This app is a unique musical instrument played by touch. It uses a visual interface where your finger's position determines the sound, offering a novel way to create drones, textures, and pads. It also functions as an AUv3 plugin for use in other music production apps.
1.0.4
October 7, 2026
Exports from your DAW come out clean, and a MIDI keyboard plugged into the app finally plays it. In the app • A MIDI keyboard plays Contour. It never did: every message from an external controller was misread and dropped. • Recordings play back at the speed and pitch you played them. On most iPhones they came out about three times slower and more than an octave and a half low. • Sound comes back after a phone call, Siri, an alarm, or plugging in headphones. Before, the instrument stayed silent until you quit and reopened it. • Stopping a recording no longer freezes the screen, and a recording that fails says so instead of doing nothing. • One damaged sheet file no longer hides every sheet you have baked. • Previewing and baking a sheet takes about half the time. • With nothing playing, nothing recording and no keyboard connected, Contour no longer keeps running in the background. With a keyboard connected it plays on as before. • VoiceOver can buy Pro, restore a purchase, and close the Pro and Settings panels. None of their buttons could be reached before. With a keyboard, in the app and in a host • Playing legato no longer cuts off the note you are holding when you lift the one before it. • Pitch bend returns to the note when the wheel comes back. In the app it used to climb further with every message. • In the plug-in, the sustain pedal, pitch bend and aftertouch all work, and stopping the transport releases every held note. In a host • Exports and bounces are clean. A host renders an export much faster than real time and Contour could not keep up, so most of the file was silence broken by fragments of sound. It now renders at whatever speed the host asks, and the same project exports the same way every time. • Exports keep the release and the reverb tail instead of cutting them off where the region ends. • Notes land where the host places them. They were moved to the start of each buffer — up to 85 ms early in a large one. • Automation ramps sweep instead of jumping straight to the end. • Latency stays the same from the moment the plug-in loads, and long sessions over Bluetooth or USB audio no longer start to drop out. • Deleting a sheet you baked no longer silences the one that is playing, and a saved project always reopens on the sheet it was saved with. Thank you to the player who wrote in about exports.
More$3.99
Contour Pro
All 11 sheets, recording, envelope, compose.
Thanks for report. Both are fixed in 1.0.1, out soon this week. Baked sheets take their brightest corner's name; rename and delete are under EDIT on the USER header in the sheet menu. In AUM your own sheets are listed, and changing the sheet now changes the sound. zhi
Contour is a unique musical instrument app that allows you to create ambient sounds, drones, and textures by interacting with a visual interface. Your finger's position on the screen directly influences the sound produced, offering an intuitive and expressive playing experience.
Contour offers eleven distinct sound sheets, each with a unique set of four corners designed to produce different sonic characteristics. These sheets are grouped by qualities like brightness, contrast, breathiness, depth, and range, named after Taiwanese mountain traverses.
Yes, Contour supports MIDI input, allowing you to play it from an external keyboard. The ribbon underneath the main interface also serves as a pitch controller, and the contact patch of your finger acts as a dynamic control.
Yes, Contour is also available as an AUv3 plugin. It can be used within hosts like AUM, GarageBand, Cubasis, and Logic for iPad, with automatable parameters and session recall capabilities.
The free version of Contour includes three sound sheets (BEIYIDUAN, NENGGAO, and YUSHAN), the full instrument functionality including the map and ribbon, MIDI support, reverb, marks, and the AUv3 plugin. There are no time limits or account requirements.
Contour Pro is unlocked with a single purchase and provides access to all eleven sound sheets, recording capabilities directly to a file, an envelope panel for attack, decay, sustain, and release, and the ability to compose your own sheets from the library.
Contour requires iOS 16 or later and is compatible with both iPhone and iPad devices. The app was last updated on August 18, 2026.
Contour distinguishes itself through its unique touch-based playing interface and its focus on ambient soundscapes and textures. Unlike traditional synthesizers, it uses a visual map where perceptual distance directly translates to sonic change, offering a novel approach to sound design.
