Moog Music Theremini Reviews

OT.

I liked Fred's example of "toy music" by Piano Man, but I think this might be a better example. 

(From Wikipedia) 

Psapp (/ˈsæp/ or /ˈpsæp/)^[1] is an experimental electronica band. The band, a duo consisting of members Carim Clasmann and Galia Durant, are sometimes credited with inventing a musical style known as toytronica, a form of electronica made with toys and toy instruments (the band uses toy guitars, flutes, and a chicken they named Brunhilda). 

This is the first track off their first EP.

I observe that the different opinions about the Theremini are slowly converging - the more the testers are experienced in the theremin domain, the more their conclusions tend towards the keyword "crap".

But nevertheless, the strategy of Moog Music's marketing vultures has worked: As soon as the first announcements were out, people started talking about, making unwillingly publicity for it. A similar hype as for the new iPhones... Musicians and EEs were stolen very much time which they lost by hunting for details, observing, guessing, simulating, analyzing, thinking, concluding, writing about and discussing the product before it came to market. Shame on all who fell for it!

It seems to be characteristic for our actual times that people tend to loose quickly contact to the ground of reality... Simple announcements create immense and unjustified bubbles, and although most of us have in one or another way suffered from these economic "phenomenons" in the last 20 years, the trick is still working. Isn't that horrible?

What could one learn from that?

a) Listen better to your common sense : The Theremini was the first theremin-like device from Moog Music which was developed without Dr. Bob's loving and experienced handwriting. That alone is an important reason to distrust it, knowing that the company has been taken over by bean counters after Bob passing away.

b) Before paying attention to something, and especially before doing so in public, make sure that the object deserves it. Don't rely on simple announcements and particularly not on incompetent public demonstrations! These should have rather been an early rejection criteria. There are some more or less professional thereminists around there (no, I won't cite names because I'll always forget the one or the other) whom Moog Music could have contacted in an early stage for tests, optimisations, and demonstrations. They didn't, which allowed to conclude that they weren't really interested in serious amateur, semi- or professional thereminists as potential buyers. Since they seem to have turned away from "us", why should "we" pay attention to their product?

c) Do some simple computation: The Etherwave Standard which sells for $400 is a simple working horse, but nothing exceptional. A kind of VW beetle. Seen that the Theremini sells for less, offers a lot of additional (and IMO mostly useless) functionality, there is obviously no budget left for musicality. Thus it was totally unrealistic to expect "something better"...

For me, the future "strategy" with new products in the theremin market is clear: Wait and see... A developer of a new product, might they already be known in the community or not, will have to cooperate with one or more professionals (of different music and playing styles) to present their product. If they don't, they don't deserve my attention, too. Small parenthesis: When I had developed the EPVM1345 module for the EPro in 2008, I had sent out a few to professional thereminists (among others Peter Pringle, Randy George, Carolina Eyck) for testing without having fixed a retail price yet. Only after they had installed it and they were more than satisfied, I started the "public" selling. And what I got paid from my testers for the modules on a voluntary base exceeded the later retail price...

A German proverb says "Paper is patient", thus I'll continue to not to care about unsubstantiated product announcements. I'll systematically not care about "low end" products, either, there are already enough in the market. Progress is theoretically only made when orienting towards the top. And as long as competitors do not target the deserted market in the tVox, EPro, Ethervox, etc. class, and be it even at more friendly prices thanks to cheaper components available today, they aren't to be taken into account.

Amen / Hugh

please select what seems more appropriate to your traditions ;-)

Hi Gordon.

Many thanks for posting that Psapp track - Its lovely IMO, and I had never heard of "toytronica" before - absolutely astounding what musicians can produce! - And I have no doubt that with enough effort and imagination, the theremini could be used as a sound source by some creative musician and produce some lovely piece of music (either to my ears or to someone Else's).

But I think there is something of a difference - Psapp is taking simple toy acoustic instruments and manipulating these sounds electronically - in this context, the main "musical instrument" is the recording studio, not the toys IMO - I think the concept of the "studio" as a "musical instrument" probably goes back to the earliest "Musique concre'te" days or perhaps a little later, and certainly was fully operational by the time of the Beatles "Abby Road" album.

