Etherwave Newbie in Tokyo having trouble getting started

EtherPossum · Post by **EtherPossum** » Mon Jul 25, 2005 8:56 am

Konnichi wa and greetings from Tokyo.

Hopefully this topic will address something not covered elsewhere in the forum. I scanned through the topics already posted, but I apologize if there is overlap here. We just got a new Etherwave and are very excited. EtherPossum has been taking lessons from Masami Takeuchi here in Tokyo, and now we will actually have a Theremin at home!

Unfortunately, our initial joy has been tempered by technical difficulties beyond the scope of our tiny possum brains. Basically, we did get some sound from the instrument for a couple of hours, but now we have nothing but silence. Here is the whole story.

We set up in the tatami room. with the Etherwave mounted on a mic stand. We haven't yet bought an amplifier, so we ran a patch cord to the AUX IN of our stereo. The power supply in Japan is of course different from the states. It is 100v instead of 120v and few outlets provide a ground. We had a transformer to up the output, but we were not able to ground it at first ... and at first, we got nothing - no sound - no sign of life - nothing. We kept checking everything to make sure it was plugged in, but nothing worked. Then, mysteriously, it did start to work! The tone was not very stable and had a lot of vibration. We thought this was probably due to the lack of grounding. Still, eager to experiment, EtherPossum tried her best to tune it. It worked for a whole afternoon, then just quit. When we had a chance to get the right extensions to run a ground, we tried again. Still nothing. It is very perplexing. We hope we haven't done any permanent damage by not having it grounded at first. The manual of course says that it should be grounded for reasons of sound quality but doesn't give any warnings that would suggest damage. Anyway, that's where we are now - nothing but silence from the ethers.

Does anyone have any advice? At first we thought there might be a problem with the instrument itself - damage from shipping or something. Then we thought it might be the power cord (the DIN connector of the adapter/power cable which plugs into the Etherwave seems loose and doesn't really push in snugly). But then it started singing and we just assumed we hadn't let it warm-up enough or something. Now, we are at a loss and hoping we haven't caused any harm. Has anyone had similar experiences? Any clues to what we could try? Please help!

TJdem · Post by **TJdem** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:30 am

Have you tried setting it up in a different location. Perhaps something is too close to the volume antenna. That loose power connection may be your problem too. My power cord fits snugly into the back of mine. Good luck!

EtherPossum · Post by **EtherPossum** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 2:10 am

[quote="TJdem"]Have you tried setting it up in a different location. Perhaps something is too close to the volume antenna. That loose power connection may be your problem too. My power cord fits snugly into the back of mine. Good luck![/quote]

Yes, we've moved around quite a bit. There is nothing within six feet of the antennas. We're going to investigate the power cord aspect more closely. When we plug it into the theremin, it feels like it's just barely hanging in there. On the surface every thing looks straight and correct, but we'll see what happens when we get a new one.

Thanks for your ideas!

TJdem · Post by **TJdem** » Tue Jul 26, 2005 11:24 pm

I wish you luck. Let me know if your group tours here in the states. I promote concerts as well.