Support

The instrument shows no words. Here is what its figures do, and how to reach us if something goes wrong.

Playing

Rest a finger on a thread and glide. Sideways, the note. Higher, louder: above the thread the sound swells, below it softens. A finger keeps to the thread it landed on. Each thread carries two voices, four in all.

The moons above each thread mark the notes of the scale, and the new moon marks the tonic. Magnetism, in the veil, draws your glide towards them.

iPhone

Hold it sideways. Set the level with the volume buttons: the instrument plays even when your iPhone is in silent mode.

iPad

Any way round, full screen or in a window of any size. The threads stay across the middle of the screen.

Mac

Rest up to four fingers on the trackpad, without clicking. The top half of the trackpad plays the upper thread, the bottom half the lower one. Across, the note; within each half, higher is louder.

With a mouse, click and drag to play, one voice at a time. Fingers do not play while the pointer rests on the top band of the window, by the ring and the veil’s circle: move the pointer down onto the night.

Keyboard

On Mac, and on iPad with a keyboard:

• ⌘R starts and stops a film.
• ⌘, opens and closes the veil.
• Esc closes the veil or the film, and otherwise silences everything.

When it opens

Each time it opens, the instrument plays a short excerpt by itself, a different one each time: Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Purcell. Rest a finger on a thread and it falls silent to let you play.

The veil

The small circle in the top right corner opens the veil, where the settings live. It has no words: each setting is a small figure of the night sky that changes with it. Its name appears while your finger rests on it, and VoiceOver always reads it. Touch the night around the figures, or the circle again, to close it.

• On the left, the two threads and their registers: four moons each, the largest for the lowest.
• On the right, the notes: nine scales drawn as constellations (minor, harmonic minor, Dorian, Phrygian, hijaz, Hungarian minor, Ukrainian Dorian, hirajoshi, miyako-bushi), then the tonic, one of twelve.
• Then magnetism, which draws your glide to the moons, from free to magnetic.
• Then the sound: timbre, from muted to raw, then space, glide, attack and sustain.
• Under the lower thread: let ring, so that a note sounds on until you touch it again, and on iPhone, feel the moons, a light tap as your finger passes each one.

When you let go of a line, a short phrase plays with the new setting.

Back to the original settings

Under the lower thread, on the right, a moon has come back to where its orbit began. Touch it and everything returns to how it was the first time you opened the app. It stays dim while nothing has changed.

To bring back a single setting, double-tap its figure (double-click on Mac). A small dot on each line marks where it started.

Filming

The ring in the top left corner, opposite the veil, films the threads and their sound. Touch it to start, and again to stop. A film lasts up to three minutes and stops by itself at the end, or when you leave the app. On iPad, turning the screen or resizing the window ends it there.

Only the instrument is filmed, never the buttons or the veil, and the sound is taken straight from the instrument, never from the microphone.

Keeping a film

When the film ends, it plays in a loop: touch it to pause. On the left, choose landscape or portrait. On the right, save it to Photos, or share it: Instagram, TikTok, Messages, AirDrop and the others wait in the share sheet. The instrument’s name is written at the bottom of the film.

The cross closes the film. If you have neither saved nor shared it, a first touch warns you and a second lets it go. Nothing stays on your device but what you kept or shared.

Photos access

The app asks for access to Photos the first time you save a film, and only to add films: it never sees your photos. If you said no and change your mind:

• iPhone and iPad: Settings › Apps › Saddest › Photos, then allow adding photos.
• Mac: System Settings › Privacy & Security › Photos, then allow The Saddest Instrument.

No sound?

Turn the volume up with the side buttons: the instrument plays even in silent mode. On Mac, check the sound output in Control Center. A phone call, or unplugging your headphones, silences the instrument; then simply play again.

Accessibility

VoiceOver reads the name of every figure. With Reduce Motion turned on, the threads stay still and the luminous matter rests; the sound still answers.

One purchase

Bought once on the App Store, the instrument plays on iPhone, iPad and Mac signed in to the same Apple Account.

Write to us

A question, a problem, a film you are proud of: write to contact@baron-creation.com. Tell us your device, its system version (iOS, iPadOS or macOS) and what happened. We read every message.