Theremini vs. Etherwave - Reasons for Each

Well, I’ve now been working with the Theremini and Etherwave since around last September (had the Etherwave for about a month more). I thought I’d post this writeup of why a beginner to the theremin might lean in one direction or the other. Not too many newcomers to the Theremin likely bought both of them at the same time like I did. 

I need to start by saying, regardless of its pros or cons, I just really enjoy playing the Theremini. You can in fact play melodies on it rather easily. Then again, I really enjoy playing my Etherwave as well. You can’t compare them apples to apples. They are two different instruments – as I say both Genus Thereminus, but Species Digitalis and Analogus. This review is really intended for those who have never played a theremin before trying to make sense out of what to buy.  Just my opinion from many hours of playing the Theremini melodically starting out at Ground Zero (I'd venture as much as anyone out there). Best thing is to go to a store that has both to try them out of course if you can. Also if you buy from a reputable dealer I’m sure you can return it if you think you made the wrong decision (so ask that before you buy).

First off, anyone thinking about a Theremini likely has some questions about whether that or the Etherwave (or Etherwave Plus) is the right choice as a first theremin.  I can’t make that decision for you, but this “review” will be based on that assumption (and also that the $100 or so difference in price is not the deal breaker – which in some cases it may well be).

But first let’s talk that $100 difference. It’s really a lot more at ground zero. When you consider the Theremini has a built in speaker (and headphones) and built in delay, plus a built in tuner (which I actually prefer to pitch preview which it doesn’t yet have) you will likely be spending an additional $100 on a cheap speaker/amp  and delay pedal at minimum if you buy the Etherwave. Then again, you likely want a good amp in any case. I do use the Theremini delay even though I have delay pedals. But the ease of use and portability of the Theremini, especially as a practice instrument is a consideration over the Etherwave. It sets up almost instantly. I can easily more it from room to room or take it with me. I even have a car battery charger that I can use to power it when I have no AC available (I can take it to the park this way and just play under a tree!). [But it is not battery powered]

But let’s put price aside and look at the other features, both pros and cons of the Theremini as you would compare it to an Etherwave. First, the main reason to buy the Theremini in my mind is pitch correction (unless you are really only after the synth sounds). Despite what you may have heard from some of the negative comments that are out there, I can tell you without reservation that pitch correction works. It definitely will have you playing in tune faster than you can on any analog theremin (unless you are a theremin savant) and if you know how to set your pitch field correctly on the Theremini you can get it to match very close to that of the Etherwave. This will let you use the Theremini as a good practice tool to learn hand positions and transfer them to an analog theremin. Just remember you need to keep that pitch correction rather low (dial between 9-11 O’clock). This setting gives you reasonable pitch correction but also still retains portamento and vibrato. If you set pitch correction to high you will be getting more of an effect like using Autotune on vocals you hear so much now days. Nice effect and fun to use, but not what you want for precision melody playing. You need some portamento, which is removed when you set pitch correction too high.

Now why might you want pitch correction? If you have never played a string instrument or an instrument with a dynamic pitch field (like trombone or even to some extent a guitar), you may find it very difficult to play in tune on a theremin, especially if you think you don’t have a very good ear for pitch. This may well make the Theremini an ideal first choice for you. However if you are an experienced musician with a great ear, perhaps pitch correction is not that important to you and you should move right to the Etherwave.

Now the main con. The Theremini just does not respond to pitch motion as quickly as the Etherwave. There is no getting around this now. Moog has drastically improved this in the latest firmware with the “fast response mode”, but it still is not as responsive as the Etherwave. What does this really mean to you? Well, theremin music is generally very slow music to begin with so playing notes fast is not the real issue. Vibrato is the issue. The Theremini cannot get as full and deep a vibrato as an Etherwave (especially with pitch correction on to any great extent). Now many thereminists need vibrato to help play in tune, but that’s not an issue here because the Theremini has pitch correction! But if you want to play in a big romantic style with a lot of vibrato and play as fast as you possibly can with as much articulation as you possibly can, perhaps the Etherwave is your better choice. Personally I don’t like a lot of vibrato in my playing (being a Baroque music nut) so this is not as great an issue with me as it might be for some others. Also, if you are an accomplished string player, perhaps you will be better off with an Etherwave.

Another issue is that you need to know some Theremini tips before playing. Make sure you calibrate as instructed and I have found that the easiest way to play is by setting the range a bit higher and lower than the notes of the piece I want to play. That gives me a nice pitch field in most cases. Usually works out to be about a three octave range and I have found that comes very close to the linearity of my Etherwave. So you need to adjust range carefully to get the best out of the Theremini. And if the top note you set is close to the top note of your piece, you will be able to almost instantly get reliably to that note. I love that feature for a beginner. That will never be possible on an analog theremin. And that tuner is your friend. You can easily find notes to come in on after a silence without having a buzzing pitch preview in your ear (which I just can’t stand).

The Etherwave has limited ways to change the tone. It has two knobs you can use to go from a more sine-like to more gritty sound (and the sounds are very nice to my ears). But the Theremini is a digital synth on the back end so the sonic possibilities are rather endless now that you have a free app available for iPad, PC or MAC to edit sounds and share them (though we all want to be able to load our own wavetables and use the app to edit them). A huge sonic library will grow here over time.  I wish the default Theremin sound on the Theremini was a little better but with the editor you can change it to sound like almost anything you want. I have not begun to exhaust the possibilities there. So if the synth-like backend is appealing to you, you won’t find that on any analog theremin.

