maestro theremin th-1

My boss just gave me one, like this.

http://moogarchives.com/maestro.htm

wondering if this a good model, seems pretty rare because I cant find much information about it. Also, I have a recording studio is this model good for making music or just making noise? thanks.

Everything Bob Moog ever designed or manufactured is, IMHO, good for making music!

From what I can tell, the Maestro is not up there with the best Theremins from Bob - But still a reasonable Theremin..

I thought I had seen a schematic for the Maestro, but cannot locate this so I may be wrong.. If my memory serves me correctly, and I have seen this schematic, and I am remembering this circuit (if..if..if.. LOL!) Then it was an all transistor design using BJT's and a FET as a VCA.. it should sound clean.. It will have an equalizing coil, so will be much more linear than any of the rubbish 'theremins' which really cannot be used for making music.. The Maestro will be a musical instrument and not a toy.

Ok - Just because it can make music, does not mean it will make music! If you find you can only get it to make squeeks and whoops, watch some videos of expert players (Lydia Kavina, Peter Pringle, etc) and Thomas Grillo's tutorials - I am sure you have heard it before.. But the truth is that the Theremin is an absurdly difficult instrument to play! -

I am sure a lot of employees here on TW would love to have a boss like yours! ;-) .. And welcome to TW!

Fred.

Fred, follow daveb's link and scroll down for a schematic.

Daveb - noise is music too. :-)

Thanks Gordon!

Well - I was wrong.. Never seen this schematic before (I am sure of this, because some things are quite unusual.. like the diodes on the transistor collectors).

The mixer is also unusual for Moog .. It looks better to me than the one used on the EW's. Oscillator coupling is much the same as the EW, but the oscillators are quite different -

But, from what I have seen, this is possibly the Moog Theremin I would be least keen to own.. If they were available today, I think the EW would be a better buy - Its rarity, however, is likely to substantially raise its 'value'.. Also, it will sound quite different to the EW - and its sound may be more pleasing (I am not a great fan of the EW sound).

Major mistake I made was assuming an EQ coil.. There isnt! - But this seems to confirm an earlier hypothesis I had - The Maestro uses plate antennas, and the capacitive geometries are completely different to what one would get from a rod antenna.. On does not, I believe, require so much equalization for a plate (played by vertical hand movement) antenna as one does for a rod antenna (played by horizontal movement).

So.. I cannot actually say how good or linear this Theremin will be - but I suspect that with plate antennas it will be ok..

Dont replace the plate with a rod though .. as then the linearity will become poor.

Fred.

Over the last nine years, I have not really heard anyone recommend this theremin as a players instrument. It probably shouldn't be your first choice for melodic playing. However, it may be just fine for more adventurous styles.

Thanks for the replies,

It seems like Im in for a long learning process with this theremin. Im sure thats the case with any of them though. Ive watched some videos, but theyre all playing the rod type. It seems like this particular theremin is pretty monotone, but that could be my inexperience as well. Its now part of my studio and in time it will find its way into mix.

[i]"It seems like this particular theremin is pretty monotone, but that could be my inexperience as well." - Daveb [/i]

Not sure what you mean by "monotone" .. The pitch should change quite dramatically as one changes the distance to the pitch antenna.. you need to adjust the tuning for bass as you go further from the antenna (set it so the pitch gets to null - as in, no audio - at a comfortable distance from the antenna ) and pitch should rise as you approach the antenna.

If by "monotone" you mean that the tone 'quality' does not vary much, this is to be expected.. it will sound quite 'monoton'ous - but one can make even a boring sine wave sound ok by adding vibrato and other tricks.

Looking deeper at this design, there is, I think, one major mechanical flaw in the design.. The antennas look far too close to each other in my opinion - and the chunky metal supports for the plates will couple capacitively with each other.. These factors are likely IMO to cause interaction between volume and pitch capacitances, and make playing more difficult - (moving the volume hand will cause the pitch to shift, and [of less importance] moving the pitch hand will cause the volume to change).

I would say that this is not a good Theremin design.. it is certainly the worst I have seen from Moog..

If you want a Theremin to play, and dont want to invest in learning on a non-standard (and sub-standard) instrument, I would advise you to sell it and buy a real Theremin like the EW.. If this was not a rare Theremin, I could suggest modifying it (replace the antennas with plates spaced further apart, for starters) .. But there is probably some collector who will pay reasonable money for an unmodified Maestro - and it seems 'wrong' to go butchering a rare item when the results are not likely to be a vast improvement.

