Midi Gloves

We’re being inundated with glove-based peripheral hacks. This is another final project from Cornell, keyboard out of the equation by adding 8 piezo sensors to a pair of gloves thereby shunning the pinky finger. We like this one because it’s easy to build and the midi interface implementation is well documented if you want to build your own.

As you can see after the break, this is easy to use with music software like Garage Band because it is a standard MIDI device. In addition, a MATLAB interface allows for custom mapping in case you want to change what each finger does.

We remember our first introduction to glove-based performances with Tod Machover’s Bug Mudra many years ago. We hope the music input hacks we’re seeing will lead to a whole new generation of music innovators.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/Sm7x0YokZaQ]

15 thoughts on “Midi Gloves

  1. I hope there is more to Rudolf Eb.er than that link, because if there is not, these guys have his set beaten easily. I could not discern anything musical from Rudolf Eb.er.

    The using of flex sensors is cool because of duration control. What I fail to understand is with all of the radio control options we have today, why so many glove people have trailing sets of dexterity reducing wires. Perhaps they are strictly doing prototypes, but most of these glove set ups are ugly as sin.

    Proof positive of the most useful of all tools though, duct tape.

  2. @greycode: Rudolf Eb.er not trying to be musical. He’s a noise/power electronics performer, which is essentially the opposite of music (see Wolf Eyes, Throbbing Gristle, Merzbow, etc). That said, I’m not sure if he has some kind of sensors in his gloves, or if he is holding some sort of control in that video. I always thought he had sensors in his gloves, which seemed like a cool idea to me.

  3. Since the piezo goes on vibration this is also a cheap solution for making a drumkit into a midi trigger, thats exactly what i need for my brothers band ^^ awesome

  4. Seriously?

    A final project from a major university that is held together with _duct tape_?

    Come on. That’s almost as bad as the blinky pogo stick. At least it’s a cool idea.

  5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BARsNkK3VqM

    We did something very similar for our senior design project in 2009. However, our system was entirely self contained with a MIDI chip that could play decode and output the entire MIDI library; no PC needed.

    We also implemented a guitar which isn’t shown here, we had reed switches in each finger that would trigger when brought close to a magnet in the thumb. One hand controlled the frets, and the other hand the strings.

    The video doesn’t show the interface very well, but it had a LCD and buttons to select the instrument (drums, piano, guitar), as well as which key you wanted the instrument to play in.

  6. when i build the iron man suit i will need some glove-based peripherals for my OSD but the armor is going to be totally unpowered, and no weapons, just a bodybuilding machine. when i can actually walk in it i will challenge chuck norris to a duel, because i will be ‘Swoll’
    see im thinking computer built into my back, one of those little eraser-type joysticks in the right index finger, with left clickability, right click in the right middle finger, but then i would have to use onscreen keyboard, or voice recognition..
    but if i could build an entire qwerty setup into the gloves, that should be faster than navigating an onscreen keyboard. but then there is voice recognition enhanced with brainwave/eeg/a much improved NIA, because this is at least 5 years away. i still have to design a freely moving steel or better alloy exoskeleton with no vulnerabilities, (no cracks at the joints, no holes except some breathing ones that zigzag so as to be shiv-proof. unless, of course, i want to go completely waterproof, SCUBA style, so i can fight in a cloud of mutant AIDS/biological weapons. yep i should totally learn how to CAD. maybe i should go without the computer, it would be much easier to design and less heat. of course if i wanted to destroy a real-life iron man i would probably just douse him in LN2 and urinate or kick or something. way faster than burning alive.

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