Contour ManualContour page
ChaptersAs an AUv3

05 / In a host

As an AUv3

The same instrument, inside your music: from exploration to production.

Verified for version 1.0.4 · Updated October 15, 2026

Contour installs as an AUv3 instrument and works in hosts including Logic Pro for iPad, GarageBand, AUM, Cubasis, and Drambo. Play it from MIDI or with a finger on the plug-in's own map, recall sheets with your session, and automate map position as two continuous parameters.

  • MIDI input
  • Touch to play
  • 4 MIDI voices
  • Position automation
  • Session recall
  • Built-in reverb

Loading it

Installing Contour also installs an AUv3 instrument plug-in. It appears in any host that loads Audio Units — GarageBand, Logic Pro, AUM, Cubasis, Drambo, and others — under nono.audio: Contour.

  • Load it as an instrument, not an effect.
  • Pro is bought and restored in the app, not in the plug-in. The plug-in reads the unlock the app keeps. If Pro sheets show as locked in a host, open the app once so it can check with the App Store, then reload the plug-in.

Automation and recall

  • Position on the board is exposed as two automatable parameters, Map X and Map Y, so a gesture can be recorded and replayed by the host.
  • The sheet, reverb and envelope are parameters too, so a saved project recalls the instrument exactly as you left it.
  • The host's preset menu is the sheet list. Logic's Library, AUM's presets.
  • Holding the map tells the host you are holding it, so its own automation yields to your finger instead of fighting it.

Parameter names in your host

  • Map X
  • Map Y
  • Sheet
  • Space
  • Size
  • Attack
  • Decay
  • Sustain
  • Release

What stays in the app

  • The plug-in does not own the transport — recording is the host's job there, which is why the REC control is absent.
  • Composing and baking a sheet stays in the app. In the plug-in, SHEET is the list of sheets you already have. Baking reads four decoders and solves a layout for every pitch they share — about a second of arithmetic, which is a second of waiting in the app and a second of competing with the host for the audio thread inside a plug-in. That is why it is the app's job.
  • A sheet you bake in the app appears in the plug-in while the host is still running — no reload.
  • The intro, Settings and the Pro purchase are only in the app.

Version notes

What the plug-in does has changed between versions. If yours behaves like the "before" below, update Contour.

  • From 1.0.2: the plug-in's own map plays under your finger, the same as in the app. Before that it moved the position but sounded nothing unless a MIDI note was already held.
  • From 1.0.3: the marker on the plug-in's map follows Map X and Map Y under automation. Before that the sound moved and the marker stayed where the note started. Holding the map also tells the host you are holding it, so its own automation yields to your finger instead of fighting it.
  • From 1.0.3: a sheet you bake in the app appears in the plug-in while the host is still running — no reload. Before that the plug-in read the list once, when the host loaded it.
  • From 1.0.3: the host's preset menu is the sheet list. Logic's Library, AUM's presets — they were empty before.
  • From 1.0.4: exports and bounces are clean, and keep the release and the reverb tail. The full list is in What's new.

Related

Still stuck? Write to zhi@nonoaudio.com. Support page