SudoSynth – A DIY Synth Glove

Jeremy Blum demonstrates using his SudoGlove controller to make “music” (his quotes):

I had to put “music” in quotation marks, since I’m using a pretty loose definition.

I do not consider myself to be a musical person, but I do love music and I’ve always been extremely interested in what it takes to make music. So, I enrolled in a course this semester called “Performing with Computers“. It sounded like a music class that I could actually take and have some idea of what was going on. The class has been really fun so far, and I’m learning all kinds of new things. The class is structured around giving live performances of the music you develop, and doing so in interesting and unique ways. My mind immediately went to the SudoGlove Control System, since I had been trying to think of new applications for the platform. Once our professor introduced us to a programming language called PureData, I knew what I had to do…

The SudoSynth was born! Well kind of… I demonstrated the first version of the software (which I hastily wrote between 1 and 4AM the night prior) at BOOM 2011. It was well received, but clearly needed further work. So, over the last two weeks I’ve been rebuilding the software into a much more complex system capable of synthesizing piano, flute, guitar, electronic beats, bass rhythms, and percussion in just about any combination you can imagine. I also branched the original version of the software into an on-the-fly synthesizer that generates waveforms in real time based on hand movements (instead of using sound clips).

You can download the Pure Data patches for the SudoSynth at his site.  More information on his SudoGlove system is available also.

One thought on “SudoSynth – A DIY Synth Glove

  1. Interesting to see someone else take another run at the glove controller, the first I remember being the nintendo power glove mod years ago. I keep wondering if the idea will stick with anyone. So far they always seem to show up when the technology/availability ratio is not conducive to even let people experiment, much less decide if it's a good way to trigger sound. Seems like cheap available tech is around now.

    As a keyboard and guitar player both of my hands are already being used, but I think I could actually make use of a "sock" controller.

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