Golem Poseidon 4 theremin for sale

Posted: 6/1/2013 5:46:22 PM
QuestionMan

Joined: 5/26/2013

Dear forum members

 

I bought myself a theremin with only one antenna. They are much cheaper than a theremin with also a volume-antenna. I just bought it for fun, to see how the theremin works and now I would like to buy a larger theremin. Therefore I'm selling this first theremin, to use the money for my larger theremin.

The one I sell is a Golem Instruments Poseidon 4. I'm going to buy a Golem Instruments Aphrodite.

Name your price, but you must know it's almost brand new. Everything looks fine, as good as new!

If someone is interested, they can contact me at theremin123@hotmail.com or in this forum. I will check this site daily in the first few weeks, but after then you might want to mail me instead of answering in the threat.

The theremin must be shipped from Belgium.

 

http://imageshack.us/a/img5/4190/theremin1.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img829/5546/theremin2.jpg

 

Like I said, please name your price via mail or forum.

Thank you :-)

 

Posted: 6/2/2013 10:50:38 AM
Thierry

From: Colmar, France

Joined: 12/31/2007

I allow a modest warning, though, since I had already several theremins made by Golem in my hands and in my repair shop. These instruments are NOT AT ALL suited for the classical or precision player. There is no coherent tone spacing, linearity (which linearity?) is more than poor. These instruments have theoretically a huge pitch range of up to 9 octaves and many knobs to fiddle around but it is impossible to set up the pitch field to have at least more than one octave with decent (and thus precisely playable) spacing between the tones. 

This is IMHO due to the fact that all the GOLEM instruments are based on the digital variant of the so-called Glasgow-Theremin, the result of a theoretical paper, published many years ago by the university of Glasgow, which was a description of a digital concept where the signals of simple and unstable CMOS RC oscillators undergo frequency to voltage conversion before being fed into a simple one-chip function generator of the 2206 type. Musical needs are nowhere respected in this circuit, the poor response of the RC-oscillators is directly transmitted by the V/Hz-style f-to-V conversion and fed into the generator chip without any linearization or exponential correction.

In my eyes, the Poseidon 4 is a cheap experimental toy which sells for 99€ and isn't even worth that. The statements on the Golem website "pure sine wave, even in the deep bass range", "extended pitch range from 100 to 18000Hz", "On the idea of the Glasgow-Theremin were developed several models to the current models ..." show that these noise generators have been designed by technicians which haven't ever talked to professional thereminists to see what are the needs of a true musician.

I was several times in the uncomfortable situation where people came to see me with their Golem theremins and wanted me to "fix it" or to "make it playable". After spending hours of analyzing that stuff, I finished always up replying: "Get rid of it and buy a true theremin, a Moog or a Subscope".

Posted: 6/2/2013 12:16:32 PM
FredM

From: Eastleigh, Hampshire, U.K. ................................... Fred Mundell. ................................... Electronics Engineer. (Primarily Analogue) .. CV Synths 1974-1980 .. Theremin developer 2007 to present .. soon to be Developing / Trading as WaveCrafter.com . ...................................

Joined: 12/7/2007

" due to the fact that all the GOLEM instruments are based on the digital variant of the so-called Glasgow-Theremin" - Thierry

Really ? Someone actually got a "Glasgow theremin" to "work" and put it into production ?!?!

- And they are actually managing to get people to buy these ????

I thought there were few things left in the world of theremins which would surprise me - but the above really does surprise me! - Why would anyone choose the "Glasgow" to manufacture? There are cheaper ways to equivalent or superior rubbish - ways which give something usable even at 99€

What is it about the "Glasgow theremin/s" design that attract so much attention? - It must be one of the most useless theremin designs to ever have been published - Useless as a theremin, useless and badly designed in terms of electronics, barely even good enough for proof-of-concept  - And the technical "paper" is just about as useless.. A student project which should have remained within Glasgow university to avoid causing people to question  the "quality" of graduates coming from this institution.

But it seems alas that the "university thesis" status has led many people to think it is a competent project - IT ISNT! - ITS RUBBISH!!

Fred.

Posted: 6/2/2013 2:25:36 PM
Thierry

From: Colmar, France

Joined: 12/31/2007

Fred, you won't believe it, but have a look on their website...

Posted: 6/3/2013 1:06:50 AM
FredM

From: Eastleigh, Hampshire, U.K. ................................... Fred Mundell. ................................... Electronics Engineer. (Primarily Analogue) .. CV Synths 1974-1980 .. Theremin developer 2007 to present .. soon to be Developing / Trading as WaveCrafter.com . ...................................

Joined: 12/7/2007

"Fred, you won't believe it, but have a look on their website..." - Thierry

What really frightens me is that its not only "theremins" they are/were involved with.. they also make (or made) instruments for industrial applications.

This is the one thing which usually keeps me calm when I look at some of the rubbish put out by theremin manufacturers - the knowledge that, at the end of the day, its not really important - provided the device is not dangerous, its failure or poor performance may cause some embarrasment and dissapointment, and some poor musician may wast their money on it - but in terms of "importance" it cannot be compared to a car or even a controller for traffic lights!

But when you get companies with technicians who are unable to see that a circuit like the "Glasgow" is rubbish, and who are so ignorant that they even advertise that they are using this design as their core.. well, the idea that these same technicians perhaps worked on something of importance - Yikes! Fills me with horror!

Fred.

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