Reed Laser Harp is a musical instrument you play with your hands. This guide walks through setup, playing techniques, and fixes for common issues.

Getting Started

When you open the app, you’ll see a small window with a few settings and an Enter button. Choose your sound, key, and octave, then tap the button to step into the immersive space where the harp appears.

Eight glowing, rainbow-colored strings fan upward from a softly glowing puck on the floor. A hint card floats nearby to get you started — it fades away automatically as soon as you play your first note.

Two ways to play

• Strum with your hands — reach out and run your fingertips through the strings. This uses hand tracking and works on Apple Vision Pro.
• Pinch or tap — look at a string and pinch, or tap it directly, to pluck a single note. This always works, even when hand tracking isn’t available.

Playing the Harp

What you want to do	How to do it
Pluck a single note	Pinch or tap a glowing string
Strum	Move your fingertips through the strings
Play louder	Move your hand faster — the harp is velocity-sensitive
Play softer	Brush the strings gently and slowly
Sustain a note	Rest a fingertip inside a string; it rings until you pull away
Move the whole harp	Pinch-and-drag the glowing puck on the floor
Change the sound, key, or octave	Return to the app window and use the pickers

Tip: All ten fingertips on both hands are tracked, so you can strum with your whole hand the way you would on a real harp.

Settings

Sound

Choose between two voices:

• Harp — a warm, classic plucked tone.
• Laser — a sci-fi voice with a descending pitch “zap” and gentle vibrato when sustained.

Changing the sound affects new notes. Notes you’re already holding keep their original tone until you release them.

Key

Pick from C, G, D, or F Major, or A or E Minor. Every string is tuned to that key, so anything you play sounds musical.

Octave

Shift the entire harp up or down by up to two octaves for higher or lower pitches.

Troubleshooting

The strings won’t respond to my hand / I have to pinch to play

Hand tracking needs a few things to work:

• You must be on Apple Vision Pro. Hand tracking isn’t available in the visionOS Simulator, so the app automatically falls back to pinch/tap there.
• Grant hand tracking permission. If you declined the permission prompt, open Settings → Privacy & Security → Hand Tracking (or find Reed Laser Harp in Settings) and enable it, then relaunch the app.
• Keep your hands in view. Vision Pro tracks your hands through its cameras. If your hands are behind your back, below the field of view, or in a very dark room, tracking pauses. Bring your hands up in front of you in good lighting.
• Reach far enough. A note only triggers when your fingertip passes close to a string. Aim to move your fingers through the beams, not just near them.

Pinch and tap always work as a reliable fallback while you sort this out.

I don’t hear any sound

• Check the volume using the Digital Crown or Control Center.
• Silent Mode / Focus can suppress audio — make sure a Focus mode isn’t muting the app.
• Make sure a note is actually triggering. The strings pulse and glow when struck; if you see the glow but hear nothing, it’s an audio-output issue, not a playing issue.
• Restart the app. Fully quit Reed Laser Harp and reopen it to restart the audio engine.
• Restart your device if audio still doesn’t come through after relaunching.

The sound seems to come from the wrong place

The harp uses spatial audio, so each note plays from the position of the string you touched. If you’ve dragged the harp to a new spot, the sound follows it there. This is expected — turn your head and you’ll hear the notes shift naturally in space.

Notes cut off or drop out during fast strumming

The harp plays up to eight notes at once. During very fast or dense strumming, the oldest ringing notes make way for new ones so the sound stays clean and doesn’t distort. This is normal behavior.

A note fires twice, or feels “jittery,” when I strum quickly

There’s a brief built-in cooldown on each string to prevent accidental double-triggers when a fingertip wavers across the edge of a beam. If you still notice doubles, try strumming with a slightly smoother, more deliberate motion.

The harp is too far away, too close, or floating oddly

Pinch-and-drag the glowing puck on the floor to reposition the entire instrument. Move it closer, farther, or off to the side — wherever it’s comfortable to reach and play.

The hint card won’t go away

The onboarding hint disappears on its own the moment you successfully play your first note. If it’s still showing, you haven’t triggered a note yet — pinch or tap any string to dismiss it.

The immersive view won’t open, or the app seems stuck

• Tap the Enter button in the app window to open the immersive space.
• If nothing happens or the scene looks wrong, close the immersive space and reopen it, or fully quit and relaunch the app.
• Make sure your visionOS software is up to date (Settings → General → Software Update).

Privacy

Reed Laser Harp uses hand tracking only to detect where your fingertips are in real time so it can play notes. This information is used the instant you move and is never recorded, stored, or sent anywhere. The app requires no account, no sign-in, and no internet connection, and it collects no personal data.

Still need help?

If something isn’t working after trying the steps above, contact us at info@mickeydesigns.com. To help us assist you quickly, please include:

• Your Apple Vision Pro’s visionOS version (Settings → General → About)
• The app version
• A short description of what you did and what happened