rest of its working room is available in smaller pieces.
• The boot log (USB serial) now prints a memory map, so a regression like
  this shows up as a two-line diff instead of a mystery.

Verified the unglamorous way: on the exact unit that failed, interleaving
auto-key with sound saves until the numbers stopped moving. Rock steady.

No new gestures, no new settings. Everything from v2.8 — card slots, the
self-healing storage, the metronome — carries forward unchanged.

GLIDE v2.8 — yours to keep

The big one: saved sounds move to the microSD card, and device storage
now manages itself.

Storage, reinvented

• Saving a sound (fn+shift+letter) now writes a file on your card —
  same .gpat format as the library, so slots, patches, and shared files
  are all the same thing. Your existing slots migrate automatically on
  first boot.
• The "storage full" era is over. GLIDE keeps only a sliver of the shared
  device storage, mirrors your settings to the card, and if another app
  ever fills the shared space anyway, the next boot cleans it up by itself
  and tells you in one friendly line. Nothing to fix, nothing to learn.
• No card in? The instrument plays exactly the same — factory and
  generative sounds, everything. Only saving asks for a card, in plain
  words. Pull the card mid-session and slots fall back gracefully; pop it
  back in and they return, no reboot.

A metronome that follows your hands

fn+\ — the same key that taps tempo — clicks a soft wood block on and
off, timed on the audio engine itself. It locks onto your tap-tempo taps as
you make them and onto the progression's chord changes, with a brighter
tick on beat 1. fn+ctrl/opt sets its volume.

The progression teaches its harmony

The PROG readout now names the sounding chord with its Roman numeral —
F# vi, uppercase major, lowercase minor, ° diminished. The same system
every theory book uses, live on the instrument.

Also

• Fresh units now boot in the cassette theme (your saved theme is kept).
• Sturdier boot on tight memory, honest plain-word messages everywhere.

Update: drop GLIDE.bin into /apps/ on your card and install from the
Launcher. Your sounds, settings, seed identity, and odometer all carry over.