Hyve Touch Synth on Kickstarter – Available as DIY Kit and Ready To Play

They Hyve Touch Synthesizer is a fun, expressive musical instrument you can make, hack and play.
We talked about a workshop where you could make your own Hyve a while back, and since then a Kickstarter campaign has been launched so soon anyone will be able to build/get a Hyve! Yep, the synth will be available both as a DIY kit (from $79) and already assembled and ready to play ($299).

Hyve Touch Synthesizer is a fun, expressive musical instrument that anyone can make and play. It responds to human touch, even your slightest finger movements give you powerful control. Turning these gestures into sound allows you to play music like never before.

This video shows you what exactly you can do with this beautiful synth:

Pretty sweet, no?

Simply slide your fingers across the surface to explore new ways to touch sound. A 60-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer that is controlled by pressure, horizontal, and vertical movements of each finger on the surface. Even the smallest wiggle of your finger makes sound come alive, giving expression to the music you make.

Explore and harmonize

Notes on the Hyve are arranged so that you can easily explore harmonies and tone combinations with small movements of your finger.

The bottom half is arranged like a piano keyboard. Each key senses pressure, vertical position, and horizontal position.

Moving vertically allows you to sweep through octaves and harmonically combine them into evolving tones. Horizontal movements push the sound right and left in stereo. Touching the bottom row causes a pressure-controlled pitch bend.

The top half uses a hexagon grid to put notes that sound good together right next to each other. Every adjacent note is harmonically related: straight up is a perfect 5th, up to the right is a major 3rd, and up to the left is a minor 3rd.

This means that one finger can play a chord and slide to the next chord in the song. Each hexagon also senses pressure and horizontal position like the bottom half.

Watch Skot Wiedmann, the inventor of the Hyve synth talk about this lil gem, and what he believes is a new way of creating music:

For further information or to support by making a pledge, please visit the Hyve Kickstarter page.