Fred.

I agree with Fred.

But I'd also like to add a couple thoughts of my own.

1. I don't know what kind of musicians frequent your studio, but if you get a band in who know their Pere Ubu, they're going to be pretty excited and say "Oh wow! That looks like Robert Wheeler's theremin" - in fact it isn't - Wheeler's theremin is home made, but the antenna configuration is very similar. So it should be good for Ubu style thereminnery.

2. Yup, this is not a good configuration for classical, melodic playing - but for electronic music it could work well. After all it is an electronic instrument. (One that can bring a lot of human feel and expression to the mix - something that is often lacking in electronic music - I'm [i]not[/i] a fan of sequencers.) I would still argue that the traditional rod and loop configuration is better, but it's not quite so critical outside of the classical arena. And... you've got a whole studio of electronics to run it through. I started with a completely basic echo pedal and haven't looked back since. IMO theremin + echo is a magical combination. Especially if you really crank up the echo. :-)

(Not so good to have echoes going on forever if you're part of a group, but here's a simple trick - put an envelope follower before the echo pedal and use it to control the volume of the sound coming out of the echo pedal so that the echoes are only audible when the theremin is making a sound. Now you can have all the richness and variety that an echo brings and it will shut the hell up when you want it to!)

I agree with everything you say Gordon! (LOL - Mutual appreciation society - Membership now open at special introductory rates.. ;-)

It does all really depend I think on what your opening question [i] "is this model good for making music or just making noise?"[/i] actually meant..

As Gordon said (or implied) earlier - "noise" and "music" are by no means mutually exclusive.. Even a really cr*p Theremin can be usefully employed in a musical composition.. And even if melodic Theremin playing is required, one can record several takes and edit out the naff bits (as in, delete 99% of the takes, LOL! ;-) ..

If one uses a Theremin as an effects unit (where melodic playing or tunes are not required) then there are a host of effects one can apply - Gordon is certainly the expert on this (egg whisks and effects pedals etc).

The reasons I suggest selling the Maestro and getting a better Theremin only REALLY apply if you actually want to learn to play the Theremin, and particularly if you want to play it live with other instruments which follow 'traditional' musical scales..

To me, the time and effort required to play a Theremin well is an enormous investment - Start with an instrument like the Maestro, and all this effort will be wasted - you will get to a (fairly low) level of playing, and will not be able to advance beyond this without changing your instrument.. And when you change your instrument you will be starting near to 'square 1' and your muscle-memory will need to be completely re-programmed.

None of the above matters much if you only play the Theremin for an hour a week - You will find a better Theremin easier, but [b]you[/b] will be the main limiting factor and are extremely unlikely to reach the limit of the Theremins capability.


It all depends what your ambitions are.. Whatever they are though, keep in mind that the Maestro is not representitive of a good, playable Theremin - Dont be put off Theremins if you get pis*ed-off with it..

Even for 'experimental' and 'non-melodic' music, I think a good Theremin is important (More important than some players in these genre realize.. it is interesting to me that most in this genre actually own good Theremins, and can 'feel' the linearity as well as any classical player, and opt for linear instruments) For me, It comes down to getting the music in your head (regardless of the genre) out of the loudspeaker - An instrument which impedes this process through being badly designed - where one cannot change the volume without correcting the pitch, for example - is simply not worth the effort if better instruments are available affordably - And I think this applies to experimental or classical playing equally.

Fred.

Well after hours and hours of playing, and trying different effects, the maestro seems usable. I decided I do need to get a nice delay pedal and play around with that. A distortion and overdrive pedal add a unique sound.. There isnt too much of the crossing between the volume and pitch as far as I can tell, and adjusting the sensetivity helped with what I called monotone. That really wasnt the right word to use. What I should have said was the pitch range was kind of limited. All I can do is just be patient and work at it everyday, lots of experimentation to come.

As far as the comment about being good for music or making noise. I just wanted to know if this was a quality instrument or not. Looks like its kind of an odd ball in the world of theremins. Which is cool in a way, I like things that arent quite the norm anyways.

Selling it may be an option, but I have no idea on how to price something like this, or if anyone would even want it. I know theres a buy sell trade here on the site. Maybe I should put it up and see if I get any bites, but I definately want to play with it more before that point.