The Teletron: A Mind Controlled Synthesizer

I note that neither the press release (http://www.e6townhal...) mentioned in the article nor either of the videos use the word "theremin", so perhaps it sprang to the mind of the author of the article on seeing the vaguely similar neologism "teletron" (presumably a portmanteau of telepathic and electronic.)(Although the inventor did mention here (http://www.e6townhal...) that he wanted to give it "a continuously changing pitch similar to a theremin" after someone else commented that it was "like a brain theremin (http://www.youtube....;.Nonetheless, this is some silly-cool silicon. :-)

Guess it doesn't matter whether it's a theremin or not... it hit Make Magazine today, so now it is a theremin (Good Vibrations style).

Promising, very cool! :-)

I agree with "silly cool" but not with much else! - yeah.. I am a cynic! ;-)What this EEG controller does is similar to a spectrum analyser, it 'compares' the levels of the frequency components in the EEG signal, and provides an averaged difference between the extremes.There are insurmountable problems for any musical controller based on EEG signals - Many insurmountable difficulties, the simplest to explain is back to my 'hobbyhorse' of latency.EEG signals are low frequency (many below audio) - Even with huge advances in signal processing, one is looking at between 30ms and 150ms latency as the absolute THEORETICAL minimum latency - Absolutely useless for any real musical application. (in practice, one is unlikely to get better than 10x worse latency than the theoretical minimum - so we are looking at latencies of 1/3rd to 1.5 seconds.. And how quickly can a person change their concentration level, so as to make say a 1 octave pitch jump? and how accurate would this jump be? - Dont forget - one is not doing this jump by thinking about the new note - one is doing it by changing ones concentration level - The Theremin will be an absolute doddle to play by comparison! ;-)In reality, EEG signals are not "brainwaves" in the way most people think they are.. What these signals do, within the brain, is poorly understood - but our understanding is that they are primarily brain synchronization signals .. a bit like the 'tick' (clock) used to synchronize digital data streamed in serial format. The different frequencies relate to communication between different brain areas, and the intensity relates to the 'importance' the transmitting unit assigns to the data being transmitted.. the actual data is shunted in packets through the brain in sync with its asscociated synchronization 'clock'. (The above is a gross oversimplification of what is an immensely complex and absolutely facinating area of medical research - There are other, perhaps better analogies, and data is moved across the brain continuously, unlike digital data streaming.. It may be that the phase of the respective EEG frequency also has relevance - a hybrid "analogue / digital" system - Whatever.. This synchronization is vital for memory storage and retrieval, for visual processing and for audio processing - so obviously the slow 'clocks' operate differently to the data clocks in my analogy)We can (to an extremely limited degree) influence our EEG by deliberately relaxing or tensing, this decreases / increases the amplitude of the signals ascociated with our action.. But thats it - Most signals we have absolutely no control over (fortunately - or we might turn off something important ;-)We may, at some future time, find a way to catch actual data traversing our neurones - in a non-invasive way.. Or (more likely, and more hopeful) be able to intercept impulses transmitted to nerves (for example, the signals sent by the brain to the fingers, so that we could play a keyboard without touching it, or the signals sent to our vocal chords, so that we could sing even if these chords were damaged)..But there is no possibility (oohhh - so risky saying something like that ;-) of simple EEG signals ever giving us control of a musical instrument in a way that is not vastly inferior to using our body parts (contact or non-contact) under control of our brains, via the pathways we have evolved over millions of years.Fred. (Have just looked again at the video - I think 1.5s latency was perhaps optimistic! To shift by an octave probably takes about 5 secs.. It is only the LFO on the synth which obsures this "invention"s uselessness! )