Bela Gliss 1U Open-Source Touch Controller

Gliss 1U is a 24 HP Eurorack module using a recordable touch sensor to introduce gestural control into modular systems in the Intellijel 1U format.

Gliss simultaneously produces two high-resolution signals that are various combinations of your finger’s position and touch size. These signals are available via two CV outputs, offering two distinct but related dimensions of control to route around your system.

As well as controlling signals by touch in real time, gestures can also be recorded for up to 150 seconds and then played back looped, triggered, clocked, and more, facilitating everything from touch-controlled, long-form modulation signals, to custom LFOs, envelopes and oscillators. Gliss also has a mode for processing incoming audio and CV signals where you can scale, offset, clip and smooth it, expanding CV utility work into an interactive, performative domain, as well as a mode that offers 5 tunable notes that are playable as a keyboard or a step sequencer. Gliss is an incredibly useful tool that allows musicians to experiment, explore, and create exactly the modulation they’ve imagined for a certain parameter in real time, rather than delicately fine-tuning a patch of different modulation sources.

Despite its compact size, Gliss is also a powerful visualisation tool that diffuses LEDs through its faceplate to provide clear feedback of both internal and external signals. These both illuminate and track your gestures but also give clarity to external modulation sources.

Gliss packs all this functionality into a concise menu system that is intuitive and navigable, and is exhaustively documented by the PDF user manual as well as video tutorials. Gliss is also open source, allowing users to hack, remix and extend the module.