David Lesage

Handpan Constellation Studio · for the Neotone¹ and the Neotone Mutant

Your Neotone can play anything. Now you can see it.

But when you can play anything, you’ve nothing to steer by: change scale and the notes move. The app puts seven colours on your Neotone, and those never move.

See all your Neotone can do

€9.99 a month, first month free. We take your card details when you sign up, and you’re not charged if you cancel before the month is up.

Or connect your Neotone with a free account

On a computer or tablet, in your browser. Also works with any MIDI instrument.

A hand plays a wooden Neotone; on the computer in front of it, Handpan Constellation Studio shows the instrument and the note being played.

How many scales do you really play?

When the notes move, don’t you get lost?

I did. On a Neotone, you change scale and the path is gone: your hand hunts around, your head spins. That’s cognitive overload. So you go back to the scales you know, and an instrument that could play anything ends up playing only a small part of what it can.

“The notes under your fingers are never the same twice.”
In the app, a Neotone Mutant in Logic mode: the hands play the chord, with the seven degrees in colour below.
The chord being played: the hands show the movement.
Without the appthe scales you already know
With the appthe whole instrument, made readable
See your Neotone in colour

First month free. Connecting your Neotone stays free.

Here’s what I suggest

Logic mode

A way of playing that works for major and minor scales.

Change key and there’s nothing to relearn.

Like a capo on a guitar: whichever key you choose, your positions stay the same.

You choose your key on the wheel, and Logic mode places it on your Neotone, major or minor. Your chords stay under the same fingers.

The wheel of twelve keys in the app, with D at the centre.
The key wheel.

Change key. The colours stay where they are.

A chord keeps its shape and its colour: you recognise it at a glance, and your hand finds it again.

  • An anchor note, so you never lose your way home
  • Shades of sadness: deep, Eastern, jazzy
  • The +7, +9, +11 extensions laid out on the instrument
Logic mode on a Neotone Mutant: the row of seven degrees, each in its own colour, Balance, Momentum, Adventure, Relaxation, Tension, Nostalgia, Mystery.
Balance, Momentum, Adventure, Relaxation, Tension, Nostalgia, Mystery.
Try Logic mode

First month free. Connecting your Neotone stays free.

Remembering chords

The different types of constellation.

Each chord is drawn as a constellation: you see the shape, then the path, then the hands.

Chord V Tension (A minor) as a closed constellation on a Neotone
ClosedThe shape of the chord, at a glance.
The same chord as an open constellation, Neotone
OpenThe path of the notes, so you can see the movement.
The same chord, showing the path of the hands, Neotone
HandsWhich hand, which note: you read your own playing.

The app and your Neotone

Neotone Connection

Your Neotone and the app, synced in real time.

You prepare your scales in the app and they go to your Neotone. And you can always see what’s loaded.

The Status tab: the handpan shown, the last known scale, Wi-Fi, USB and concert pitch.A scale dragged onto the drawing of the handpan replaces memory 17.The Scales tab: the app on the left, the instrument on the right, the two-way Sync button.Two identical scales side by side, with the choice of which to keep and what to call it.The Recordings tab: the folders, the list of takes, listen, download, organise.

The scale loaded on your Neotone, its concert pitch, the connection: you know where you stand before you play.

Visual Quick Load: grab a scale and drop it on a zone of your handpan. Click, drop. Set up one Quick Load for the gig and one for the lesson, and switch between them in one move.

Your scales in the app and on your Neotone account, synced both ways. What’s missing on one side goes across from the other.

Same notes, same octaves, same concert pitch: the app finds the copies. You choose which one to keep, and the others merge into it.

What your Neotone has recorded: listen, download, sort into folders. And play a MIDI file on your Neotone.

Discover scales

The Sound Atlas

Stop searching for scales. Travel.

Pick a region of the world, listen to a scale’s demo, and play it in your key.

Discovering them is free. With Neotone Connection, in Studio, every scale you come across goes to your Neotone.

