How useful are knobs on Theremins ?

Gordon, thank you for pinpointing my linguistic weakness... :-)

[i]"In a sense Fred's innovation is to vary the waveforms prior to combining them, something which is commonplace in other synthesizers."[/i]

That's not Fred's innovation, there is already a Moog design from the early fifties which has also a pre-mixer waveshaping circuit.

You are right. Thank you for pointing out [i]my[/i] linguistic weakness.

Oh, so many contradictory views - and I agree with them all :(

[i]"only one big knob which allows to vary the waveform from sine to triangle. That's it and that's enough for this instrument." - Thierry[/i]

[i]"Take the example of the Anthony Henk 1994 prototype. It has a more or less clean sine output and most of us would qualify this sound as uninteresting or even boring. But hear Lydia Kavina playing on it. Her ability to shape the tone with her hands makes it more interesting (in my ears) than any electronic device could ever do." - Thierry[/i]

[i]" Contrast this to the theremin, where no two notes are ever the same, and every note can be subtly shaded in skilled hands" - GordonC [/i]

I have only heard the Tvox played by Lydia, and it sounded unbelievably awesome - I have heard Lydia play a Gakken - and whilst not comparable to the Tvox, it still sounded impressive.. same is true for everything I have heard Lydia play - so it does not surprise me at all that she can instill 'awesomeness' into a pure sine wave..

But I cannot do this - I will never be able to do this - I doubt that even if I spent every waking moment practicing on a Tvox that I would be able to match what Lydia can do on a Gakken! ... and I think there are many Theremin players (the majority?) who need more control over tone in order to compensate somewhat for the fact that they are not Lydia or one of perhaps the top 10 players who can make a boring sound extremely interesting because they are damn good.

[i]"More knobs (or presets) allow perhaps more variation and combinations, but are they (musically) useful and so needed?" - Thierry[/i]

"(musically) useful" - the meaning of this will depend on who one talks to.. but sticking to classical Theremins for the moment.. Having a preset for each Theremin that has been popular (RCA, Moog, Tvox, perhaps even Theremax and Jaycar etc..) with a few knobs assigned to emulate the knobs of these instruments, would surely be desirable to a Thereminist, even if not strictly 'needed' - At present, if you want the tones available on a Tvox and perhaps some of the E-Pro presets, and a genuine RCA sound, you will be spending a lot of money and waiting a long time to acquire the instruments ... <<< PLEASE NOTE - This is hypothetical, and I AM NOT saying that I am designing an instrument capable of accurate emulation of every Theremin!!! >>>

[i]" think we will be falling back on the question if the theremin was to see as an individual instrument or as a synth-like device. - .. As an individual instrument it should rather have its individual and recognizable tonal character." Thierry[/i]

I would agree IF in order to achieve a tone pallet which included tones more usually found in 'synth-like' devices one got rid of the individual character of the Theremin - But I cannot see how expanding the tone palette would detract from a Theremin UNLESS the only sounds you could get would be 'synthesiser' sounds, and it became a "Synth with antenna".. This is the general CV route, but it is possible to make a "real" Theremin with voltage controlled modules - I understand there are a couple of Moog (Big Briar) Theremins that work in this way and do not use heterodyning (I would love to know more about these...)

I will probably regret blabbing this next bit, but it is so difficult to explain without playing "open hand"..What I am looking at is not primarily voltage control or analogue synthesizer technology in the normal way, it is complex pre-heterodyning wave shaping.. I have everything to do any wave shape on both the reference and variable oscillators.. All the wave-shaping parameters are voltage controlled, so (for each oscillator) there is a voltage to control shape mixing, a voltage to control pulse width, a voltage for filter cut-off, and voltage controlled modulation mixing to each of these ... I could have a knob for each of these voltages - this would be 18+ k

I don't need a lot of sound shaping, i just want a good sounding, playable theremin. If i need it sound more like a violin, cello or bass, well I'll play it one of those (all which I own, and play)

When it come to the theremin, I'm a traditionalist, that doesn't mean I'm not interested in your final design, and well order one when available.

Andy

Traditional instruments are acoustic-mechanical devices that have a defined tone and timbre that has been established over many decades, if not centuries. To radically alter their design and/or materials would essentially create a different instrument.

The theremin is a purely electronic instrument. In the modern era, we know this offers the possibility of many different options. While some prefer a theremin with a timbre similar to a violin or cello, their theremin will never sound exactly like a violin or cello no matter who is playing it. That is where, I believe, the uniqueness of the theremin lies.

Every maker and every player of the theremin has their own preferences as to what their theremin should sound like. It is inappropriate and foolhardy for any one person (even Lydia Kavina) to proclaim their opinion and taste to be “the one, true” theremin sound.

It would be equally foolhardy for a manufacturer to cater to such a narrowly defined group of potential customers.