Even without "electronica" simple instruments - "toys" if one chooses to call them that, in the hands of musical people, can produce amazing music - My main experience of this was in S.Africa, where I listened to many bands in impoverished townships who made incredible music using instruments built scavenged rubbish - nail pianos, basses using tea chests, beaten hubcaps for steel drums, wind instruments made from drain pipes.. complemented by the occasion "real" instrument musicians had found and repaired... And of course their incredible voices!

To me, the difference is that the use of "toys" was a necessity imposed on the musicians by their poverty - no one ever regarded their instrument as "professional" and there was no pretension - Some instruments were "produced" and sold - mainly nail pianos - but no one was under any illusion about what they were selling or what they were buying.

The theremini, on the other hand, is being sold as a professional musical instrument - but IMO is probably no more  "professional" or useful musically than a well built nail piano.. It is also being sold as a theremin, and to me, this is like selling a nail piano and trying to say its comparable to a real piano.

Sure, some musicians with enough imagination and time and creativity and a studio to edit and manipulate the sounds and composition would be able to use the theremini to good effect, just as they could use a Heathkit signal generator to good effect.

Hi Thierry

I agree with almost everything you say above wholeheartedly, and the rest less wholeheartedly ;-)

"But nevertheless, the strategy of Moog Music's marketing vultures has worked" - I agree with your sentiment and the word "vultures" (or at least this is one possibility - the other is just utter incompetence) , but am not sure it has "worked" - I think only time will reveal this - If enough people return the crap and are not fooled (after trying the instrument) into believing its an "instrument" (let alone a theremin) but realize that they've been conned into buying a toy, the vultures may get bones stuck in their throat.

"Do some simple computation: The Etherwave Standard which sells for $400 is a simple working horse, but nothing exceptional. A kind of VW beetle. Seen that the Theremini sells for less, offers a lot of additional (and IMO mostly useless) functionality, there is obviously no budget left for musicality. Thus it was totally unrealistic to expect "something better"..."

I dont see this as a "watertight" test - IMO, the EW is overpriced (particularly as its manufacturer does not even seem to take any care about optimal tuning of the instrument prior to shipping.. If the instruments were lovingly calibrated at the factory, the time required to do this might go some way to justifying its price)..

But if anything, the fact that Moog can sell the theremini at its price and make a profit on this says more about the extortionate price they are charging for the EW than anything else.. If there was any kind of parity, even accounting for lower volume and (?) greater technician time, the EW should NOW be priced the same or less than the theremini price.

Technology has moved on since 1996 when the original EW (EM) design was published - 18 years is a long time - and I believe that Moog Inc could produce an updated theremin with some additional features and simpler factory calibration, and put these into cheap enclosures (as the theremini) and larger production run (as the theremini) and been selling a good theremin at the same price as the theremini... One look at the complexity of the theremini and IMO one can see that its far more expensive in terms of components than the EW - The only possible cost saving may be lack of any manual trimming compared to the EW - the 'expensive' components on the EW (the inductors) pale into insignificance compared to the additional costs the theremini components / boards / display etc must have cost... As I see it, they could probably have produced a low-end E-Pro for the cost of the theremini if they had chosen to go this direction.

With regard to your (as I see it) primary criticism - on this matter, and this alone, I disagree:

"As soon as the first announcements were out, people started talking about, making unwillingly publicity for it. A similar hype as for the new iPhones... Musicians and EEs were stolen very much time which they lost by hunting for details, observing, guessing, simulating, analyzing, thinking, concluding, writing about and discussing the product before it came to market. Shame on all who fell for it!"

If we had not gone "hunting for details" the details would only have come to light well down the line (and some issues, without the detective work, might never have come to light, and been a mysterious annoyance to those using a 'feature' such as CV)   - People who wanted to buy a theremini to control their analogue synths would never have had any way of knowing that the theremini was unsuitable for this, those who were led astray by Moog's deception regarding the theremini's heterodyning voice' would not have had the truth revealed to them - Issues such as latency and linearity and vulnerability to ESD would not have been exposed.

