new etherwave, question about amps

Hi, me and my friends recently got a new etherwave kit and built it. We've been using headphones for practice since amps are generally expensive but, frankly, we'd like to have it make a nice sound that we can actually play out loud. We've tried it on a number of keyboard amps and with a number of cords, though, and every time we get overwhelming feedback from the amp and a very quiet theremin. Not knowing much about amps nor theremins, I was wondering if someone could offer a solution or at least an explanation as to what might be going wrong, despite the limited information I have to give.

also, about a week after we built the etherwave, it went horribly out of tune and I had to open the case and tune it with the little plastic red screwdriver. When I was looking up how to tune it on these forums, however, I read that it's only supposed to happen years between tunings. So I'm hoping I didn't do something horribly wrong while putting the kit together.

anyways, im really excited about playing the theremin (a lot harder than I thought. And I thought it was going to be really hard to begin with), so I hope I didn't do something irreversible to my theremin.

thank you!

Welcome to Theremin World, Triangle Man.

Feedback? That's puzzling. Did you mean to say distortion or clipping?

Also, which amps specifically?

I don't think it's feedback, but the sound of an untuned theremin.
When you play with headphones, can you play different notes?

A theremin shouldn't feedback, but it can sound like feedback. Read the manual on adjusting the theremin, then try it on an amp.

Keep the amp volume low, your theremin signal could be too hot, causing it sound extremely loud and distoted.

Andy

hmm, well it was described to me as feedback. Ill have to go back and check exactly what amps they were. When I wear headphones it acts just as I would expect, and I can play it like normal. The only thing that changes with an amp is that I get tons of white noise from the amp, and that never seemed to change when i switched amps or cables. Otherwise it behaves normally and sounds like its usual sharp, high pitched self.

Ah. I just had a thought. Is this an etherwave plus - with a headphone socket as well as audio out?

If it is your instrument is certainly faulty. (Not connected to the tuning issue. I guess (*) that was just the carbon cores of the coils settling down.) Check the connections to the audio out socket first.

(The amps work fine with other instruments, I presume.)


(*) I am not an expert. I'm guessing.

there's no headphone socket, only an audio out (Just using a 1/4 inch plug converter for the headphones). Pretty sure it's not an etherwave plus. But i will check the connections to the audio out socket. Hopefully this is fixable, since I don't want to drop another $300+ on a new one.

and yes, im assuming the amps otherwise work fine, since they belong to my school and are used regularly.

Darn, I thought I had it sussed. Hmm.

So the etherwave sounds OK if you plug your headphones into the audio out (not exactly deafening though, I would expect) but when you plug an amp in you just get white noise and it is likely that the amps are not the problem.

Hmm.

Do you have speakers for your mp3 player - or basically anything that has a line-in socket? Try plugging that in.

Also - whereabouts are you? Maybe there's a willing forum member nearby that can help out. I just have a feeling this is going to be hard to resolve online.

Well, oddly enough, I plugged it into an amp today and it worked fine, no white noise. I think I may have just been plugging it into the wrong places, but who knows. It still doesn't give the strong, warmer sound I hear from other etherwaves but it's a huge step up from what I had before and it's from a completely random, free amp. So I can't complain.

I'll eventually have to invest in my own amp, since im taking it to college, but I've got time. Thanks for responding quickly, though. There isn't an excess of support for theremin players out there, so It's nice having an active community like this one.

[i]Thanks for responding quickly,[/i]

No probs. I don't get out as much as I ought to.

[i]There isn't an excess of support for theremin players out there, so It's nice having an active community like this one.[/i]

Well, do stick around a while. Help keep it active. :-)