An ambient drone synthesizer shaped like a fish pond. Each fish is a voice that never stops singing; the rocks it swims past bend that sound, or ring out as notes.

Need a hand? Email support@twopineaudio.com and include your iPhone model and iOS version — it makes almost every problem faster to solve.

Getting started

Press play. The pond you're given already works — fish swim, drones wake, bells ring as the fish reach them. Everything else is optional.

When you want to start shaping it:

• Tap a fish (or its coloured chip) to choose which one you're editing.

• Double-tap open water to drop a rock onto that fish's path.

• Tap a rock to select it, then open it with the rock button to make it an effect station or a bell.

• Drag a fish through a bell to play it by hand — this works even while paused.

The full manual lives inside the app under Menu → Manual, and you can replay the guided tour any time from Menu → Tutorial.

Common questions

Does Living Water use my microphone?
No. It never asks for microphone access and cannot record you. When you press record, it captures the app's own audio output directly.

Where do my recordings go?
Into the app's own library, behind the tape button. From there you can play, rename, delete, or export a take as a standard WAV file by AirDrop, Files, Messages or anything else in the share sheet.

Can I keep it playing while I use other apps?
Yes — turn on Background playback in Settings. You can also start and stop the pond from the Lock Screen, Control Centre, or your headphone controls.

Is my work saved automatically?
The app reopens exactly where you left it, even if it was closed from the app switcher. A saved pond also autosaves quietly whenever you leave. To keep a pond permanently, tap save and give it a name.

How much space do recordings use?
They're full-quality WAV files, so they add up — roughly a gigabyte per hour. The recordings library shows the total, and a single take stops and saves itself after thirty minutes.

Does it work on iPad?
Not yet. Living Water is built for iPhone, in landscape. iPad support is planned.

Is there a subscription?
No. There are no subscriptions, no accounts, no ads, and nothing to unlock. Your recordings are plain audio files that belong to you.

Troubleshooting

No sound

• Press play — the pond starts paused.

• Check the volume, and that another app hasn't taken over audio. If you played something in another app, return to Living Water and press play again to reclaim the sound.

• In the mixer, check the fish isn't muted and its faders aren't down.

The bells aren't ringing

• Make sure the rock is set to Bell, not Effect, at the top of its editor.

• A bell only rings when a fish actually reaches it, so the fish must be on a path that crosses it — or you can drag a fish into it by hand.

• Check the notes fader for that fish in the mixer.

The fish aren't moving

• Press play.

• A fish set to wander drifts freely instead of following its rocks. Switch it to loop in the fish editor if you want it to trace its path.

Audio stopped after a call or after using another app
Press play once and it will reclaim the audio. If you unplug headphones mid-playback, the pond pauses on purpose rather than switching to the speaker.

Something sounds wrong and I want to undo it
The undo button sits beside the fish button and steps back through your edits — a moved rock, a retuned bell, a voice you didn't mean to load, even a removed fish and its rocks.

Requirements

iPhone running iOS 17 or later. Headphones are recommended — the pond is a stereo instrument and much of its movement lives in the stereo field.

Contact

Questions, bugs, and feature requests are all welcome at support@twopineaudio.com. If you're reporting a problem, tell me what you were doing when it happened and I'll get back to you.