Turn Your Fingersonic Guitar Into Anything You Can Imagine
The Fingersonic Guitar is open. A complete public developer kit is now on GitHub — hardware docs, GPIO pinouts, touch-electrode maps, audio details, LED ring, display, and ready-to-run examples. Anyone with an ESP32-S3 background can write custom firmware for it.
Build a groovebox, a synthesizer, a sampler, a music player, a MIDI controller, or a wireless remote. Browse the dev kit →
Watch a custom App0 firmware in action on the Fingersonic Guitar — a live demo of what you can build with the open dev kit.
📦 The complete developer kit is on GitHub
Hardware docs, GPIO pinouts, touch-electrode maps, I2S audio, LED ring, display, and ready-to-run examples — all public, all yours to fork.
Browse the Dev Kit on GitHub →What You Can Build With Open Firmware
Fingersonic Guitar runs on a single ESP32-S3. Your custom firmware (App0) redefines all of it: six capacitive touch strings, slider groups, drum and pitch pads, strum pads, joystick, encoder, a 16-LED RGB ring, a color display, I2S audio, and USB + BLE MIDI.
Every control becomes a line of code you own. Details, pinouts, and wiring live in the FIRMWARE_DEVELOPMENT_GUIDE.
Firmware Updates: No Programmer Needed
You don't need manufacturer source, a JTAG probe, or any special tooling. Flash your own firmware over Wi-Fi with the preinstalled App1 uploader that ships on every unit — bootloader and partitions stay untouched, so the official experience is always one fallback away.
- Boot the guitar into App1 (built-in Wi-Fi uploader)
- Connect to the guitar's hotspot
- Upload your compiled App0 binary (up to 2 MiB)
- Optionally swap in a custom SF2 sound bank
Getting Started: The Fastest Path
1. Clone the Dev Kit
git clone https://github.com/lastness09/fingersonic-guitar-devkit.git
cd fingersonic-guitar-devkit2. Read the Guide
Start with FIRMWARE_DEVELOPMENT_GUIDE.md — the whole hardware interface in one file: GPIO reference, touch calibration, I2S audio, LED ring, display, MIDI, partitions, and Wi-Fi uploads.
3. Pick Your Stack
- Arduino IDE — fastest path, with snippets for touch, encoder, joystick, LED ring, display, and I2S
- ESP-IDF — full control of tasks, PSRAM, and partitions
4. Fork main2
The main2 project is a working FM Studio-style example — compile it, flash it over Wi-Fi, and start making it yours (Apache 2.0).
5. Upload Over Wi-Fi
Windows/macOS users can grab the official FingersonicUploader; Linux users can hit the documented HTTP interface directly (curl works).
Where to Go From Here
- Re-skin main2 as your own groovebox with your own sound bank
- Build a sampler that plays your own multi-samples from the six strings
- Turn it into a drone synth with the sliders controlling pitch and filter
- Map joystick + encoder to MIDI CC in your DAW
- Drive the LED ring with bpm / phrase position for visual feedback
Start Building Today
Clone it, read the guide, fork main2, and start shipping your own firmware over Wi-Fi. Happy hacking — if you build something cool, we'd love to hear about it.
📦 The complete developer kit is on GitHub
Hardware docs, GPIO pinouts, touch-electrode maps, I2S audio, LED ring, display, and ready-to-run examples — all public, all yours to fork.
Browse the Dev Kit on GitHub →Links & Help
- GitHub: lastness09/fingersonic-guitar-devkit
- Website: fingersonic.net
- Support: support@fingersonic.net