Air Synth

Air Synth is Air Guitar, but for synthesizers.

Use any webcam and a computer with SuperCollider installed and you can control synth sounds, filters, and effects with hand gestures.

airsynth simply uses MediaPipe Hands to calculate hand posiiton (x, y coordinates of both left and right hands) and hand gesture (via "spread" measuring clenched vs open hand) and sends this values to SuperCollider.

demo: https://vimeo.com/567293081

Install

First install SuperCollider, then download and run airsynth.

Installing SuperCollider

Windows

Click here to download the latest Windows release. This is the 32-bit release, rather than the 64-bit release, because the most recent Windows Update prevents the 64-bit version from starting. But 32-bit will work just fine!

Then click here to download the 32-bit sc3-plugins. Unzip these plugins and then copy and paste the SC3plugins folder into the following folder:

C:\Users\<yourname>\AppData\Local\SuperCollider\Extensions\

Mac OS

Click here to go to the website to download SuperCollider. Make sure to check your version of Mac OS and install the correct version of SuperCollider.

Then, click here to download the plugins for Mac OS. Unzip this archive. Then copy the SC3plugins folder to your Extensions folder:

/Users/<yourname>/Library/Application Support/SuperCollider/Extensions

Installing airsynth

The easiest way to install is to download the latest version from the releases.

If you have Go installed, you can also install from source:

go install github.com/schollz/airsynth@latest

Usage

To use, first open SuperCollider and run the airsynth.scd file. There are two different blocks in there that you can run to setup the synth.

Then you can just double-click the airsynth binary, or in a terminal type:

airsynth

This will open up your browser that will autodetect your webcam and start sending OSC messages to SuperCollider about your current hand gestures.

The current example changes th filter open/close with palm open/close. You can raise your hand to add feedback, or move hand across to change pitch. The left hand and right hand control separate oscillators.