"b) Before paying attention to something, and especially before doing so in public, make sure that the object deserves it. "

This may be valid at one level - but alas, if serious (critical) evaluation / investigation is not undertaken at an early stage by persons who are unbiased and technical, the only people talking about the product will be those who ignorantly expound the bullshit put out by the 'vultures' .. By the time the product is on the market, there is a massive pile of positive publicity already on the WWW... Fine if the product is good, but not fine if its really crap like a theremini!  ;-

By getting in "early" at least when potential purchasers search for "theremini" they will now get another side to the story from some posts at TW.. The following were entered into google, for the first 3 searches TW was at the top of the list (1) and the others second down (2) and 4th down (4):

theremini linearity (1)
theremini latency (1)
theremini reliability (1)
theremini playability (2)
theremini CV (4)

But apart from all the above, it is natural anyway for those interested in theremins to want to examine any new product that appears, to "unwrap" the details and explore any "mysteries" be this a theremin from Moog or some open-source project or something from an obscure newcomer to the market - Those with a technical inclination are likely to do this at a technical level, and musicians are likely to give even more useful feedback from actually playing the 'instrument' .. But musical taste is more subjective - technical evaluation is the "bone structure" on which primary operation depends.

Like it or lump it, that is what some of us here at TW feed on and hopefully learn from. I feel absolutely no shame about this, and think the only "shame" perhaps should be directed at those who try to limit or inhibit or prevent this healthy activity... But actually, IMO, any kind of "shame" or direction thereof (on this matter)  is really silly!

======================

But now, for me at least, the exercise has probably run its course - There may be some technical details  we have not accurately guessed at, but I doubt much of any real importance remains. For the vast majority of people who have heard - let alone played a real theremin, the theremini is crap.. A few in this group may find it useful in their specific genre, but even they will IMO probably find its faults intollerable. We probably know enough technically about how it "operates" that we can conclude there is nothing of value we can derive from any further investigation - we never learned anything from our investigation except how utterly crap it is and that there's nothing in it that is in any way clever or revolutionary or useful.

For me, it was Ilya who provided the final clincher - That oscillator schematic he produced from Dewsters photograph was the kind of pragmatic investigative engineering which probably told us more than anything else about the "engineering" of the theremini, and utterly confirmed for me that the theremini was crap, right from the antenna onwards.

Fred.

Oh, dear, I am so torn. I get it, guys, the theremin parts with which the theremini is equipped are crap. The linearity is risible. 

And it does't sound like a theremin. Probably would have been better of them to not have put that preset in, and generally avoided using the word theremin at all, ever. It sounds a bit like a Moog synthesiser on the other presets, if you like that sort of thing. 

And the software has latency issues and does nothing to linearise the pitch. And requires attaching to an iPad or similar with software that you would currently have to build yourself with available tools to get the most out of it. 

My problem is, I do like that sort of thing. And as a solo experimental musician I like a broad palette of sounds, theremin and theremin derived sounds, for which I have a theremin and effects, so that's not a problem, and other non-theremin sounds, which I sculpt on the computer, which I feel is an inferior solution to space control. So I'm quite happy for it not to be a theremin as, as I mentioned, I already have one of those. And while I am not in any sense in poverty, I do limit my budget and perhaps conveniently, enjoy working within the constraints that imposes. All of which makes the theremini appealing to me. And probably more fun that a Heathkit signal generator.

So I am not making any decision until I have heard it live and experienced playing the instrument for myself. But before I do, (and it might be a while, which is OK, software could improve over time, a theremini 2 might appear one day with improved circuits, well, you never know, it might, let's be optimistic for a change, the pessimist is always right, sooner or later, but optimists can take disappointment in their stride) I have a question - what can a player do to help with the linearity?

Is it possible to use the set-up routine to ensure a very large playing field of which you use only a section, not too close to the antenna, where compression is worst, and not too close to zero beat, to help with the time it takes the processor to measure the pitch?

"I have a question - what can a player do to help with the linearity?" - Gordon

Probably Nothing.

Sorry Gordon, I think the only way to improve the linearity would be to change the oscillator.. I have been there, I made that mistake, I put an extremely similar oscillator into my Epsilon when I was green behind the ears - I dont fully understand why low antenna voltage so strongly weakens far-field sensitivity or so badly compresses the near field, but I have found that it does.

