Eli Silverstein

project Technology › Forearm guitar

Forearm guitar

A flex-sensor MIDI controller you wear, with Ryota Sato

Overview

This is an instrument I made with Ryota Sato. It is a flex sensor midi controller with frets spaced like a guitar, sense pads like guitar strings with continuous bending. It connects to a computer over USB, or bluetooth, and can synthesize its own audio with low latency. I worked on hardware for this project and Ryota made the epic sound synthesis, as shown in the videos.

Playing it
Bending

Hardware

Flex-sensor strips on a curved printed chassis, driven by a main board with a USB-C microcontroller.

Worn on the forearm
Worn on the forearm
On the arm at the bench
On the arm at the bench
Flex strips on the curved printed chassis
Flex strips on the curved printed chassis
Side view of the chassis
Side view of the chassis
The flex-sensor strips before mounting
The flex-sensor strips before mounting
Strips wired to the main board
Strips wired to the main board
Another angle of the assembly
Another angle of the assembly
The main board with its USB-C microcontroller
The main board with its USB-C microcontroller
The first single strip, on a breadboard
The first single strip, on a breadboard

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