The Sound Atlas, Africa region: choice of key and scale, Pygmy, Low Pygmy, Ashakiran, Saladin, Integral, Equinox, and the Music demo button.
Africa: the key, the scale, the demo.
The Sound Atlas, Islands region: Sabye, Jibuk, Lydian, Mixolydian, Paradise, Voyager.
The islands: Sabye, Jibuk, Paradise…
The Sound Atlas in Planetarium theme: the world’s scales drawn as constellations, Serene Spring, Open Sea, Bright Escape, Chiaroscuro, Desert Roads, Mistlands.
The same atlas, as a planetarium.

Several Neotones

All your Neotones in one account.

Each with its own scales. And two instruments together play chords neither can play alone.

Two Neotones

In the same positions, a semitone or a third apart. Your duo memories, saved.

Your acoustic and your Neotone

The app writes the scale your acoustic is missing to the Neotone, which becomes its joker.

Several handpans around you

The app works out the placement, the fingering and the arpeggios.

Portrait of David Lesage.

Why this app

Designed by a Neotone player.

David Lesage was a beta tester for the Neotone, then its ambassador. He hit the same wall as you: notes that move with every scale. The app grew out of the drawings he made to find his way around.

Designed for the Neotone¹ and the Neotone Mutant, and works with any MIDI instrument.

Testimonial

“When I adapt a melody for the Neotone, I often wonder how to accompany it with the notes I have in that scale. What I like most about Handpan Constellation Studio is that I can see at a glance which chords I can play, which notes make up each chord, and which notes I’m missing if I want to try a different harmony. Sometimes I discover that the scale I’m already using gives me more room to explore than I thought. What I value most is being able to try those ideas directly on the instrument while I’m working on a piece.”

Ismael Barredo García, Neotone ambassador, musician and audiovisual artist

Free, then Studio

Getting started is free. Studio opens up your whole Neotone.

Free

€0 forever, no card needed

  • Connect your Neotone by USB or MIDI, and see on screen every note you play
  • Learn your scales, with exercises marked as you play
  • The chord chart, the pieces you import, sound recorded on a real Neotone
  • The Sound Atlas: the world’s scales, their demos, and you play them straight away
  • The app’s free features: chords, songs, voice, practice
Connect your Neotone for free

Studio

€9.99 a month, first month free

Everything in Free, plus:

Logic mode

  • Change key on the wheel and your chords stay under the same fingers
  • Every chord keeps its shape and its colour, in major and minor alike

Neotone Connection

  • The loaded scale, its concert pitch, the connection: you know where you stand before you play
  • Visual Quick Load: you grab a scale and drop it on your handpan
  • Your scales synced both ways, duplicates found
  • What your Neotone has recorded: listen, download, sort into folders

Your playing, your instruments

  • Your recorded playing, saved as MIDI
  • All your Neotones in one account, and the duos
  • Your acoustic and your Neotone together: the app writes the missing scale
See all your Neotone can do

We take your card details when you sign up, and you’re not charged if you cancel before the free month ends.

Questions

What people ask me.

Which Neotones?

The Neotone¹ and the Neotone Mutant. And any MIDI instrument.

Do I need Studio to connect my Neotone?

No. Connecting it by USB or MIDI is free, with your playing shown in real time and the exercises for learning your scales. Studio opens up Neotone Connection, Logic mode and the duos.

Which devices?

On a computer or tablet, in your browser. On a phone, the screen is too small to see your handpan and its chords properly. On iPhone and iPad, Apple stops browsers from receiving an instrument plugged in by USB: to connect a digital handpan, open the app in Web MIDI Browser, free on the App Store.

I also have an acoustic handpan.

The app sees them together: that’s the hybrid duo, in Studio. And your acoustic gets everything that’s free in the app.

What if I cancel?

We take your card details when you sign up, but you’re not charged before the free month ends. After that, you can cancel whenever you like, with effect from the following month.

I’ve never studied music theory.

You start with the colours and the emotions. The theory comes when you ask for it.

Your Neotone can play anything.
Time to see it.

See all your Neotone can do

€9.99 a month, first month free. Connecting your Neotone stays free.