It occurs to me that the theremini synthesiser lacks envelope shaping, which is a standard component in the majority of synths.
Although note events are not generated by the theremin user interface of the instrument, there is no reason that they could not come from other sources, either a sequencer providing a time related pattern of note events or a hand or foot operated trigger.
I have used abrupt interruptions to the audio of my etherwave in a variety of forms, including a handheld pushbutton killswitch and a GigFX Chopper effects pedal in several recordings and it significantly extends the utility of the instrument. I would very much like to see this in the theremini.
Couple of examples, first with a crude killswitch, and second with the Chopper and both with several other effects.
Gordon - the sounds you get out of that thing never cease to amaze me!
Love that Snippitymen! Sounds like its going through a formant filter.
You give me the idea to run my Theremini through a modular filter and control it from a CV source (maybe the Theremini note CV) and run that to an envelope generator that I’ll trigger in a few different ways. Maybe at the same time controlling the Theremini filter though MIDI. That filter chaining might be interesting.
While its not strictly envelope, there are a number of MIDI controls for volume on the Theremini. Perhaps using a sequencer running sudden MIDI volume changes might create something similar in combination with controlling the filter and delays. Haven’t really fooled around with MIDI on the Theremini as some others have.
I’m not a MIDI expert either, but I can see how that would work. Doing it that way would necessitate having external devices permanently attached to the USB MIDI port. I would prefer to keep the theremini as self-contained as possible - that’s part of the area of it for me - that I could dispense with the long chains of effects that I use currently on my etherwave.
Having built in sequencers would also help to make sense of the pitch transpose function, which seems a bit silly to me by itself - in conjunction with a sequencer it would make a form of arpeggiator.
Just messed around with that fader-app, a cool thing for editing and storing sounds, and i have to report, that i made some simmilar staccato sounds, close to your sounds. Not that voicing sound, that one comes from your ehx-box anyway. But with those extra waves, the wavescan features and some filtering you can get not the same but something quite close.
Unfortunately: yes. double It’s that one.
But there’s another app, and most hopefully available in UK. It’s “TB MIDI Stuff”. Does the same, costs not much and you can create your own layout with faders, knobs, whatever. so it offers much more then that “faders”. I just stumbled over “TB MIDI stuff”, and stupid as i am with these things, even me could figure out how it works. My first fader worked after 10 minutes!
I found a similar thing with flat graphics - my preference - for the same price. TouchOSC.
On the subject of midi Im going to suggest a nifty modular synth app - Audulus. With a midi interface app and a Theremini and a usb midi expression pedal (I have one from eowave but have never used it other than to prove that it works) it could be awesome. A package of a size and shape that I have been hoping for arrived at Charlton Mansions and I have a birthday approaching, so I guess I’ll be finding out for myself at some point. I’ve got a lot to learn before that though.
At the moment Audulus has MIDi In, but not Out. But it is top of the feature requests on the forum there. Maybe a few more +1s might nudge him into implementing it.
Hi Gordon:
Very sorry to hear that the Yamaha fader app is not available in the UK…it really does do good things for the Theremini.
Another app that will let you design your own interface and connect Midi CCs to it is Called Midi Designer.
The lite version is free, but you have to put up with a slideable ad banner over part of the screen. It’s tolerable, and works well.
Happy Impending Birthday to you, and I hope a certain present makes its appearance!
I’ve noticed that people have started to find some of the “Easter Eggs” hidden in the current software. As a Birthday present, I’ll let you in on a couple that I don’t think have been discovered yet.
CC 81 will control the level of a built in White Noise generator that can be used on its own, or mixed with a selected wavetable. It makes for some very nice patches.
CC 89 is an additional level control for just the selected wavetable, letting you set a mix between it and the white noise at the desired drive level (higher levels can be used to overdrive the filter a bit)
Of course you can still use CC 103 as a master level set to filter (pre digital delay), or
CC 7 as a master volume (post digital delay)
There are NO additional hidden filter types…there is a cut and paste mistake in the manual that lists two additional entries that are just carryovers from the wavetable section. Any numbers entered outside the real defined range just result in the filter being bypassed.
Any presets created with these hidden features can be saved by sending value 0x31 to CC119.
White noise! Yay! All the more reason to want envelopes for tuned percussive sounds.
There is another filter, sort of, in that a delay in the millisecond range acts as a resonant feedback comb filter. (This is one of the tricks in the EHX Analogizer pedal - with BBD analogue delay so it rolls of the high end for added mellowness, and a nice little distortion with a very low noise floor for an analogue device.)
I don’t have a demo of the Analogizer - it is very subtle - definitely a try-before-you-buy pedal, it floats my boat but you might not agree.
I do have an example of a Marshall Echohead EH-1 delay in pure digital mode with a 5ms delay and everything else maxed out for total resonant feedback comb filter madness. Less in your face effects are possible by turning down the feedback a bit. The demo also features crackling and overload courtesy of a cheap microphone and budget guitar practice amp.
Gordon,
Some really interesting things you can do with playing the Theremini from a sequencer. My friend at Moog suggested I try using the transpose control. Although you can’t send Note On/Note Off data to the Theremini right now, you can change the transposition in real time. This means you can if you like play melodies on it this way if you vary your transposition CC control (CC102) slowly. Maybe I’ll experiment with that later.