My personal opinion is that a theremin should have its unique characteristic sound/voice/timbre and allow to vary it in the same consistent manner as a violin player varies the sound of his violin by choosing strings of a specific material or using a muffler etc. This gives a variety without suppressing the original character. Theremins from different manufacturers should have different characteristic sounds compared to the different sounds of a Stradivari or a Guarnieri violin so that the player has the choice between different instruments so he may find the one which matches his ideas.

I'm not convinced that a theremin should "emulate" the voices of other theremins or other instruments. A Yamaha Clavinova will produce something which is near to the Boesendorfer grand piano sound, but it will never be the real voice. Same thing for a theremin. So why not allow different theremins from different producers to have different, but characteristic voices instead of an infinity of emulations which tends to kill this theremin's individuality?

But that's my personal opinion for the moment. A Skywave prototype with 18 knobs in my hands may change it, but admit that I'm not sure.

I agree that a theremin will never sound exactly like any particular acoustic instrument (I recall reading somewhere that Lev was aiming for something akin to a musical saw sound.)

Neither will it sound exactly like some other make of theremin.

But these are useful descriptors to convey an idea of the general location in timbral space that a particular theremin voice occupies.


I think what is important is to use a timbre which is appropriate to the music you are playing.


(*) NB Jeff - I don't think you meant to infer that Lydia Kavina in particular has made pronouncements along the lines you suggest. AFAIK, she hasn't, but, as always, I am open to correction.

[i]"I'm not convinced that a theremin should "emulate" the voices of other theremins or other instruments. A Yamaha Clavinova will produce something which is near to the Boesendorfer grand piano sound, but it will never be the real voice. Same thing for a theremin." - Thierry[/i]

I believe the difference between a Clavinova's "emulation" of a Boesendorfer grand piano sound, versus a Theremin "emulating" another Theremin is huge.. I do not believe it is possible to COMPLETELY emulate an accoustic instrument electronically.. The mere physical aspects - resonances in the cabinet / toneboard etc, the locale of the output sounds and harmonics, the effect of the players non-obvious interaction with the mechanical components... Emulation is good - but it is not (and I think probably never can be) perfect.

However - I do believe it would be within the realms of possibility and even achievability to make a Theremin which created tones IDENTICAL to OTHER THEREMINS - simply because both are electronic instruments producing waveforms which can be analysed and duplicated, and the number of factors which define the tone (which are [b]far[/b] simpler than what one gets from even the simplest accoustic instrument) can be broken down and rebuilt identically.

I think of electronic instruments as electronic instruments, not as a way to 'copy' accoustic instrument .. with a sufficient number and diversity of modules it is possible to produce the sound of ANY [b]ELECTRONIC[/b] musical instrument (with the exception of those based on recordings of accoustic instrument - Mellotron, samplers, and all wavetable synthesis based on samples - Where one would also need these recordings / samples .. and thats cheating anyway! :-).

Once again, just for clarity, I must state that the above is hypothetical, and may bear no relationship to what I am actually working on! :-)

Thierry wrote:

My personal opinion is that a theremin should have its unique characteristic sound/voice/timbre and allow to vary it in the same consistent manner as a violin player varies the sound of his violin by choosing strings of a specific material or using a muffler etc. This gives a variety without suppressing the original character.

*********************

All of Lev Termen's original theremin prototypes had tone controls on them, as did the custom instruments he made for Clara Rockmore and Lucie Rosen.

The RCA, on the other hand, was not provided with tone controls because including them would have cost more money and made what was already an expensive instrument ($500.00 in 1930 was a lot of moola) even more costly.

The owners of RCA's who wanted to have control over tone back in the old days, had other options. I own the RCA (and speaker) that belonged to Julius Goldberg, Leon Theremin's assistant. The speaker consists of a 10 inch vintage Jensen with a tweeter nested inside it. A knob on the back of the speaker cabinet shunts the signal in varying degrees to either the large or the small speaker changing the sound completely.

Back in the old days, this was probably a much simpler way to control tone than building switches into the instrument itself.

For modern theremins, I believe makers should build in as many tone options as possible so the musician can decide on what he or she wants. Clara Rockmore's theremin had tone controls but she used only one of them and never changed the setting.

vonbuck says: "i just want a good sounding, playable theremin. If i need it sound more like a violin, cello or bass, well I'll play it one of those (all which I own, and play)"

What may be a "good sounding" theremin for vonbuck may not be so great for someone else. The only way to satisfy everyone is to offer as many options as possible .

I think the modeling concept might have some merit for some.

Guitar effects attempt to use digital signal processing techniques (DSP) to mimic the sound of a particular guitar, a particular speaker cabinet, a particular amplifier, a particular type of reverberation, etc. in various combinations. These have varying degrees of success, since the operating point the designer chose to use may not have been what you would have chosen. But these things do provide some interesting coloration to the instrument's tone.

Applying a similar DSP approach to theremins might be of interest to those who can't afford to have a whole collection of different theremin types, but who desire to mimic the sound of them with what they do have.

Pre-mixer timbre effects are probably the least explored avenue for theremin design so far. Fred has some very interesting ideas there.

Don