NEW UK DESIGNED & BUILT THEREMIN with volume loop & pitch rod etc

Firstly, I'd like to say I have no connection with this company other than having bought one with my hard earned as I liked the look/sound of it and it was UK made. So this is just my view, OK?

First viewing I had was when trawling through eBay as you do looking at theremin related items. It's known as the LV-3 theremin. Neat, small case, 3 variable control knobs; line out volume/mute, volume loop control including distortion effect if required and pitch antenna field of course.

Can be 9v battery powered too as well as powered by the optional A/C to 9volt transformer which is good. I am playing around with mine & have it set up through a battery powered effects pedal (Zoom G1XNext) and 9 volt battery powered Mini Amps (Marshall MS-4 or an MS-2). Have a video camera bag I also bought on eBay that takes all the kit and even has a pair of straps external to the case that takes the folding mic stand which was originally for a camera tripod use I think. Trying to make a totally portable, non external power supply theremin rig. Think I'm almost there!!!

I have slight issues with these non grounded mini amps which alter the pitch field but have got just enough pitch field alteration available to be able to compensate for this and I have tested/used a wrist strap and grounding lead to the audio lead which puts it all back into the usual frame of reference. Fantastic bass response etc.

http://www.lostvolts.com/

Works out at about $163 inc. a 110 power supply delivered to your address in the States. Seems good value to me. Have to say I like the sound quality. OK, the sound is compromised through mini amps but through my grounded Ultracoustic Behringer ACX450 it's superb. The Mini Amps sound is the price you pay for a TOTALLY portable battery operated rig, but it's still not bad.

There is a YOU TUBE review here by Mr T Grillo esquire.

Hi Chris,

Yep - Its been discussed here at TW: Theremin Review Series. How do you like it? Does it behave differently (in terms of playability) when battery powered and connected to a battery amp than when connected to a grounded system?

Also, there seemed to be quite a lot of thermal drift (need to retune) - Do you find this?

Fred.

Hi Chris,

Yep - Its been discussed here at TW: Theremin Review Series. How do you like it? Does it behave differently (in terms of playability) when battery powered and connected to a battery amp than when connected to a grounded system?

Also, there seemed to be quite a lot of thermal drift (need to retune) - Do you find this?

Fred.

OOOHHH, missed that posting of Theremin Review Series. Sorry lads and lasses. As it was hidden in the area of "Theremin General" I thought this was a Hospital !!!

Does it behave differently on a battery operated mini amp? Sure does. Pitch field alters (although can be brought back into normal playable field OK). The drift? Only noticed that when a 'cold' unit is warming up so just like my Moog EW modified. About 15 - 20 minutes max to stabilise it and maybe five to eight minutes to be playable but a slight change until that 15 - 20 minute mark. I like it a lot. Annoys me I can't get that nice rich deep sound that the LV-3 has out of my Moog Etherwave 'Maritime'.

Why Maritime? Well it does bl%dy good whale and dolphin impressions!!!!!!

"About 15 - 20 minutes max to stabilise it and maybe five to eight minutes to be playable but a slight change until that 15 - 20 minute mark."  - ChrisC

I'm kind of surprised at this amount of warm-up time for a solid state device.  This is why I think it is good design practice to keep Theremin circuit currents to a minimum.

Chris, could you comment on the pitch field?  Is it overly cramped?  Non-linear?  Is there a particular null point that seems most linear?  Is the pitch adjustment knob overly touchy?

The thing that intrigues me the most about this Theremin is the timbre change with volume, it sounds almost vocal.

"About 15 - 20 minutes max to stabilise it and maybe five to eight minutes to be playable but a slight change until that 15 - 20 minute mark."  - ChrisC

I'm kind of surprised at this amount of warm-up time for a solid state device.  This is why I think it is good design practice to keep Theremin circuit currents to a minimum.

Chris, could you comment on the pitch field?  Is it overly cramped?  Non-linear?  Is there a particular null point that seems most linear?  Is the pitch adjustment knob overly touchy?