I fired up Cubase and basically drew CC patterns for transposition, volume and filter resonance (though I was not using a waveform that produces a lot of resonance change). You can get some stunning runs and effects. I threw that all through a Eurorack stereo panning module controlled by the Theremini’s CV out and then a Hall of Fame reverb pedal.
I’m sure altering more parameters at the same time will create an untold wealth of interesting results.
How did I play it? I didn’t do a thing other than stand still in front of the Theremini with my hand in a fixed position throughout (better not post this on Theremin World). So it’s kind of like anti-theremin playing. I’m sure if you actually play as well you can get some interesting second order effects.
And yeah, taunting the earnest folks on thereminworld is cruel and unusual. LOL.
[edit]
Thinking about it, it is not surprising that you hear distinct notes when transposing pitch. It’s a very brief frequency modulation, in the same way that an envelope generator applied to the volume briefly modulates the amplitude. In both cases the shape of the waveform is briefly changed, adding extra harmonic content - changing the timbre of the note. Think AM and FM synthesis.
And … … I have a demo video of instantaneous pitch transposition on an etherwave theremin, using an unusual technique - it is an electro-mechanical effect made by holding a long conductor with an insulated handle at an appropriate angle in the pitch field. The idea is that when the conductive part is in contact with the player - by touching it with a fingertip, its effect on the capacitive field is greatly increased, as if the player had moved his hand impossibly fast in the pitch field, giving the frequency modulation effect. In this case the long conductor is a lobster knife, although generally I prefer a screwdriver with a very long shaft.
Well, yesterday I looked at very short delays, following up on my comb filter comment above. The delay wasn’t really designed with that in mind, so it’s on the edge of glitchiness and full of all sorts of interesting sonic things. Very old school industrial/futurist “art of noise” sounds. It also highlighted a weakness in the iPad editor - tiny changes in the delay time make massive changes in the sound, and those knobs in the editor make precise changes very tricky. Nonetheless I found something I liked, and made a little recording.
I found a purpose for transpose, other than arpeggios - rather than cram the full pitch range of the instrument into the pitch field I gave myself three octaves to play with and used the transpose knob to change which three octaves were available to me whilst playing. As with the delay, a custom interface would give better control over this. I also think that transpose might be transposing filter settings as well as pitch, but I’m not certain.
Another candidate for a better user interface is the Advanced/Volume Antenna/Volume knob, which appears to affect the response of the volume antenna in this way. Below 100% it reduces the maxmum volume available, spreading out the low volume area of the volume field to permit fine control whilst playing pianissimo. Above 100% does not increase the maximum volume but does bring max vol closer to the volume antenna, making the response snappier and more suitable for staccato playing.
I am finding that the volume field is rather snappy anyway, so for legato I hover my open hand at the loudest I want to play and dip a single finger down towards the loop to reduce the volume in a controlled fashion.
I have read that inverting the volume field (putting your hand far from the loop when it says to put it close during calibration and putting it far from the loop when it says to put it close) helps to give a smoother, less snappy response, and it does work, but I worry about snapping my hand towards the loop to play a loud stacatto note as I get rather enthusiast at times and don’t really want to slap the instrument accidentally while I’m playing it.
Adjusting the volume knob whilst playing is tricky - another fail for the iPad app user interface I’m afraid. Three buttons would be better - pianissimo mode (say 50% on the volume knob) regular mode (100%) and stacatto mode (2000%) or something like that.
Gordon wrote:…as I get rather enthusiast at times and don’t really want to slap the instrument accidentally while I’m playing it.
Never mind, slapping it!
The volume side is a strange behaving thing. Definitely NOT like a etherwave. I still don’t get, why it’s so smooth in reversed mode?
Also calibrating the volume for the reversed mode like, placing the hand real far, or step back 1.5m, when asked for close position and then placing the hand about 20/25cm above, when asked for far hand.EDIT:not sure if the filter tricked me on the following:(gives like a zero-beat zone for the volume! From far to close: smooth rise, silent, fast rise.)
Also made a observation with the previous mentioned app TouchOSC, using two leds for the incoming antenna signals: the one for the volume goes just on/off and the one for the volume brightens up to full as the pitch rises. ODD.
Btw.: TouchOSC was a very nice hint. Thanks for that one.
The volume circuit has poor linearity - the field is very compressed near the volume loop, just like with the pitch rod. Inverting the field puts the pianissimo zone on the outside of the field where is is less compressed, so better suited to sensing small changes.
Why this is, is a matter of speculation. My guess is that most of the R&D budget went on the digital side and they used cost saving oscillator circuits for the theremin side of things, with the idea that they could fix it in software, as they have, to some extent, with the pitch field. Hopefully the volume response will be addressed in a similar way.
It is still a bit baffling, considering that reports about the open.theremin.uno (the other digital hybrid theremin) are very positive about the antenna linearity and that was developed without the power of Moog behind it. Oh, well.
Funnily enough, the volume loop on Moog’s flagship Etherwave Pro was also rather snappy. The standard explanation (*) is that they rushed to release the ePro knowing of this, and Bob never got to fixing it before he sadly passed on. Fortunately Thierry Frenkel did produce an excellent mod that fixed this, but I am very sure he has little to know interest in doing the same for the theremini.
(*) That’s the standard explanation. It is also possible that the advising thereminist for the project, Pamelia Kurstin (now Stickney) did not see it as a problem - she is noted for her staccato technique (called “walking bass” by everyone except Pamelia) so may have considered it desirable.
)
