Hoverophone: Theremin Synth

The theremin. Reinvented. On your phone. Play it in the air with your hands, no touch. Real synth voices, now with microtonal quarter tones.

The theremin, reinvented on your iPhone. Play it in the air with your hands, no touch.

Hoverophone is a theremin you actually play by waving your hands in the air. Point the front camera at your hand and move; there is no touch, no controller, no tapping glass. Raise and lower your hand to glide the pitch, spread your thumb and finger apart to swell the volume, slide left to right to pan. It is the eerie, sci-fi theremin sound, played with a wave of the hand.

Wondering how to play the theremin, or whether the theremin is hard to play? This is the easiest way to start: raise a hand and you are already playing.

A REAL SYNTH, AND POLYPHONIC Continuous synth voices, sine, triangle, saw and square, with drive and ring modulation in stereo, from a soft ambient pad to a metallic, otherworldly drone. It tracks up to four hands at once, so a theremin can finally play chords, and you can pin voices in place to hold up to twelve notes ringing together. Tune the sound with one hand while you play with the other.

MICROTONAL, PLAYED IN THE AIR Turn on the note grid and your in-air pitch snaps to a scale: 12-TET, or 24-TET quarter tones for real microtonal play. It is an isomorphic, honeycomb hex keyboard you play in the air, not by tapping glass, so every note lands in tune while your hands stay above the camera. Explore microtonal music, quarter tones and xenharmonic scales the moment you raise a hand, or leave the grid off and glide freely for the pure continuous theremin.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

• Play a real theremin in the air, front-camera hand tracking, no touch
• The classic continuous theremin glide, the sci-fi movie sound
• An in-air microtonal keyboard: 12-TET or 24-TET quarter tones on an isomorphic hex grid, or fully continuous
• Polyphonic: up to four hands live, and pin voices to stack up to twelve
• Synth voices with drive and ring modulation, stereo panning as you move
• Plays through the speaker or headphones, even on silent
• Fully offline: no account, no network, no data collected, the camera is processed on device and never leaves it

No presets, no wall of knobs, just your hand and the air. Fill a room with an ambient drone, improvise a generative soundscape, or conjure the spooky whine of a sci-fi movie. Works best in a bright room where the camera can see your hands.