Four-Channel Polyphonic Touch Recorder

Bela has announced that they are now taking orders for Trails, their new Eurorack module that turns touch into fully polyphonic musical structures.

A spokesperson told us, "You may have seen Trails at Bristronica or Superbooth. At its core, it's a four-channel polyphonic touch recorder that captures finger movement in order to generate melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and control data. Recorded gestures can be stretched or compressed in time, looped, phased, quantised, or left fluid and continuous, then stored and recalled across 16 scenes.

With both CV and MIDI outputs, Trails can sit at the heart of a Eurorack system while also driving hardware and software instruments. Building on the foundation of Gliss, Trails expands recordable touch into something more ambitious: a genuinely compositional system where performance and structure emerge from the same surface."

Here's the official press release...

Trails is a polyphonic touch recorder that puts the control of music under your
fingertips. It allows melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and control elements to be
composed simultaneously through gesture and shape. These gestures can be
transformed in space and time, intuitively generating contrapuntal and
polyrhythmic relationships across four channels.

Trails outputs both control voltage and MIDI, enabling it to control a wide range
of Eurorack modules as well as hardware and software instruments. Gestures
can be stored across 16 scenes for recall and live performance, and used either
as smooth, continuous signals or quantised to produce melodic and
tempo-synced material.

Polyphonic Touch
Building on the success of its predecessor Gliss (https://bela.io/products/gliss/),
Trails expands the idea of recordable touch control into a fully polyphonic
system. Where Gliss demonstrated the expressive potential of touch-based
recording, Trails extends this approach into a broader compositional space,
offering a new way of thinking about gesture, structure and control.

At its core, Trails features four channels, each providing X and Y position
outputs that follow finger movement across the touch surface, alongside a gate
output for timing and rhythm. Gestures can be recorded individually or across
multiple channels, allowing anything from single-parameter modulation to
complex, multi-voice relationships. Recorded gestures may be freely switched
between continuous curves and stepped, quantised signals, turning drawn
movements into melodies and rhythms using built-in scales or custom tuning.

Compose with Shapes
Trails' transformation tools allow gestures to be rotated, pinched or spatially
offset while preserving their original character. These transformations can
themselves be recorded and applied non-destructively, making them suitable
for subtle variation as well as performative intervention. Transformations can
also be applied selectively per channel, enabling complex internal relationships
to emerge.

Temporal manipulation plays an equally central role. Gestures can be scrubbed,
looped and nudged along a timeline, opening up possibilities for rhythmic
phasing, shifting loops and touch-controlled resets. Playback speed can be
dynamically altered using the Touch Bar, either globally or per channel.

Draw Sound
For macro-level control, Trails includes multiple banks of eight touch-controlled
faders, allowing parameters to be set, chained and morphed between using
adjustable slew times. This makes it possible to move smoothly between
complex states or introduce abrupt structural changes.

Completing the system is a flexible breakout module, which can be mounted to
the left, right or above the main unit, allowing users to tailor the layout to their
own Eurorack systems.

Positioned between controller, instrument and compositional tool, Trails offers a
tactile and deeply musical approach to gesture-based composition,
performance and control.

Features

Core

• Record gestures of up to 40 seconds across four channels
• Simultaneously generate melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and control
• elements
• Control Eurorack systems and MIDI-compatible hardware or software
• Per channel: two touch-controlled CV outputs (X and Y) plus a gate
• output
• Fully customisable voltage ranges for all CV and gate outputs
• Per channel: one CV input for modulation and reset

 

Gesture recording & playback

• Record gestures individually or across multiple channels
• Quantise CV and gate signals for melodic, tempo-synced output
• Dynamically offset the playback of gestures against one another
• Touch control of gesture playback position, speed, and loop points
• Divide and multiply incoming clocks

 

Transformation & smoothing

• Transform recorded gestures using rotation, pinch, and offset
• Non-destructively record and undo all transformations
• Filter and smooth gestures to suspend motion in time

 

Macros & scenes

• Interpolate between eight banks of eight touch faders
• Control eight parameters at once using a single macro fader
• Store and recall up to 16 scenes

 

Ergonomics & layout

• Outputs housed on a separate panel for flexible placement
• Includes a 1U panel for optimised ergonomics in your case

Pricing and Availability:
Preorders for 1st batch opening February 25th 2026
Shipping June 2026

US $449 (exc sales tax)
EU  €389 (exc VAT)
UK £339 (exc VAT)

More information:

• Trails

• Bela Releases Gliss Module In 1U Format 29-Oct-24
• Bristronica 24: Bela's Gliss Latest Updates 14-Oct-24
• Sonic LAB: Bela Gliss - Gestural Control 05-Apr-24
• Bristronica 2023: Bela - GLISS 02-Oct-23
• Touch Sensing For Modular Synthesisers 02-Oct-19