CelloPad Support & FAQ

CelloPad is a motion-controlled instrument. You don’t need to know which notes to play: CelloPad improvises melodies, bass lines and chord progressions in the key you choose, and you perform them. Holding a button decides which cellists play, tilting the device decides when each new note starts, and how fast you tilt decides how loud it is.

It’s designed for anyone: people who have never played an instrument, musicians who want an expressive sketchpad, and producers who want a motion-sensing MIDI controller.

CelloPad comes out on 2 December 2026. You can already pre-order it for free on the App Store, and it downloads to your iPhone or iPad automatically on launch day.

CelloPad runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 26 or later. It uses the device’s gyroscope to sense your bowing, so it needs a device with motion sensors (every current iPhone and iPad has them). It is not available for Mac.

Yes. The first time you open CelloPad, a short guided walk-through appears at the bottom of the screen. Each tip outlines the button it’s about in a bright gold border and waits for you to try it before moving on:

1. Hold a play button and tilt to play your first note (or slide your finger along it, with Bow with touch on).
2. Tap Change while you’re playing: the chord changes on your next note.
3. Tap Resolve to go back to the key’s home chord on your next note.
4. A last tip suggests headphones for spatial audio. It stays for 6 seconds, and the walk-through ends once you let go of the play buttons.

To see it again, open Options (the gear button), turn on Show guided walk-through again and close Options. The walk-through starts as soon as the settings close.

No. All the instrument sounds are built into the app, so you can play anywhere. You only need an internet connection to buy or restore CelloPad Pro. MIDI to a Mac doesn’t need the internet either: both devices just need to be on the same Wi-Fi network.

No. CelloPad has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking, and it doesn’t use the microphone. Your settings and everything you play stay on your device. Purchases are handled entirely by Apple. The details are in the privacy policy.

Hold down one of the three play buttons, then rotate your device back and forth along its long side, as if drawing a bow across the strings. Each time you reverse direction is a bow change, and each bow change plays the next note of the improvised melody.

While your finger stays on a button the notes sustain. Lift your finger and the music fades out.

Each button chooses a different arrangement. In landscape they run top to bottom:

You can slide your finger between buttons while playing to change the texture mid-phrase. When two cellists play, the second comes in a few milliseconds after the first, just as two real players never start in perfect unison.

Yes. Turn on Options → Interface → Bow with touch (off by default). Hold a play button and slide your finger back and forth along it, from the screen edge inwards and back: each change of direction is a bow change, and the faster you slide, the louder it plays. It works with VoiceOver too.

While Bow with touch is on, tilting doesn’t play, and Improvisation steering isn’t available, because your finger crosses the steering dots as it slides. If you tilt while holding a button still, CelloPad offers to turn motion bowing back on.

Speed controls volume, just like a real bow. Tilt slowly for quiet, gentle notes and quickly for loud, strong ones. You can swell or fade a note while it’s sounding by speeding up or slowing down the same stroke. A quick, energetic bow change also makes the note speak a little sooner, while a gentle one blooms more slowly.

The glowing orbs in the middle of the screen show how loudly each cellist is playing.

Many people find it calming. Playing CelloPad is slow, physical, and absorbing: you tilt gently, listen, and shape each note while CelloPad takes care of the music, so there’s nothing to get wrong. With headphones, the cellists play around you in a quiet hall.

For a calmer sound:

• Tilt slowly. Gentle movement gives soft, long notes.
• Choose Solo or Duo for a single line or a melody over a held note.
• Try a minor key in Options → Composition → Mode for a darker, more wistful mood, or stay in major for something brighter and settled.
• Use headphones with Spatial audio set to Chapel or Hall, for a large, resonant space.
• With CelloPad Pro: set Improvisation style to Safe for simpler melodies, lengthen Release so notes ring on, and add more Reverb.

You can also play lying down or sitting back: turn on Bow with touch in Options → Interface and slide your finger instead of tilting.

CelloPad is a musical instrument, not a medical or therapy app.

CelloPad improvises the music in phrases, with passing notes, recurring motifs and cadences (the notes a phrase comes to rest on), all fitting the current chord and key. You decide the rhythm, the dynamics and the texture; CelloPad chooses the pitches. Every performance is different.

