Shoutout to indecisiveeric.com/gesture-synth, which went viral a few weeks ago on Instagram. It allows users to use both hands to perform chords.
gesture.live is an exploration on how to take this gesture synth further. I am using the same chord language, but am compressing it to one hand, so the other hand is free to play melodies, add drum/bass patterns and control effects.
the demo video looks great in a well lit room at a desk. has anyone actually tried this on a small stage or at a house party yet? I'm curious how the hand tracking holds up under stage lighting or just dimmer, more colored light than a webcam usually gets pointed at, since that seems like the real test of whether this leaves the bedroom-producer use case.
I am no musician, so probably I will not ever use this, other than to play with my kids, but this seems amazing!
The question that decides this is whether note-ons are quantised. Webcam hand tracking is 30fps on a good day, so there's 30ms of jitter before the audio thread even hears you, and you start feeling timing errors well under that. Snapping to a 16th grid makes it playable but you lose pushing and laying back, which is most of what makes a part sound human. Freeing the second hand by compressing chords into one is the right call either way.
About gesture.live on Product Hunt
“Play live electronic music with your hands using your webcam”
gesture.live launched on Product Hunt on August 3rd, 2026 and earned 102 upvotes and 9 comments, placing #19 on the daily leaderboard. Play live electronic music with your hands over a webcam. Chords, bass, drums and effects, performed through gestures.
gesture.live was featured in Music (53.5k followers), User Experience (367.2k followers) and Electronic Music (1.1k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 42.7k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted gesture.live?
gesture.live was hunted by Robin van Soelen. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how gesture.live stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Robin van Soelen
Shoutout to indecisiveeric.com/gesture-synth, which went viral a few weeks ago on Instagram. It allows users to use both hands to perform chords.
gesture.live is an exploration on how to take this gesture synth further. I am using the same chord language, but am compressing it to one hand, so the other hand is free to play melodies, add drum/bass patterns and control effects.