You might perhaps get some improvement using the calibration in a 'twisted' way - this is pure guess, but I suspect that if you placed your hand quite close to the antenna (30 cm?) when setting the low note, and kept the usable playing field as small as possible, you might get some improvement (????)

If you play Dewsters sweeps (and look at these) you may get some idea about the distance - pitch profile.. There is an area of perhaps 2 octaves AFAICS where usable playing might be possible - this is as near to a complete guess as I can be, but I guess probably between 10cm and 30cm from the antenna - it depends on how close Dewsters hand was to the antenna at the closest point on the sweep.. Bass notes seemed to be extremely stretched, high notes extremely compressed, but a couple of octaves were PERHAPS ok.

Also, somewhere in this thread there was a video where the player was almost managing to get the notes (missing by only a semitone or two ;-) LOL .. may be worth looking at where in the field this occurred...

I know you will get a theremini, and I know you will be utterly frustrated.. It has so much that would be useful to you, but you have a keen 'feel' for fields, and the combination of bad linearity and 'treacle like' latency will drive you nuts! ... When that day comes, pay me a visit - A small breadboard (series LC oscillator - probably Dewsters - not enough area for me to fit one of mine) atop the crap oscillator and a few cut tracks and moved wires should at least give some improvement to the linearity, and this might just be enough to make the instrument usable for your purposes if you can live with the latency.

There is quite a lot of music you produce where latency may not be bothersome - drones etc.. I expect that you will be using these more in the bass registers - With this in mind, I think that increasing the far field sensitivity is what you will need most.

Also, I dont think it likely that the far end response has much to do with the processor - I suspect that the difference frequency even at the far field is quite high (probably well more than 100Hz) .. The problem IMO is likely to be that there is almost no change in the HF oscillator frequency at the far field due to its low antenna voltage and the fact that its crap.

Fred.

Fred, not to worry about me - as I said, I won't be making any decision until I have felt the fields myself, and if I don't like the latency or linearity, the decision will be not to buy.

But people will buy the theremini before they visit the TW forums, and they will be dissppointed. And then they will come here looking for advice. It would be good if we could say more than "sorry, you fell for the marketing, it's a pile of rubbish, there is nothing to be done about it, go away".

i understand what you say about Dewster's sweeps, and that at best there is a 20cm area where the linearity is not completely terrible.

I am guessing that Dewster, and indeed every other person who has tried a theremini, has followed the calibration steps exactly as the manual specifies. I have this thought in my head that won't go away - that a sphere the size of the Earth is no flatter than a golf ball sized sphere, but if you only examine a small section of the surface of an Earth sized sphere - say a circle of diameter 42.67mm (the size of a golf ball), that section will look a lot flatter than a golf ball.

I know what happens when I stand twice as far away from my etherwave as usual when I tune zero beat - I get a pitch field that is twice as large. And when I then move to my normal playing position the pitch field expands and extends beyond me so that I can't play any low notes at all - I have limited myself to only playing treble. But as long as I don't try to play too near the pitch rod I have a fairly linear area with widely spaced notes. Like my Earth/golf ball analogy, a section of a large curve is flatter than the same sized section of a small curve.

I just tried that procedure on my etherwave and I was surprised how effective it was. Wow, I thought, those are some sweet notes I'm hitting! But it isn't a thing I would do regularly, as I am too fond of playing low notes. ;-)

It seems to me that one could do the same with a theremini by "using the calibration in a twisted way" as you put it, and the restriction on not playing low notes would not apply because the pitch is scaled and shifted by the software to whatever you want it to be, two or three low octaves or two or three mid-range or high octaves as a particular piece of music requires.

I'm sure I have explained that badly, but do you see what I'm getting at?

"im sure I have explained that badly, but do you see what I'm getting at?" - Gordon

No, you haven't explained it badly at all - you are a master at picking excellent analogies.

And your observations about tuning the EW null far from the antenna, and getting improved linearity in the near field, is extremely interesting.. It kind of goes along with the  Open Theremin and Dewsters ideas of "offset" tuning.

The EW (particularly one with a well tuned antenna resonator) has a high voltage on the antenna and its series resonator amplifies its sensitivity so that the field can extend a long distance (or at least it is sensitive to capacitance change over a long distance) .. The same is not  true for a parallel oscillator without series resonator if the amplitude on the antenna is limited to the input voltage of a logic gate as with the theremini oscillator - we are talking about the EW electrode (antenna) signal being at least 10x greater than that on a theremini's antenna (I assume maximum 5V supply to the oscillator).

