The aim of this project is to provide a thorough review of the main types of sensing technologies used in musical applications. As new sensing technologies become available, this open space will provide an up-to-date resource for researchers in the field, complementing information available in books and textbooks such as Trends in Gestural Control of Music (Wanderley and Battier, eds. 2000) and Digital Musical Instruments: Control and Interaction Beyond the Keyboard (Miranda and Wanderley, 2006).

More than 30 techniques are described, along with their sensing principles and examples of actual devices that implement those principles. For each sensing technique, one or more devices are described with information on how to obtain them (links to distributors, prices), as well as photos of the device and necessary setup/conditioning circuits, circuit diagrams, one or more videos showing the devices used in practice, and finally, simulation circuits compatible with the software CircuitMaker.

This project was started in 2004 by Prof. Marcelo M. Wanderley and several graduate students at the Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory, at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The main students collaborating in this project include: Paul Kosek, Mark Zadel, Elliot Sinyor, David Birnbaum, Joseph Malloch, Mark Marshall, Avrum Hollinger, Stephen Sinclair, Simon de Leon and Alexander Refsum Jensenius.

Since November 2005, this wiki has been available to the community in general. Please take the time to contribute and expand this initiative.