Alex Matheu Glitchstep is a new creative AUv3 MIDI sequencer for macOS and iOS with a powerful glitch and slice engine.
If you’re into glitches and crazy ways to mangle/mess up your tracks and sounds on iOS, you couldn’t ignore the name Alex Matheu. As an iOS musician from the early beginnings, I can easily remember its great first apps like GlitchBreaks or Sliver, a soundscape generator I often used around 2014.
Then, Alex remained quiet for a long time until he released GlitchCore in 2019, a fun glitch processor for iOS AUv3. Now, he is back with an evolution of GlitchCore named GlitchStep. It’s a powerful MIDI sequencer with built-in glitch and slicing madness.
Alex Matheu GlitchStep
GlitchStep is a new monophonic 16-step, performance-oriented sequencer for macOS and iOS. Like Alex Matheu’s other apps, this release is not super classic.
The app’s core is a monophonic sequencer with 16 steps and all the tweaks you know from current sequencers. This includes customizable start and end sequence positions, playback direction, sequence rate, swing, pattern management, randomization, shift, shuffle, and more.
Of course, you can also work with selective randomization for notes, gates, velocity, and probability. This is already a big set of tools for building advanced MIDI sequencers. But hidden beneath the actual MIDI sequencer framework is something even more exciting.
As the app’s name suggests, Alex Matheu has built into GlitchStep, a sophisticated glitch processor with which you can mix up your sequences in very wild ways.
Inspired by GlitchCore, GlitchStep employs a slice grid for real-time sequence rearrangement to bring glitch in your sequences. In this, you can slice up your sequences in up to 16 steps and fire up to eight slice patterns.
Depending on how you adjust the slice sequencer, you can bring more subtle or more aggressive glitch results into your MIDI sequence. Both patterns and slices can be compiled into playlists. This allows you to build and modify songs on the fly for live performances or studio sessions.
Further, Alex Matheu GlitchStep also hosts an X/Y pad and sliders, allowing you to slice and add glitches to your sequences in real-time. The app is an AUv3 MIDI processor/MIDI FX and runs in AUM, Logic Pro, Loop Pro, and many more.
Attention: Ableton Live supports AUv3 plugins on macOS since version 11.2, but it does not yet offer an option to load MIDI plugins.
First Impression
I’m happy that Alex Matheu is back with a new glitch app. I enjoyed his previous GlitchCore. The new Glitch Step looks much more advanced and powerful. I’m looking forward to checking it out.
Alex Matheu GlitchStep is available now for a limited time at an introductory price of $7,99. It runs as an AUv3 plugin on iOS and macOS 14.4+ (native Apple Silicon only).
More information here: AppStore
Many thanks for the great tip, Tom.
I’m a bit sad that it doesn’t work with my not-so-old IOs devices. I hope there won’t be a new generation of apps that will make the older devices unusable. This app only works with IOS version 17. Maybe the developer can make it usable for older devices – is there a contact?
try here: https://matheusound.net/ in the about section 🙂
Great – Thanks!