frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Show HN: Talisman – A Android instrument played with two thumbs

https://talisman.by-igor.com/
4•ycosynot•1h ago

Comments

ycosynot•1h ago
Hi HN,

I’m Pierre, the creator of Talisman Music. It should launch in one or 2 weeks, and frankly I'm just trying to spread the message. Basically, I asked Claude Opus 4.7 to design a better instrument than the guitar, and fitting on a smartphone's display. (No login, no subscription, no ads, no bs.)

What came about is Talisman, from our collaboration. I believe Talisman is pushing the envelope on virtual instruments, for both casuals & power users. Just look at the videos on the landing page.

I wanted something that had zero learning curve, no staves, and no chords to memorize, but still allowed for deep, expressive play. The devil is in the details. It’s a digital instrument played entirely with your two thumbs (ninjas can use 3 fingers all at once to marvelous effect) on an Android device (works great on tablet!). There is vibrato, bends, portamento, plucking, ...

The screen acts as a living surface—you drag your thumbs, and the app intelligently quantizes the input to specific scales so that "wrong" notes technically don't exist. You can only play yourself on key. I know there is power in making mistakes and offbeats, but bear with me that this is a new way to make music serenely, where it is all about improvising vibes around the root notes. Let's call it vibe playing (tho there are zero AI requests at all and it works offline).

There are different sound engines or "Souls" (e.g., a Japanese koto in a temple, a crystalline synth pad, etc.), which completely alter the visual and haptic feedback. You can see 3 of them in the landing page. There are 13 universes to explore by default, plus custom metronome beats for each style, and custom generation of shareable soul presets. You can also share a video of your performance with one button press, straight to your local folder or whatever social network you desire.

A few strict rules I followed:

  * No "App" Bloat: It works 100% offline once installed. No credit card. No login. No ads. No bullshit. I'll monetize with updates later "if it works". The base version will always be free.
  * Privacy first: There are no accounts, no telemetry, and no third-party SDKs. Local storage only.
  * Zero UI: There are no buttons or settings on the play screen. The graphic is the instrument.
This is launching on Google Play in May 2026. You can subscribe your email on the site to get an alert.

Please, if you are a musician, don't get angry at me for trying to vulgarize the process.

Hopefully any feedback, bubbling discussions, or whatever is welcome! IF anyone knows how to improve the concept, let me know!!!

https://talisman.by-igor.com

How I leared what a decoupling capacitor is for, the hard way

https://nbelakovski.substack.com/p/how-i-learned-what-a-decoupling-capacitor
1•actinium226•55s ago•0 comments

Got Bugs? U of G Collecting Samples to Catalogue Canada's Biodiversity

https://news.uoguelph.ca/2026/04/got-bugs-u-of-g-collecting-samples-to-catalogue-canadas-biodiver...
2•gnabgib•3m ago•0 comments

The Self-Defeating Condescension of an Anti-Racist Education

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/anti-racism-schools-achievement-gap/686912/
1•apparent•6m ago•0 comments

Bitwarden CLI Backdoored on NPM for 93 Minutes

https://hackingpassion.com/bitwarden-cli-supply-chain-attack/
2•milkglass•8m ago•1 comments

Hair Dryer Used to Manipulate Polymarket

https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/someone-allegedly-used-a-hairdryer-to-rig-polymarket-weather-be...
2•simpleintheory•8m ago•1 comments

The Eurail Breach and the Digital ID Problem

https://reclaimthenet.org/the-eurail-breach-and-the-digital-id-problem
2•Cider9986•8m ago•0 comments

Astronomy and Mathematics in the Indian Classical Age

https://zenodo.org/records/15715590
1•suyashdeep•9m ago•1 comments

opinion: Professors Are Too Old

https://www.chronicle.com/article/professors-are-too-old
1•paulpauper•10m ago•0 comments

How Short-Form Clips Took over the Internet

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/04/how-short-form-clips-took-over-the-internet/686922/
1•paulpauper•10m ago•0 comments

Hedd Wyn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedd_Wyn
1•thedrexster•11m ago•0 comments

Action Potentials for April

https://neurobiology.substack.com/p/action-potentials-for-april-ab6
1•paulpauper•11m ago•0 comments

Steve Reich reshaped the boundaries of musical time (2025)

https://kolapse.com/en/contenido/90817-how-steve-reich-reshaped-the-boundaries-of-musical-time
1•thomassmith65•15m ago•1 comments

Yam – Local AST-based plagiarism detector (MOSS alternative)

https://gitlab.com/sylvan.wood.carving-group/yam.git
1•jmresler•17m ago•0 comments

Single-binary dotfiles manager to replace dotbot

https://github.com/fisenkodv/dfm
1•fisenkodv•19m ago•0 comments

Europe–not US–first to authorize Moderna's combo mRNA flu-Covid vaccine

https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/04/europe-not-us-first-to-authorize-modernas-combo-mrna-flu-c...
3•Brajeshwar•20m ago•0 comments

Protovac Retro Terminal (2025)

https://tanner.vc/protovac-retro-terminal/
3•wonger_•27m ago•0 comments

Text-wrap:balance; CSS rule to avoid typographic orphans

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Properties/text-wrap
2•hypertexthero•27m ago•0 comments

USB Cheat Sheet

https://fabiensanglard.net/usbcheat/index.html
3•gwerbret•37m ago•0 comments

Two Compilers, One Moment

https://intertwingly.net/blog/2026/04/25/Two-Compilers-One-Moment.html
2•ingve•40m ago•0 comments

Kevin Graaf: Computerising Hyerogliphic Scripts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhx-hRyh6BM
1•aeontech•42m ago•0 comments

The 3D Controller That Should Have Existed 20 Years Ago [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1v7TXViRi8
1•smusamashah•44m ago•0 comments

The avionics suite designed to let anyone fly a plane

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/interview-airhart-aeronautics-cockpit-avionics-suite/
1•breve•45m ago•0 comments

MCP Spine – Middleware proxy for LLM tool calls with security and token control

https://github.com/Donnyb369/mcp-spine
1•Mxwell369•49m ago•0 comments

Show HN: LawVM, a compiler for replaying amendment acts into point-in-time law

https://lawvm.org/
1•ekns•50m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How did the industry settle on weekly limits?

3•saratogacx•54m ago•1 comments

Beyond Phishing: The Control-Plane Risk of Recursive Trust

https://zenodo.org/records/19432540
1•rogelsjcorral•56m ago•0 comments

Sustaining innovation has failed us. It's time to think more radically

https://werd.io/sustaining-innovation-has-failed-us-its-time-to-think-more-radically/
1•benwerd•57m ago•0 comments

One Developer, Two Dozen Agents, Zero Alignment

https://maggieappleton.com/zero-alignment
1•herbertl•1h ago•1 comments

I Traded My Time for Security Without Realizing It. Here's What That Costs You

https://comuniq.xyz/post?t=992
1•01-_-•1h ago•1 comments

You can parse an .env file as an .ini with PHP – but there's a catch

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/04/you-can-parse-an-env-file-as-an-ini-with-php-but-theres-a-catch/
3•Brajeshwar•1h ago•0 comments