The thing that intrigues me the most about this Theremin is the timbre change with volume, it sounds almost vocal.

Dewster.

I did not find the pitch field cramped at all, except in the highest 2 octaves. There is no null for linearity. It’s progressively non-linear no matter what the field width is. Now to all you technically perfect lads and lasses used to Moog Pro's etc then you might find this slight non linearity a nuisance/hard-to-live-with/impossible, but as a rank amateur I find I can enjoy myself with the certain tunes I play for my own amusement quite well. I might add, I even find it easier than my Moog EWM....... so make of it what you will. For the equivalent of $163 including the 110v power supply and delivered to your door Stateside I think it remarkable value for money. Can't say that about much these days eh?

" For the equivalent of $163 including the 110v power supply and delivered to your door Stateside I think it remarkable value for money. Can't say that about much these days eh?" - Chris

Complete agreement with you on this! - For a reasonable theremin with volume control, it is a remarkable price! ... It should kick those 3 transistor pitch-only rip-off boards off the market!

" As it was hidden in the area of "Theremin General" I thought this was a Hospital !!!"

LOL ;-) .. I almost never notice where things are posted - just go to "recent posts" and read the lot.. (or at least most..) If it had been in "theremin amps" I probably wouldnt have noticed it though.. ;-)

Fred.

A little digging around led me to finding that lostvolts.com is the same guy as 

http://nixietubeclocks.co.uk/ 

It's digital clocks with the numbers displayed in vacuum tubes. They're neat. :-)

"About 15 - 20 minutes max to stabilise it and maybe five to eight minutes to be playable but a slight change until that 15 - 20 minute mark."  - ChrisC

I'm kind of surprised at this amount of warm-up time for a solid state device.  This is why I think it is good design practice to keep Theremin circuit currents to a minimum. - dewster

I'm surprised about your surprise because I find the same effect with my Etherwave Plus: for the first 5-8 minutes the field varies so much that it can be problematic to play consistently, and for the next 10 minutes or so the field still varies slowly until it stabilizes.

I have never seen that as a defect because it's not a problem if I turn the theremin on for a while before playing so that it warms up (and I have seen people here and elsewhere recommending that). So I have always seen it as something normal, not surprising. Don't other EW theremins exhibit this behavior?

Regardless of model of theremin, I turn mine on early in the morning, and leave it on all day. That way, it's always warmed up when I go to noodle about on it, or work with it. :)

Generally, smaller theremins warm up faster than larger ones. Depending on enclosures, circuit design, ect, stability can vary with each model. Tube theremins, and ones with at least one coil can be affected by temperature changes more than total solid state theremins.

"Don't other EW theremins exhibit this behavior?" -AIK

I cannot speak for Moog EW's .. All I can say is that the oscillators with EQ coils (Bourns) that I have built to the EW design for inspection / evaluation, have been incredibly stable with settling time well below 5 minutes.

I suppose the major difference is that I have always had these as open boards - But I have run a test with a fixed NOP capacitor replacing the antenna, and had the board in an oven from 25C to 40C, and drift was below average (I looked for my test results but alaas, I never put these into my PC, so they are in one of my many notebooks somewhere)

To be honest, for a long time I was fighting my impulse to just use the EW oscillators in my designs - they were great..

However - To be honest, I am not sure that the good results came from the standard EW circuit.. I think they did, but I did replace the transistors with a transistor array (CA 3083) on all the boards I can find - In my head I have this idea that I found no major difference in performance using transistors or an array, but that replacing the emitter resistor with a CCG using a transistor in this array did improve something.. Alas, all this was done many years ago, and unless I find my notes, I will need to do the tests again to be sure.

Whatever - I do think the EW is one of the best low-cost theremin oscillators available.. I do wish someone would publish details of Moogs other theremin oscillators (E-Pro and / or E-Vox in particular) as I understand these are greatly superior to the EW.

IMO, drift is more likely to be the result of temperature change in ferrite inductors than anything else - And as Dewster says, current through these could be a major contributor.

Fred.