Those are double stops, where a cellist bows two strings at once. CelloPad only uses double stops a real cellist’s hand could reach, and places them where a composer would: most often at the end of a phrase or on the first note of a new chord. The second note is rolled in slightly after the first, as the bow tips onto the next string. You can choose how often they happen with Bowing complexity.

Yes, though CelloPad works best in landscape, held parallel to the floor and tilted from side to side. In portrait the layout turns with the phone so the buttons stay under your thumbs; tilt it from top to bottom instead.

On iPhone, CelloPad turns to portrait and either landscape, but not upside down. On iPad it works in all four orientations. While you’re playing, the screen won’t rotate, so bowing never flips the layout mid-phrase. It’s free to rotate again a moment after you let go.

Pressing a button gives a light tap. A bow change that brings in a new chord gives a heavier, deeper thump, so you can feel the harmony change without looking at the screen.

Change (the large round button) asks for the next chord in the progression. The new chord doesn’t cut in straight away: it arrives on your next bow change, so the harmony always moves in time with your playing. The button stays lit and pressed in until the chord arrives.

Changed your mind? Tap Change again before your next bow and the request is cancelled.

Resolve takes the music home to the key’s main chord (the tonic), again on your next bow change. It’s the natural way to end a piece or close a section. Tap it again to cancel. If you tap Change while Resolve is waiting (or the other way round), the newer request replaces the older one.

Whenever it feels right; there are no wrong moments. If you’d like guidance, Coach mode PRO shows the name of the chord each button will bring in, outlines a button in soft gold when it’s a good time to press it, and can even change chords for you automatically.

Open Options → Composition and choose a Key (any of the 12) and a Mode (Major or Minor). The default is G major. Changing either starts the chord progression again from the new key’s home chord.

Chord colors choose how rich the harmony is:

• Basic: standard three-note triads. This is what the free version plays.
• Extended: adds 7th chords (such as V7 and ii7) for a stronger pull back home.
• Dynamic: adds 7ths plus borrowed (secondary) dominants, chords that lean briefly towards other chords for more colorful progressions.

Use Options → Performance → Bow-change threshold. It sets the minimum rotation speed that counts as a bow change. Lower values are more sensitive, so small, gentle movements play notes; higher values need a more deliberate tilt, which helps if notes are triggering by accident.

Vibrato adds a gentle pitch waver on top of the vibrato already in the recordings. Choose Minimum, Moderate (the default), Strong or Bold. As on a real cello, open strings always play without vibrato.

Release sets how long the notes ring on after you lift your finger, from off (an immediate stop) up to 1.5 seconds. The free version uses 400 ms.

It sets how adventurous the melodies and chord progressions are, in five steps from Safe (simple, predictable lines) through Cautious, Moderate and Bold to Adventurous (wider leaps and bolder choices). The free version plays at Cautious.

Steering lets you guide the melody up or down. With steering on, small dots appear on the play buttons: hold a button on the yellow dots (towards its outer edge) to lean the melody higher, or on the red dots to lean it lower. The centre of each button stays neutral. In Contra, the bass line leans the same way. Steering isn’t available while Bow with touch is on.

Choose the strength: Off, Slight, Medium or Strong.

It sets how often the cellists play double stops, from about 1 bow in 50 (Safe) to nearly 1 in 5 (Adventurous). The double stops still land in musically sensible places; this only changes how often. The free version plays at Cautious.

Go to Options → Sound → Output. It shows where sound is currently playing, and the button next to it opens Apple’s standard AirPlay and Bluetooth picker, the same one as in Contral Centre.

Tip: wireless headphones and speakers add a small delay. For the tightest feel between your movement and the sound, use the built-in speaker or wired headphones.

On headphones, spatial audio places the cellists around you in a virtual room: the bass cellist front-left and the melody cellist front-right, a few metres away (Solo plays in front of you). Choose the room under Options → Sound → Spatial audio:

• Studio: a smaller, drier room.
• Chapel: a large, resonant chamber.
• Hall: a concert hall (the default).

Choose Off (stereo) for plain stereo, even when spatial audio is turned on in iOS. On the built-in speaker, the cellists play in normal stereo.

