Gordon's Progress

Ooh, ooh. I'm so excited.

First of all, I found two more alternatives for theremin to CV. Wavefront Technologies do a theremin to midi/CV (http://theremin.ws/midi.html) box with identical specs to the theremin.co.uk box, and there are mods for CV out in the etherwave hot-rodding manual (http://www.moogmusic.com/manuals/HotRodEtherwav.pdf). The volume CV out is very simple, and the pitch is very complicated. So two more options. The latter would involve finding someone to make the modifications for me, but it seems worth looking into.

And...

Turnkey have a few b-stock etherwaves (http://www.turnkey.co.uk/web/productAction.do?dispatch=showProduct&SKU=BIGB-THEREMIN&context=BSTOCK&make=By%20Bob%20Moog&model=Etherwave) at a third off RRP.

They have one less now. Hurrah for credit cards.

Good going, Gordon.

I can assume that we will soon see a post comparing the two.

I have thought about the Wavfront convertor but I am still kind of partial to the Blue Chip Technologies Axon 100 because I can run the bass through it but I am still in the early shopping phase.

Ultimately I would like to have the theremin control the volume of some string/pad types of synth patches while bass controls the notes.

Thay way I could play the thing and lean into or out of the field to bring up the sappy strings in the background...

Nice price on the upgrade! Congrats.

Welcome Kirk. This conversation has been really interesting. I've learned a lot about analog synths over the last few days. Now I really need to find the time to play with my Egon and get it working with my Kees (and maybe the bass too.) It has a CV input built in.

Cheers!

Er, which two? The midi/cv converters? Easy. Same specs. Probably very similar circuitry. Both made by theremin makers. Wavefront $475 (i.e. £250), theremin.co.uk £399 (i.e. $750.) Tough choice, eh.

Damn. I so prefer supporting local guys.

The theremins? Already done that. Both have similar pitch antennae, the etherwave is better equipped in the volume department when it comes to expressive playing, the Kees has a lovely soft tone that's rather muddy in the bass and a brassy second tone that's more like the etherwave but not quite as nice and nothing in-between - it's a switch not a knob. Whereas the etherwave has two knobs to vary the tone that don't really do all that much in comparison. The Kees is more sensitive to environmental conditions and the etherwave is a touring machine that comes with free DVDs (that I might even be able to play if they aren't regionalised, fingers crossed) and a more stable field that doesn't take fifteen minutes to warm up. And it comes with a book of comprehensive documentation and useful mods, all the way up to CV out. But the Kees does have an output volume control knob so I can turn it down and not have my delay boxes go all crackly at near full volume, unlike the etherwave, which did. Serves me right for buying budget boxes, I guess. But it does mean I either ought to do the reduce-the-output-levels mod, or install a volume control.



So I'm not going to do either. If it turns out to be a problem in practice I'll buy me a cheap volume pedal like is recommended for one-stickers. Not just because it avoids tampering with the innards, but because it's well away from the control zones and does not require my hands. Which is an added bonus. It means if I come to play a piece with loud passages and quiet passages (I'm sure you classical bods can name plenty, personally I'm thinking of Björk's It's Oh So Quiet) I can turn it down for the quiet bits and get the benefit of the complete volume field for expression, rather than limiting myself to the bottom three centimetres. Neat?

Of course there is the slight problem of my lack of experience with pedals. Would this (http://www.behringer.com/FCV100/index.cfm?lang=ENG) be suitable?

The other minor fly in the ointment was that during negotiations with my "financial advisor" (hey, you try marrying someone who was a buyer and got promoted to auditor because she was too assertive as a buyer for IBM's taste, and is currently extracting bad debts out of local government with ease, and stood up in a crowded conference to explain the business facts of life to the Secretary of State for Health and generally give her a well deserved and justifiable grilling, damn, I love that woman) mention was made of putting my Kees on eBay, which I am rather loathe to do, but on the other hand I've got some pretty good samples of what it is capable of on mySpace and, who knows, someone keen to get hold of one might pay over the odds rather than wait for Kees to open his shop to take a few more orders.

