hc_gesture (Hand Gestures to MIDI)

✨ New in homecrate 1.12. If you don’t see it yet, update from the App Store.

hc_gesture turns your hands into a MIDI controller. The front camera watches you, a shape you make — a fist, a pinch, a thumbs-up — becomes a MIDI CC message or a note, and that message goes straight into the plugin chain on the track hc_gesture is loaded on.

It’s for the moment when both your hands are already busy. You’re holding a guitar, you’re at the keys, you’re singing into a mic, and you still want to open a filter, punch in a delay, or swell a pad. Instead of reaching for the screen, you make a shape with the hand you can spare.

It’s one of homecrate’s own plugins, so it’s already installed.

📘 This page is the short version — how hc_gesture fits into a session. The 11 gestures, every assignment field, the four trigger modes, ROTATE in depth, and two worked examples live in the dedicated section: hc_gesture documentation →

[SCREENSHOT: hc_gesture editor — camera preview with tracking overlay above, assignment list below]

Where It Sits in a Project

hc_gesture is an AUv3 music effect. You load it on a track like any other plugin, and it passes audio through untouched — its output is control data, not sound. Think of it as a controller that happens to live in a plugin slot.

Two consequences worth internalising:

Slot position doesn’t matter for tone. It changes nothing, so put it wherever you like.
Which track it’s on is the whole routing job. The MIDI it generates is delivered to every plugin slot on that track, exactly like MIDI arriving from a hardware controller. Put hc_gesture and the synth you want to control on the same track and there is nothing else to configure.

You can load several instances on different tracks, each with its own assignment table — a gesture rig for the synth track and a different one for the guitar track can coexist.

Note: hc_gesture opens a video-only capture session. It never touches an audio input, so your recorder monitoring, armed tracks and amp sims are completely undisturbed by having it running.

When to Reach for It

Hands-free parameter control while tracking. The main case: sweep a filter or push a send without stopping the take to touch the screen.
Performing a move you’d otherwise draw. ROTATE mode uses the same five response curves as the timeline’s automation shape presets, so a swell you perform and a swell you draw sit together consistently in a mix.
Binary switching mid-performance. A held fist as a momentary footswitch for a delay send, a bypass, or a mute.
Driving external gear. Turn EXTERNAL MIDI on and the same messages also go out to your connected MIDI gear. It’s a plain on/off switch — there’s no destination picker, so filter by MIDI channel at the receiving end if you need to target one device.

It is not a replacement for a fader when you’re sitting at the screen with both hands free, and it is not an audio processor.

Quick Start

Load homecrate: hc_gesture on the track holding the plugin you want to control — it’s in the Effects tab. See Loading & Removing Plugins
Tap the slot to open the editor. The top half is the live camera preview; the bottom half is the control panel
Under ASSIGNMENTS, tap + ADD — a new row appears and opens
Set Gesture to Pinch (Index), tap the RIGHT hand chip, leave CC, and tap the ROTATE mode chip
Set CC # to the controller number your target listens on (74 is the conventional filter-cutoff CC)
Rehearse before you arm. Values are computed even while disarmed — pinch and twist now, and watch the number on the overlay chip. This is the fastest way to get RANGE and SMOOTH right
Tap ARM. The state chip counts down through STABILIZING — use it to get your hands into position and pick up your instrument
When the chip reads LIVE, pinch and twist. Your plugin follows

Tap DISARM when you’re done. It’s panic-safe — every held note and open gate is released as it disarms, so nothing is left stuck on.

Tips

Assign the hand you’re not using. If you fret with your left, put everything on RIGHT so a chord shape can never fire a trigger.
Pinches are the most reliable gesture for ROTATE — an unambiguous shape, and the hot-cyan lock on the overlay confirms it before you start twisting.
Tune ROTATE while disarmed. You only need to be LIVE when you want the values to actually go somewhere.
Watch the value chip on the overlay, not the parameter you’re controlling. It’s far easier to see what’s being sent than to infer it from what you’re hearing.
Raise STABILIZE to 8–10 seconds if you need to sit down and get an instrument into position. Arming is global across every loaded instance, so the longest value wins.
Use GATE for anything binary and save ROTATE for the one or two things that genuinely need to sweep.
DISARM before you talk with your hands. It’s instant and panic-safe.
Light your hands, not your background. Camera tracking wants your hands to be the clearest thing in frame — test the rig before you rely on it in a take. You don’t have to stay at a fixed distance, though: a gesture reads the same up close as it does across the room, and a held gesture stays held rather than flickering.
Your assignment table, stabilize time and external-MIDI setting are saved with the project. Reopening it, the only thing you need to do again is tap ARM.
Everything on this page in full detail — all 11 gestures, every field and its default, the four modes, and the response curves — is in the hc_gesture documentation.