Reverb sets how much of the room you hear, from 0% (completely dry) to 60%. The free version uses 20%.

Yes. Under Options → Sound you can choose the instrument for each part separately:

• Melody: Cello or Oboe
• Bass: Cello or Bassoon

The improvisation automatically adapts to each instrument’s comfortable range. Combine an oboe melody with a bassoon bass line for a woodwind duet, or mix them with cello.

It silences CelloPad’s own sound, so you can use it purely as a controller for other instruments over MIDI. While it’s on, the instrument menus read “No sound, MIDI only”.

The instrument samples are from the FluidR3_GM sound bank by Frank Wen, used under the MIT License.

Coach mode is a set of optional helpers for learning how harmony works and for playing more confidently. Turn it on under Options → Coaching, then choose which helpers you want:

• Show chord names: Change and Resolve show the chord playing now and the chord they’ll bring in (for example C ▸ Dm7).
• Timing hints: a soft gold border glows round a button when it’s a good moment to press it. Choose hints for Change, Resolve or both buttons. The Change hint appears once a chord has lasted a while; the Resolve hint appears when going home would fit the progression.
• Automated chord changes: chords move on by themselves every 2, 3, 4, 6 or 8 bow changes, so you can focus entirely on bowing. Choose Off to change chords yourself.

With Coach mode off, the screen stays clean and uncluttered.

Yes. In Options → Interface → Play buttons location, choose Left side or Right side (the default). The round control buttons move to the opposite side.

Yes. In Options → Interface, turn on Show button names (off by default) to add names to Contra, Duo, Solo, Change and Resolve. The icons always show, except at the largest accessibility text sizes, where they step aside so the names can grow; Options is always just its gear. Names appear automatically during the guided walk-through.

Yes. CelloPad follows your iPhone or iPad’s accessibility settings:

• VoiceOver: every button is named, Change and Resolve say which chord they’ll bring in, and the play buttons let a held finger through to play. With Bow with touch on, you can play by sliding your finger, with no need to tilt.
• Larger text: button names, chord names and tips grow with your text size. At the largest accessibility sizes the button icons step aside so the names can keep growing; with larger text on, a long press on Change, Resolve or Options also shows its name large.
• Reduce Motion: the orb, the Contra orbit and the hint borders hold still, and the buttons fade in rather than sliding.
• Increase Contrast and Reduce Transparency: the glass buttons darken to keep their text clear.

On larger screens the play buttons open out into a fan, with more room between them. The buttons stay the same comfortable size as on iPhone, sitting against the screen edges under your thumbs.

CelloPad follows your device’s language. It’s available in English (US, UK and Australian), French, German, Spanish (Spain and Latin America), Italian, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Arabic and Hebrew.

To use CelloPad in a different language from the rest of your device, go to Settings → Apps → CelloPad → Language in the iOS Settings app. Only languages you’ve added under General → Language & Region are listed there.

Chord names keep their letters (C, Am7, B♭) in every language; VoiceOver reads them in your language, such as “B bémol mineur septième” in French. In Arabic and Hebrew, Settings reads right to left, but the playing screen keeps its layout, like an instrument: use Play buttons location to choose the side.

Yes, with CelloPad Pro. In Options → Color themes, turn on one of three switches:

• Presets: Water, Flower, Wood, Stone or Moss. Wood is the original warm brown, and the default.
• Custom: any hue in the rainbow, with a slider.
• Animated: the colors slowly turn through every hue, once a minute. It isn’t available while Reduce Motion is on.

The background and the orb change together. Reset to default theme goes back to Wood. Without Pro, CelloPad uses Wood.

Go to Options → Settings options → Reset all options and confirm. This resets every setting to its default. It doesn’t affect your CelloPad Pro purchase.

MIDI connects CelloPad to other apps, software instruments and hardware. It works in two directions:

• Send: CelloPad’s notes and your bowing expression go out over MIDI, turning your iPhone or iPad into a motion-sensing expression controller for any synth, sampler or DAW.
• Receive: CelloPad follows chords you play into it from a keyboard or another app, and improvises over your harmony.

Turn it on with Options → MIDI → Enable MIDI send or receive, then choose the mode.

