William French is an electronic music producer and performer who makes ethereal techno and controls the sounds with gloves. For more than a decade, the laptop has been his main instrument, but his goal has always been to make electronic music feel as expressive and alive as a traditional performance. His work focuses on cinematic soundscapes, detailed textures, and melodies that evolve like living organisms rather than programmed loops.
Modern electronic music production is powerful, but it is also deeply procedural. To bring a sound to life, producers often draw hundreds of automation curves by hand, adjusting filter movements, effects, and modulation one parameter at a time. This process can take hours and still feel mechanical.
Live performance faces a similar limitation. Standard controllers rely on small sets of knobs and faders. An artist can only adjust one or two parameters at once, which restricts spontaneity and emotional range. The connection between body movement and sound, something acoustic musicians rely on, is mostly absent.
William wanted a way to treat sound like a physical material, something he could shape with his hands instead of programming with a mouse.
Seven years ago, William worked with a Norwegian startup developing sensor gloves for drone control. Together with colleagues, he built a system that translated glove input into control for Ableton Live, allowing gestures to manipulate music software directly. The concept worked, but the hardware was fragile and experimental.
A few years later he was introduced to the first generation of MANUS gloves. The improvement in build quality, reliability, and precision changed what was possible. Today he performs with MANUS gloves, using them as his primary musical instrument.
With 25 degrees of freedom in the hands and fingers, the gloves allow William to map gestures to sonic parameters in a natural way. Instead of drawing automation, he can close his eyes and shape sounds through movement, turning production into an intuitive and soulful process.
Opening a hand can brighten a texture. A small wrist rotation can shift a filter. Finger movements can control layers of effects at the same time. What once required dozens of separate actions can now happen in a single expressive gesture.
For live shows, this changes everything. Traditional electronic performances hide the craft behind a laptop screen. With MANUS gloves, the audience can see a clear relationship between motion and music. The performance becomes visual and physical, closer to watching a violinist than a DJ.
For William French, the MANUS gloves represent the missing link in electronic music. They return human emotion, expressivity, and spontaneity to a digital art form. The gloves are not just a controller but areal instrument with the precision and build quality an artist needs for a main creative tool.
By connecting body movement directly to sound, he can create immersive techno that feels performed rather than programmed, and audiences can experience that connection in real time.
