Rich has been developing this controller mash-up since July 2010, when he was first inspired to liberate his MIDI controller from the confines of the DJ booth table during a set at the Mystic Garden Party festival.

“I felt so inspired and so uplifted to play music that I picked up my Oxygen 8 and held it in my arms the entire set,” Rich wrote in an email, ”This caught the interest of the dancing crowd and I achieved the highest amount of eye contact and personal exchange with the audience than I ever had before.”

Rich hacked together a Korg nanoKontrol, a USB hub, a guitar strap and some Max for Live patches with his original M-Audio Oxygen 8 to make this wearable, keytar-like controller. The ControlliTAR is far from a traditional keytar though, Rich uses it to control loop juggling, finger drumming, effect mashing, synth jamming and much more.

Rich enjoys the flexability that this custom built controller gives him in his performance.

“I wanted to take my performance to the next level by giving myself more freedom to run around on stage and engage the audience more directly,” Rich wrote, “My newly found freedom allowed me to jump around, climb speaker stacks and really get back into dancing and moving with the music.”

Rich is also the main organizer of the San Francisco based live electronic music and interactive tech art event, LoveTech, and was the second place winner of the West Coast Championship Controller Battle.

There are a lot of talented hackers out there doing some very exciting stuff with controllers. We hope to continue honoring their talent with this award each month. So keep on hacking and maybe one day you too will have a Hack of the Month certificate hanging on the wall of your workshop.