CelloPad creates a virtual MIDI port called “CelloPad”. In your other music app, choose “CelloPad” as the MIDI input (to play its instruments from CelloPad) or as the MIDI output (to send chords into CelloPad). Turn on MIDI only if you want to hear only the other app.

CelloPad supports MIDI over Wi-Fi (network MIDI). With your iPhone or iPad and Mac on the same network:

1. On the Mac, open Audio MIDI Setup (in Applications → Utilities).
2. Choose Window → Show MIDI Studio, then click the Network (globe) icon.
3. Create or enable a session under My Sessions.
4. Your iPhone or iPad appears under Directory. Select it and click Connect.
5. In your DAW, choose the network session as the MIDI input or output.

You can also connect over USB or a MIDI interface using Apple’s standard methods; CelloPad’s notes go out on the “CelloPad” port either way.

• Notes: the melody on the Melody channel (default 1) and the bass on the Bass channel (default 2). Set both to the same channel to send everything on one channel.
• Expression: your bowing speed is sent continuously as Expression, CC 11 (0–127), on both channels. Notes start at a fixed velocity and the expression shapes the volume, just as with the built-in sound. Make sure your instrument responds to CC 11.

Use Expression range to set how quiet the slowest bowing and how loud the fastest bowing can be, for example to keep a synth from ever going fully silent.

In Receive mode, play two notes together: the root plus the 3rd (a major or minor chord), or the root plus the 7th (a minor seventh chord). The lowest note is taken as the root. CelloPad switches to your chord and the cellists improvise over it.

Chords you play in take over from CelloPad’s own progression. Tap Change to go back to improvised chords.

The free version is a complete instrument: all three play buttons, Change and Resolve, any key in major or minor, vibrato, bow sensitivity, spatial audio, AirPlay and Bluetooth output, and left- or right-handed layouts.

CelloPad Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks:

Pro settings are marked with a PRO badge in Options. You can see them all before you buy; tapping one opens the upgrade screen.

No. You pay once and keep it for good. There are no subscriptions and no recurring charges.

Open Options and tap Restore Purchases while signed in with the same Apple Account you bought it with. Pro unlocks on that device straight away.

Yes. CelloPad Pro supports Family Sharing, so members of your Family Sharing group can unlock it on their own devices with Restore Purchases.

No. Your Pro settings are saved. If Pro isn’t active on a device (for example before you restore your purchase), CelloPad plays at the free values, and your own settings come back as soon as Pro is unlocked.

Purchases are handled by Apple. You can request a refund at reportaproblem.apple.com.

• Volume: if your device volume is all the way down when you press a play button, CelloPad shows a volume slider at the bottom of the screen. Turn it up there or with the volume buttons.
• Bowing: holding a button isn’t enough on its own. Tilt the device back and forth to start the notes.
• MIDI only: check that Options → Sound → MIDI only is off.
• Output: check Options → Sound → Output in case sound is going to a Bluetooth or AirPlay device you didn’t expect.

Adjust Options → Performance → Bow-change threshold. Raise it if small hand movements trigger notes; lower it if you have to tilt hard to get a note. Holding the device in both hands, with your thumb resting on the play button, gives the steadiest control.

Bluetooth headphones and speakers add delay. Switch to the built-in speaker or wired headphones for the most immediate response.

Chord changes wait for your next bow change, so keep bowing and the new chord arrives on the next note. If you tapped Change twice, the second tap cancelled the request. A lit, pressed-in button means a chord is waiting.

• Check that Enable MIDI send or receive is on, with the mode set to Send.
• In the other app, choose “CelloPad” (or your network session) as the input.
• Make sure the other app is listening on the Melody and Bass channels you’ve chosen (1 and 2 by default), or set both to the same channel.
• If notes start but stay silent or don’t swell, set your instrument to respond to Expression (CC 11).
• For Wi-Fi MIDI, check both devices are on the same network and the session is connected in Audio MIDI Setup.

Open Options and tap Restore Purchases, making sure you’re signed in with the Apple Account you used to buy it and are connected to the internet. When Pro is active, the top of Options reads “CelloPad Pro unlocked! Thank you.”

At the bottom of Options, under About. Please include it if you contact support.