So hey ho! I know "previously owned by Beat Frequency" doesn't have quite the same ring as "previously owned by The Polyphonic Spree"; but I can be utterly shameless when called upon. :-)

Oh and Diggy, I'd ask Wavefront how well it works with more complicated waveforms, and Blue Chip how well theirs works with long glisses if I were in a similar situation.

Personally I'm liking the idea of modding the etherwave more and more. The CV out for volume is three resistors and a capacitor. You don't need a fancy envelope follower if you get to the signal just before it enters the amplifier, just something tweak the signal a bit to get it to VC standard voltages and amperage or whatever, and I wouldn't be surprised if the pitch circuitry is the same, or very similar, to that of the ePro, and it gets the signal before it hits the amplifier and the filters and stuff that reshape the signal to moo

I found a bijou reviewlet of the wavefront theremin-midi/cv on the moog forums. (I figured if I'm buying one of their products I ought to have a look at their forums. Saw a few familiar names there. Hi guys.)

http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2655

It's from James Spitznagel of The Bemus Point who featured on Spellbound recently (August 20, 2006.) Basically he says he's using it for midi rather than CV, there is no perceptible latency, it does what you expect it to do, you might have to alter your playing style a little to get the best out of it and also WOW!

Time to vent on an evening's frustrating browsing...

My etherwave, which should arrive on Monday, is going to overpower my delay boxes. So I was going to get a volume pedal. See above for justification.

People post "oh, use a foot pedal" when asked about one-stickers, so I naïvely imagined this might be a simple, inexpensive matter. All it needs is one line-in and one line-out, after all.

Total cost for the cheapest I could find that fits that description, the VOX V850, inc. VAT & p+p, 73 pounds! More than the pitch only theremins people suggest them for. Madness!

So keep on looking, the cheapest I have found of anything that will do the job, and it wasn't easy, is the Behringer FCV100 (http://www.behringer.com/FCV100/index.cfm?lang=ENG), and the best price I can find for it is £26.99 + £6 p+p (at Digital Village), and for that I get four sockets of the right type, so I could do stereo or two instruments, which I don't need and it will double as a CV controller which admittedly fits my long term plans but I don't actually need right now.

And it requires a 12V power supply. With my effects pedals that has been easy - I just bought a power supply by the same manufacturer. Behringer don't appear to make a 12V 50 ma power supply as specified in the manual, and the retailer, Digital Village, don't appear to sell one. So now I've got to find one, heading the warning in the manual that "a wrong power adaptor may damage the unit."

And the review (http://www.guitarplayer.com/story.asp?sectioncode=6&storycode=5860&featurecode=28) I read says "Concerns: Noisy. Appreciable level and tone sucking. Some mechanical noise."

Ugh! Time to revise that plan, methinks. Or am I just looking in all the wrong places?

[Edit] Apparently I am. Quiklok make cheap passive pedals that gets lots of stars in customer reviews for around $30 (£15.78) before shipping in the US. But they don't sell them in the UK. Which is annoying because they were quite happy for me to have one of their mike stands. So all I have to do now is find a US company that stock them and ship internationally.

Getting the hang of modular synthesis is going to be a doddle in comparison to buying a darned volume pedal!

Guys, save me figuring out one question for myself. Do I want one that is rated for guitars or keyboards? (I'm guessing keyboards because of the high output levels of the etherwave.)

"I was walkin' down the beach
it was blowin' a gale
and I saw this hippy
savin' a whale...

So I give him 'eadbutt"

Lyrics to a song I remember vaguely from ages ago. And amazingly, google turns up nothing!

The chorus, by the way, was "pork-pie hat/ cop a load of that/ these are clothes/ to be seen dead in."

That's as much as I recall.

The point being, a fun little number called "The Hippy And The Whale."

