Gradient Synth

What it does

A synth played by dragging across a coloured pad. The tone starts from a sine fundamental, and the colours set underneath the pad add overtones on top of it, red the first, green the second, blue the third. A note editor decides which pitches the pad can reach, the octave it starts from and whether it plays mono or poly. A tone editor moves the colours in circles, squares, triangles or a shape drawn by hand, and two slots hold reverb, delay, saturation, bit crush, chorus or a filter.

In the demo

Jade builds a hip hop sketch in AUM, then works through the settings, stars presets into a favourites row, and plays the pad from an attached keyboard. She swaps effects on a held tone, edits the note grid, then loads it in Logic to check that host automation and MIDI recording work.

Worth knowing

The recorder captures pad gestures rather than audio. Jade hits a stuck note and a panic button that does not always clear it, and says an update is on the way. Anyone expecting oscillators, filters and envelopes laid out the usual way will find a different instrument here.