Touch the terrain.

Start with your hands

Tap Play to start audio. Open opt for controls; Language is the first setting. Close opt to return to the full-screen terrain.

Tap cells to play; slide across the terrain to draw sound. Double-tap a cell to mute or restore that type of sound. On sampled cells, double-tap mutes or restores the sample layer instead.

Strum, stretch, circle

Slide horizontally to strum, or vertically to climb through notes. Try a short movement first, then a wider sweep.

Spread two fingers to stretch the tape effect. Horizontal and vertical stretches shape repeats differently: horizontal pulls move toward faster repeats; vertical pulls move toward slower tape motion. More stretch makes the effect stronger. Release to return to normal playback.

Draw an L to leave forward and reversed echoes. Draw a closed loop to leave four fading repeats. Keep the gesture continuous so the shape can be recognized.

Choose an atmosphere

In opt, swipe through Original, Day, Rain, Dawn, Sunset and Night. Auto chooses a palette from the local time; Rain is a visual theme, not a live weather forecast. Light and Tilt are optional controls and can be switched off independently.

Capture a sound, hands free

Hold a terrain cell for about half a second to begin microphone sampling. Allow microphone access the first time. Release your finger: recording continues, leaving both hands free to tap a cup, rub paper or make a sound. Tap the terrain again to finish; it stops automatically after eight seconds.

New recordings cycle through layers 1, 2 and 3. A fourth recording replaces layer 1. Choose a layer in opt → Sample layers before recording if you want to replace a particular take. Sampled cells become part of the moving terrain.

Each layer has Mute and Clear. RAW preserves the original texture; GRAIN fragments it into grains; RESONATE adds pitched resonance; TAPE reshapes it with tape-like playback. Try the same short sound in all four modes.

Samples live in the current session. Export a performance before leaving if you want to keep it; the three layers are not a saved sample library.

Record your whole performance

The rec button beside opt records the app’s overall mix. Tap once to record, tap again to stop, then save or share the result. This is separate from holding a cell to record the microphone.

A simple first session: sample a cup, sample paper, sample your voice. Choose a different texture for each layer, start rec, then play the terrain and stretch the tape.

Send notes to another instrument

On iPhone, connect USB MIDI or open opt → MIDI output → Connect Bluetooth to connect a Bluetooth MIDI device such as WIDI. Return to the menu, refresh outputs and select the destination. Bluetooth MIDI sends musical control messages, not audio.

Record a sample first, then set its layer route to MIDI or Both. Internal plays the app sound, MIDI sends notes, and Both does both. Layers 1, 2 and 3 use MIDI channels 1, 2 and 3. Match the receiving instrument’s channels. Octave shifts the register; density changes activity.

Free follows terrain events freely. Quantized places notes on sixteenth-note steps. Euclid distributes hits over a 16-step cycle: at Medium density the three layers use 5, 7 and 3 hits. Notes stay within a shared pentatonic collection; quantized modes also smooth melodic movement.

Enable Tilt and Tilt MIDI to send collision notes on channel 4, even without recording a sample. A collision creates one note, shaped by its location and strength, and follows the selected rhythm. All notes off silences hanging MIDI notes.

Follow Digitakt’s clock

For a local tempo, choose Clock: internal and adjust Tempo. To follow Digitakt II, enable Clock Send and Transport Send on Digitakt and make sure its MIDI OUT can return to the iPhone through WIDI or USB. A connection that only sends phone notes to Digitakt is not enough.

Choose Clock: external and the correct clock input in Sound Terrain. Start audio in the app, then press Play on Digitakt. The menu shows the received BPM and Following MIDI clock. Tempo is controlled by the external device while this mode is active.

Start, Stop, Continue and song position messages control the MIDI sequence. This sync affects MIDI output; the app’s own ambient sound and terrain do not become Digitakt audio tracks. If the clock disappears, MIDI playback stops instead of continuing out of time.

A few checks

No MIDI sound? Check the destination, receiving channel, layer route and that the layer contains a sample. A Bluetooth connection alone does not select the output. For clock sync, also check the return path and transport send.

Microphone or light not responding? Check iPhone permissions for Sound Terrain. Keep the app in the foreground while playing; backgrounding pauses the session and MIDI output. Camera images are not saved.

Connect a Grid

Use a compatible 16 × 8 monome grid in iii mode with the Sound Terrain script loaded. Connect it to iPhone with a USB data cable. Open opt → monome grid → Find grid, select iii grid and connect. Start playback on the phone, then close opt.

A window into the terrain

Grid controls a centered 16 × 8 window of terrain cells. Each playing key maps to one cell. The landscape continues to flow through this window, so its contents can change over time.

The bottom-right key (row 8, column 16) only shows or hides the window. Press once to gently brighten the region; press again to hide it. The other 127 keys play and sample. The region starts hidden on connection and disappears on disconnection.

Highlighted key: region on / off.

Record with your hands free

Tap a playing key to interact with its terrain cell. Hold for about half a second to begin sampling through the phone microphone. Allow microphone access when requested, then release the key and make a sound. Press any playing key to stop; recording also stops after eight seconds. The bottom-right key remains a region toggle during recording.

Recordings cycle through three layers; the fourth replaces the first. Open opt → Sample layers to select RAW, GRAIN, RESONATE or TAPE, mute a layer or clear it. The rec control on the phone records the overall mix; it is separate from microphone sampling.

Light and motion

Enable Light in opt and close the menu. Cover the phone camera to speed up terrain flow and the corresponding LEDs; uncover it to slow down. Light also changes tape playback rate. Sampling temporarily pauses terrain flow.

Tilt uses the phone’s motion sensor. With Tilt enabled, particles, trails and collision flashes within the mapped window appear on Grid, accompanied by terrain collision sounds. Tilting Grid itself does not control this version.

Prepare your Grid

The script below is for compatible 16 × 8 iii grids, not every monome edition. Back up your existing startup script before changing it. Using the official diii utility on your computer, upload sound-terrain.lua, run it, and set it as the startup script. This is a Lua script, not a firmware image.

sound-terrain.lua ↓ · Official diii guide ↗

diii upload sound-terrain.lua
diii do "fs_run_file('sound-terrain.lua')"
diii do "first('sound-terrain.lua')"

If nothing responds

Check the USB data cable, iii mode, Sound Terrain startup script and connected status. Start audio on the phone and close opt before pressing playing keys. Grid uses the phone microphone and camera, not sensors on the controller.