Very simple. Couple of nice long echoes on the delay boxes, and, well, you know the sinuous, slow motion, "I dropped a couple of tabs of acid and my hands are now so interesting I'm going to watch them intently as they move around in the imaginary breeze like a lava lamp for the next hour or so" dance, carefully arranged so my left hand dips in and out of the volume field and the right hand wanders around the lower registers (mostly) of the pitch field.

Very relaxing. Very, very relaxing. Made me want to strap a joss stick or two to the pitch antenna, buy an oil wheel projector and spend some time with DiggyDog's brother.

Almost the perfect cure for severe "my-etherwave-is-coming-and-I'm-going-to-explode-with-anticipation" syndrome.

There are some better cures, but this is a family friendly forum. :-)

The saga of the volume pedal continues. On Saturday I found a Boss FV50L (very suitable but a bit costly to buy from a shop) on eBay, auction ending Sunday evening, good opening price, 0 bids. Left it until the last desperate minute, still no bids, put in my bid and got immediately out-bid. Too late for another bid. Ugh. Some people find this exciting - my wife, for instance. I don't. It's just stressful and irritating. And I hate the way eBay looks. If mySpace is the low rent zone, eBay is the local flea market. They should get together and form meBayce - to rhyme with

debase /di[i]bayss[/i]/

  • [i]verb[/i] lower the quality, value, or character of.

So, while I was on eBay, I looked around, and found the European equivalent to the Quiklok pedal - the Bespeco VM14L - being sold by "purple turtle music." Googled Bespeco and found a website for the UK distributor (it's an Italian company.)

Cut to today. I'm home and waiting for my etherwave to be delivered. Rang the number on the distributor site. It's a fax machine, despite claims to the contrary. Hunted. Found another number. Apparently they've just changed distributor. The new one doesn't deal with the public. Suggests I go to my local music store - Hooters, one of the companies they supply.

As it happens I was in Hooters on Saturday checking my facts. Yes, it's the right sort of pedal, and no, they don't stock them - no demand. No hint of ordering one in. I'd rather go mail order.

So the distributor suggests a mail order company. Phone permanently engaged. Back to purple turtle. Found a website for them outside of eBay. Number at top of website is wrong. Found another number. Finally spoke to a nice, venerable lady. Yes, they stock them. No, they don't have any in but they get deliveries quite often although distribution has been a bit chaotic of late. Left my number. Mike, who knows about these things, will call me this afternoon.

All I want is a $%^@ing inexpensive volume pedal. Is that so much to ask?

Oh, one good thing from my trip to Watford. Woolworth's had an adult size skeleton suit reduced to 10 pounds. Bought it. It fits and the bones fluoresce under UV. Perfect! I'm set for my Halloween gig.

Also, while I've been filling in time phoning people - established that I should hear back from the proposed venue for Hands Off on about the 2nd or 3rd of October, after it has been to the board of directors, and will be seeing Diana Mavroleon re: Resonance FM on the 3rd of October. So everything is progressing, albeit slowly.

Also, whilst talking to Diana I kind of committed to a gig. Date and venue not settled yet, but it's a benefit to help her recoup her losses from the Valley festival where I played previously, and Ninki V has also committed, so I just couldn't say no. "Beat Frequency" will be named on the poster. Another first for me. :-)

Final note. Have been practising playing stroke based music (i.e. non-melodic) with one hand and one hip. I have this idea that - once I get the pedal sorted out so I can use one of my delay boxes on the etherwave - I can try playing two theremins at once.

That should be fun.

Gordon, http://www.auctionsniper.com/

Really. It'll make your life easier and probably save you money, if you use ebay often. There's even a way to give it a list of similar items to bid on and indicate that you want it to keep bidding on them until it wins one for you, then forget the rest. That way you can have it bid on a bunch of similar items until you get the one that accidentally goes for cheap.

Oh, and in the US, "Hooters" is a topless bar. It makes your message a bit confusing to read until I figured that you're *not* talking about the US.