The above probably makes any comparison between EW behavior and theremini behavior void - Also, is the theremini doing "offset" tuning? - most likely it is .. Would this limit the usefulness of this technique if manually implemented on the theremini ? - most likely yes, even if it was possible to expand the field.

But at this time I cannot even guess - I am inclined (strongly) to thinking that there wont be any calibration 'trick' that will go any way to changing the situation, simply because of the crap oscillator - but I might be wrong.

"But people will buy the theremini before they visit the TW forums, and they will be dissppointed. And then they will come here looking for advice. It would be good if we could say more than "sorry, you fell for the marketing, it's a pile of rubbish, there is nothing to be done about it, go away"."

It would be good to find some "fix" - but even if linearity could be made marginally useful over a few octaves, latency will still make the instrument unusable - Sadly, I think the only honest thing we can say to such people will be "sorry, you fell for the marketing, it's a pile of rubbish, there is nothing to be done about it" - You are something of a special case, because you are willing to spend hours on getting what you want, would be willing to get inside and force it to bend to your will, LOL - You have a lot of experience, its possible to communicate with you without first having to teach you what capacitance is or fight off others promoting misleading ideas.

But theremini purchasers ain't (in the main) going to be theremin savvy -

This is one reason IMO for the examination and exposure here being a good thing - Time spent now warning people of potential problems could save loads of future time and ill feeling as people come crying to TW

I personally think TW should have a large banner just under the Theremini add which states "TW does not in any way endorse the Theremini, and offers no support or advice for this toy - the Theremini is not a professional theremin, and there is some doubt about whether it should even be called a theremin".

Those who buy the theremini should go to Moog for help and solutions, or return the instruments to Moog - Moog Inc does not deserve any help or support from the theremin community, or for us to act as any kind of buffer  - THEY have ignored us and exploited us for years - its time for us to tell them to go to hell! - Bob is gone, there are only vultures now ransacking his home, and Thierry (and others)  are right, without Bob, Moog is not Moog - this probably applies more on theremins than anything else, but I wouldnt trust Moog Inc to design even an decent analogue synthesizer anymore after seeing what they've done with CV's recently .

It seems likely that everything from Moog Inc which wasn't designed by Bob Moog will not only be inferior to what Bob designed, but inferior to what any competent designer would design. The less of Bob there is in a Moog product, the more crap it will be - There is nothing of Bob in the theremini.

And IMO, the only way for Moog to salvage their position would be for them to turn back to Bobs designs and employ some competent analogue designers. (or at least one analogue guru - someone like Alan Richard Pearlman perhaps ;-)

[sorry - that was just wicked! - but when it came to Synths, IMO there were only Moog and ARP who really cut the mustard. Alan actually was a better designer from a precision perspective IMO, but lacked Bobs genius at innovation, and wasn't strong enough as a director to keep some idiots from ruining the show .. ;-]

I am also quite sure that Moog could find competent engineers in the theremin community to look over Bob's theremin designs and put a great theremini-priced theremin together based on these, a theremin that would appeal to thereminists and to a larger market.

Fred.

Hi Fred, 

One thing you said raised an eyebrow: "The above probably makes any comparison between EW behaviour and theremini behaviour void - Also, is the theremini doing "offset" tuning? - most likely it is" 

Why? If I have gathered one thing from this thread, it is that there is nothing "clever" about the design, and offset tuning qualifies as quite clever.

But apart from that, I get your point - if the field can't be made very large, my trick won't work. :-( I'm going to clutch on to my tiny straw for a while though, since we are both guessing, until someone with a theremini and a good sense of field linearity tries it and fails.

---

The other thing that has been in my mind for a while is a sketch I remember from some comedy show or other, where a doctor performs a "total body transplant" --- "We remove the patient from the bed [pushes patient off bed] and insert the new patient thus..."

