Hacked NES Power Glove controls a modular synth with finger wriggles

Never mind controlling a modular synth by twiddling knobs. If one modder has his way, one of Nintendo’s legendary controllers is the way of the future. Look Mum No Computer (aka Sam Battle) has hacked an NES Power Glove into a gesture controller for his modular synth setup. All he has to do is bend his fingers to adjust the filter cutoff, pitch, pulse width and volume. Yes, the result is just as strange and beautiful as it sounds — Battle just has to wriggle his fingers to add an extra flourish to an electronic tune..

To top it off, the inventor even created an animatronic hand that takes input from the synth to control the glove, which in turn controls the synth. It’s a one-of-a-kind feedback loop, to put it mildly.

There’s no guarantee the project will go any further, although Battle teased a possible follow-up. Not that you’ll necessarily need to wait for it. The DIY enthusiast has shared many of the details both in his video and in a circuit diagram, so you can build something like this yourself if you have a Power Glove you’re willing to tweak. Look at it this way: it might be a considerably cheaper approach to musical gloves than following in Imogen Heap’s footsteps.