Guide
So you want that strumplate sound on your iPhone
You've heard it on a record, or seen someone sweep their thumb across a rainbow of strings in a video, and now you want one. Here's the honest situation in 2026 — what the original instruments did, why they cost what they cost, and what your actual options are.
What the instrument actually was
In the early 1980s, Japanese manufacturers took the old parlour autoharp — a boxed zither with chord bars — and made it electronic. You pressed a chord button with one hand and swept a flat, touch-sensitive plate with the other. The plate had no strings on it at all; it triggered notes from a synthesiser, and crucially it only ever triggered notes belonging to the chord you were holding.
That one design decision is why these machines mattered. You could not play a wrong note. Someone who had never touched an instrument could produce a shimmering, perfectly-tuned chord within four seconds of picking it up. For songwriters, that removed the gap between having an idea and hearing it — which is the gap most ideas die in.
The sound is unmistakable: bright, glassy, slightly synthetic, with a long chiming tail. It turned up on a lot of records through the '80s, '90s and again in the 2000s when a new generation found them in second-hand shops.
Why buying the hardware is hard now
- Price. Working vintage units routinely change hands for several hundred pounds, and the more sought-after models go higher. Current-production models are new-instrument money.
- Condition. These are forty-year-old consumer electronics. Touch plates go insensitive, foam perishes, membrane buttons die, and the power supplies are a known weak point.
- Size. It's a lap instrument in a hard case. It doesn't come to the pub, and it certainly doesn't come on the bus with headphones.
- Availability. You wait for one to appear, then you bid against everyone else who's been waiting.
None of that means don't buy one. If you love objects, an original is a joy and holds its value. But if what you want is the playing experience, a phone is a surprisingly good answer — because the thing being reproduced was always an interface idea plus a synthesiser, and a modern phone does both.
What to look for in an app
There are a handful of apps in this space and they vary enormously. These are the things that actually determine whether you'll still be playing it in a month:
| Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Synthesis, not samples | Samples loop and flatten. A real engine responds to how hard and fast you sweep, which is most of the expressiveness. |
| Velocity from finger speed | Without it, every strum sounds identical and the instrument dies after ten minutes. |
| Haptics per string | Glass gives you no feedback. A tick per string is what makes it feel like an instrument rather than a screen. |
| Enough chords | Majors, minors and sevenths is the floor. Sus4, add9, diminished and augmented are what let you play actual songs. |
| Background audio | So you can jam over a track playing in another app. |
| MIDI out | Turns it from a toy into a chord controller for GarageBand, Logic, AUM or hardware. |
| One price | Subscriptions and "pro voice packs" on a £5 instrument are a bad sign about everything else. |
Where PocketStrum fits
PocketStrum is our answer to exactly this brief, and yes — we made it, so read this with that in mind. It's an independent tribute to the class of instrument described above, written from scratch. It isn't a reissue, an emulation of any particular product, or affiliated with or endorsed by any hardware manufacturer.
What's in it:
- A 12-string touch strumplate with true multitouch, velocity from finger speed, and a haptic tick on every string
- 108 chords from a 3 × 12 panel in circle-of-fifths order, plus Sus4 and Add9 keys
- Six voices from a real-time polyphonic synth engine — anti-aliased oscillators, shimmering delay, hall reverb, vibrato
- A sustained chord-organ layer on its own fader, for the held-pad-plus-sparkle sound
- Five rhythms with drums and an auto-bass that follows your chord changes, 60–180 BPM
- MIDI out as a virtual source, so it plays GarageBand, Logic, AUM or hardware
- Tape mode, a left-handed option, recording, and Classic or Modern skins
£4.99, once. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads, no account, and the App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected.
Try it before you spend anything
There's a working strumplate on the front page of this site. Six chords, four voices, no download and no email address. If sweeping it doesn't make you smile, don't buy the app.
Go and play itA few honest caveats
- Glass is glass. Haptics get you a long way, but a phone will never feel like a physical plate under your thumb. If tactile feedback is the whole point for you, buy hardware.
- It's an iPhone app. It runs on iPad and Apple Silicon Macs at phone size, but it's laid out for two thumbs on a phone.
- It's a tribute, not a clone. If you want the exact voice of one specific 1981 unit, no app will give you that, including this one.
If it's for a child
Under about seven, the full chord panel is more than they need and the pleasure gets lost in the complexity. Wonderchord is the same idea rebuilt for ages 2–6 — six colour pads instead of thirty-six keys, rainbow strings, nine familiar songs, and a lesson mode that waits as long as they need.
Published 7 August 2026 · Written by Connor Clements