Sticky: Roll Call! - 2009! - Part 2!

Hello everybody. I am nutbunny from South Africa. I have recently obtained an Etherwave Plus on the 31st October 2009. Hoping to make great music once I learn how to operate it efficiently:)

Welcome nutbunney from those of us in the northern hemisphere.

Congratulations on your purchase of a Moog Etherwave Plus. A very good choice. I imagine they are rather scarce down there.

Good luck with your musical journey. There is plenty of useful information here and many people who can provide a variety of viewpoints to help you along.

My name is David J Greene, and I am new to the world of Theremins. I have been a performer for years (magic shows), and have always been intrigued by Theremins. Having never seen or touched one, I finally took the plunge and purchased a B3 Deluxe from Dan Burns.

I have searched this forum, and now realize I will need an amp. I am hoping to find a good inexpensive one locally once the Theremin arrives.

My only concern about playing one is I have cerebral palsy which affects my left side coordination. I have always been able to adapt, but will not know if I can adapt to a Theremin until it arrives. Guess this will be a learning experience.

If you see the B3 in the for sale section, you'll know... :)

Welcome David, and congrats on your new theremin.
I hope that you are able to play soon! Cheers

Hi David, and welcome! I also play the B3 Deluxe.

If your right side is mostly unaffected by your CP, you might be able to play fairly well. Compared to the left hand, the right hand needs much more precise motion. The volume control movements of the left hand are much broader than the pitch moves on the right, where even a minor finger movement can cause large pitch changes. If you can move your left hand accurately over a range of a foot or so you'll be OK, I think. Also, the volume antenna is far less sensitive, so "wobbles' of the left hand aren't going to cause much of a change in volume in a B3.

And if that fails, you could trade in your Deluxe for one of the single antenna, pitch-only theremins and use a separate foot pedal to control volume. This was not unheard of, even in the early days of the theremin.

Good luck!

Hi, my name is Stefano and i live in Caltagirone, Italy. I bought my first moog etherwave three months ago and i'm trying to practice whenever i can.

Hi everyone,

I'm Anne from Paris, France. I'm fascinated by the theremin since many years, and I've finally decided to try a few days ago. I played piano and violon a long time ago, but my musical background is above all as a listener.

I'm beginning with the cheapest one, the Gakken Theremin, hoping to buy a better one soon. Thank for all this informations, very useful to begin !

Bonjour Anne,

you should perhaps know that there is also an French speaking theremin page, maintained in Lausanne (Switzerland) with a French speaking forum http://www.etheremin.com, but there is not so much activity as here.
On December 11 there will be also a theremin festival in Lausanne http://myspace.com/nodefestival with guest stars Pamelia Kurstin, Nicolas Virani and Wieslaw Pipczynski.

I'd like to know if your Gakken has the same "problem" as mine: After switching it on I have to wait up to 15 minutes until the oscillators stabilize and the pitch field stays constant. Please let me know. If you can make it to Lausanne I'd happy to see you there.

Salut Thierry,

I know the french forum, I've already spent time on and found a lot of information. I understood in particular that the Gakken is the only one which allow to play without amp. I'll be glad to exchange more with francophones thereminists !

As I said, I began two days ago and I'm still discovering.. but indeed, my impression tonight was that the pitch field wasn't constant at all. I was wondering if I was too close to my computer and others electronic stuffs in my flat. I can't say if it's better after 15 minutes but I will pay attention.

Thanks for the information about the festival in Lausanne,I'm not free in december but I hope it will have others opportunities.

Hullo everyone.
I've been reading these forums for a few months in eager anticipation of getting an Etherwave Plus. Now a few days into owning one I thought I'd register and say hello.
The Plus dragged me in because of the CV outputs as I'm about as controller-obsessed as one can get (I think my girlfriend's probably going to start calling me MIDI one of these days given the amount of times I talk about it).
I make most of my music with a sampler, guitar to MIDI converter (AXON AX100 MKII) and Plogue Bidule (wonderful modular audio program), play the trumpet too but am probably best at folk/jazz acoustic guitar though I often neglect it for synth experiments.
I'm currently writing a musical about a haunted recording studio and have decided to re-write much of the music to include a theremin as it seems ridiculous not to. Considering it'll take me a long time to even do scales this may delay it somewhat.
I'm really excited about getting the CV outputs of the Etherwave Plus into the computer and controlling all sorts of parameters in Bidule with them but I haven't quite worked out the CV to OSC conversion yet.
Enough rambling anyway. I look forward to hopefully becoming an active member of this community.