Moog Music Forum

Aloha,

I just got my Theremini and got it all set up. It's on a mic stand, a few feet away from anything, and plugged into a grounded outlet. I run through the calibration and after it is complete, there's not the smooth rise from low to high I'd expect there to be. It's really jumpy and even when my hand is not near the antenna, it sounds really unstable. I've tried in a few different spots and was somewhat successful, but after playing for about 10 minutes it became unstable again.

I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

The Theremini is very sensitive to ambient radio waves from different devices. I think that much depends on the specific instance of the Theremini. Proper calibration can be very useful, but it should be carried out correctly and different presets work with it with different results. Much easier to set the Theremini with the app for iPad or for Windows.

The theremini picks up all sorts of electronic pollution of the enviroment, afaik because of the weak oscillator inside. Mobile-Phones, Neonlights etc. can be a real pain in the back. Setting the response from high to low in the setup-menu, helps a bit, but makes the theremin to slow for proper playing.For sound effects and toying around this does not matter much, but for serious playing it's pretty useless. Not to mention that sputtering of slight but constant pitch jumps in the low register. It's visible in the tuner. Allover: a very unpleasant and dissilutional experience. Luckily there's still the good trustworthy etherwave, one of dr.moog''s better invention.

Hi, I have the same problem.
MY theremini is unstable and it can't keep the pitch even if I don't move.
This is a video that I made to show you the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYZDcJiH9s8

what can I do? Thanks

I've solved the problem setting slow on "response" parameter.