"Why? If I have gathered one thing from this thread, it is that there is nothing "clever" about the design, and offset tuning qualifies as quite clever." - Gordon

No, not clever - obvious! For a (heterodyning front-end based) digital theremin , its really the only way to go - even if one doesn't realize any linearity improvement through doing this. The only time one needs to have audio from the beat frequency is if you actually use this audio - if you use this audio, then you need to increase the difference frequency using PLL's or whatever so as to get difference at low latency for any digital stuff (or if one wants to generate CV that doesn't screw up below about 100Hz).. But if you dont use the difference for audio, the last thing you ever want is low difference frequencies or a null difference frequency... By "offset tuning" I am not referring to the clever realization that one can exploit this for improved linearity.

I used (after falling flat on my face trying to directly use oscillator period and then seeing the huge advantage of heterodyning) offset tuning on Epsilon but never realized the potential for linearity improvement that was possible by doing this - I think it was perhaps either the Open Theremin developer (I forget his name) or Dewster who first showed this potential, at least here - Clever to actually realize and exploit that! ... Not clever to have that but not recognize it and/or throw it away by using a crap oscillator! (as I did, and as the theremini does).

Perhaps its the echo of my past folly which drives me nuts about the theremini! - I was there expounding my astounding new product, booking you to demo it, making wild claims that I believed to be true but which were pure fantasy.... I had perhaps some excuse in that I was new to theremins, had done loads of stuff that looked a lot simpler than the theremin, and had always managed to build what I had set out to - and the product had always been better than what I had specified..

But I was a fool.  Moog inc dont have the excuses I have, and whats worse is that they put the product to market in a state "unfit for purpose"... Even allowing for some newcomer to theremins being given the theremini design job and making genuine mistakes, the product should never have left the door, let alone been demoed publicly, until it was fit for purpose... It should never have even got to final pre-production prototype, and could never have done so if competent engineers and thereminists had been involved and / or cynical bean counters / marketing vultures hadn't run the show.

But keep clinging to your straw ;-) .. I may yet be wrong about what is possible with the theremini if one tweeks it just right ;-)

Fred

Total body transplant!  LOL ;-) .. Cannot even salvage the baguette shell because of its stupid loop... The "loop" though has a better chance of being ok because it operates in the near field.. I wonder why they didnt put the pitch oscillator on the main board?  Perhaps they're trying their luck - see if they can get away with a crap oscillator but leaving the option for a better oscillator costing perhaps $1 more if people actually notice that the toy is unplayable... After all, if only one in a hundred buyers notice (or more to the point, are aware that this is not how real theremins behave), why not just pocket the $100 saving and sell the return to someone who doesn't notice?

Enough! ;-)

Goodbye Theremini thread ! - Being here is feeding my inner sense of futility and pointlessness re the whole theremin world, and spilling into my sense of hopelessness about humanity and myself - bringing up memories and ghosts of what could have been IF..... Not what I really need right now!

IMHO - What I find funny are those that keep mentioning the theremin market… they may be speaking from their arse, there is no real market here in the states and I do not know a gentle way to remind everyone of this. It is better to make something... that if you sell one you make a $500 profit rather than trying to sell 10 of what nobody wants and make a $50 profit from each. Business 101 - A modern theremin design that reflects the appeal of the original classical instrument could have a small market with a profit… keep the overhead minimal.

Reading through the archive it is obvious that the bright mind of Gene Segal with his WaveFront knew this. It seems I read some people not having nice things to say about his approach, offered him little help to improve the electronics, he was in the market before most I guess? Today I will snatch up any WaveFront I find. Thierry has shown some excellent methods to improve the EWS circuitry and it can be used with the WaveFront. I bet I will make that $500 profit. Thanks to Thierry's helpful teachings I am slowly becoming a technician.

With our 20 people community out of 7 billion on earth we do not make a market. We want people to share in our spiritual enthusiasm when really most do not care. My interest is about something unique that sells, not people waving their hands in the air; my ex-wife did enough of that!

The Theremini does have a Market, the kid that thinks circuit bending is the coolest thing, they are young, like to explore because they are the new Makers. They will form their own groups and leave the old school thinking of their parents and this group behind. Moog Music has my respect; they had an idea and did something with it! I hope they do not have trouble competing against cellphone apps.

PS: Circuit bending as I interpret it… shorting circuits for sound and smoke is stupid… but I am old. (-‘

T