The Theremini can be set to play a wide variety of scales and those can be set in pitch correction mode as well. This can be useful, especially for folk music but most any classical tune will use chromatics so mostly I set the scale to either diatonic if the music is (Aeolian/Minor or Ionian/Major) but most commonly to chromatic and then set my key accordingly. Definitely helps playing more easily in things that are primarily in one key or mode. But you can do some wild scale riffs when set to some of the more unusual scales (you will never be able to do this on an analog theremin).

Then there is MIDI control, this is where you can do a lot if you have the patience to learn your MIDI CC settings. For example, I find that the volume antenna does not have as much range as I would like (by the way I find this on numerous theremins not just the Theremini). But I hook up a MIDI pedal to the Theremini and set it for volume CC and I can get a huge volume variation – more than on any theremin I have ever played (that would be 4 to date). There are just a ton of things you can do with CC control on the Theremini. So if you are more into the experimental side or sound shaping, you can do a lot more with the Theremini out of the box than you can with an analog theremin where you will have to buy multiple pedals to do the kind of things you can easily do with the Theremini, a MIDI interface and a DAW. By the way I connect my Theremini to an IMIDIConnect4+ box, which allows me to connect it to MIDI controllers without going through a computer (though I can have my iPad connected to for quickly changing sounds and banks – 32 to a bank). Great for a stage setup. Almost every parameter on the Theremini can be controlled by MIDI CCs. Filters, transpositions in real time, etc. You can do some really creative things with MIDI and the Theremini if you are more than just interested in playing melodies on it. So if you are a MIDI wonk – the Theremini may be for you – or if you are really into modular synthesis.

Finally there is the Control voltage out which works very well and now supports 1V/octave Note CV data (as well as pitch and volume CV) – but as many have stated, the instrument would have been much more useful if there was a CV gate added (perhaps where the lock is now that I figure few people use). You’ll have to get the Etherwave Plus to get CV outs, and that has Pitch, Volume and Gate CV outs. Still I use the Theremini CV out to actually control a modular synth and can get some very interesting sounds that way. 

And finally – don’t forget, the Theremini needs a mic stand adapter to fit US-sized mic stands.

So here we are. Why should I buy a Theremini? Here’s my take – other may disagree. I’m not saying one is better than the other (but depending on your goals, that  may very well be the case).

- If you are beginner to music and want to get a theremin, you are likely going to play melodies a lot easier on the Theremini to start and then as you get better perhaps you’ll want to transition to an Etherwave (but I have found that I play my Theremini just for the sheer joy of playing the Theremini – it’s a different feel than playing an Etherwave). I would not give either up. I can do different things on each.

- You know you have a rotten ear but want to play the theremin. You can’t hold a tune to save your life but that theremin looks so cool. This one is a no-brainer. Some people just will never be able to play an analog theremin  in tune. I would certainly recommend a Theremini to start in this case as you can do a lot with a little ear with pitch corrections and all the fixed scales.

- You are a synth nut. You want to explore the vast sonic potential of the instrument vs an Etherwave. You are not really interested so much in playing classical tunes. You are a MIDI person (though the Theremini does not yet have MIDI Note support but you can play it through your DAW using MIDI using CC note transposition changes).

- You like riffing on scales and are more into using the theremini in that vein. You will never riff on a scale on an analog theremin. And you can riff with incredible speed on the Theremini. So in some ways the Theremini can play faster than an analog theremin.

- Portability is a key issue for you. You just want to learn theremin but you don’t want to connect up amps and pedals (sooner or later you will – but let’s say initially you don’t want to).

- You want this more for playing pop music where detailed expressive response may not be your main goal.

- $ is a deal breaker.

Why I might consider an Etherwave instead?

- You are an experienced/accomplished musician especially if you play a stringed instrument or guitar. You feel you will likely take to the more responsive pitch field of an Etherwave.

- You have a really great ear and want to primarily play melodies. In this case pitch correction may not be that important or needed. Frankly if you want to use the Theremini but you don’t use pitch correction, you are giving up a big part of the instrument.

- You want an instrument with the best possible pitch and volume response, noting that this instrument may be much harder to initially play in tune and you want an instrument that be as expressive as possible (like you are really into Romantic period music).

- You absolutely need that more "classical"/expected theremin sound. I have not yet been able to reproduce the exact sound of the Etherwave on the Theremini.

- You absolutely want an instrument that responds like a “classic” analog theremin. Nothing else will do. Go by that Etherwave (and make it a Plus if you want control voltage and pitch preview).

All just my opinion. I'm not getting rid of either my Etherwave or Theremini any time soon.

But don't buy a Theremini just because you think it looks cool and don't not buy an Etherwave just because you think it looks "boxy"! 

Rich

Excellent summary Rich, thanks!

I feel the Theremini and the EW are both rather compromised by their basic designs, but there isn't much out there that's currently challenging them.

Rich,

Your review was excellent, and it answered some questions I had about the Theremini.  I was going to wait until the end of the month to order it, but after reading your review I think I may go for two weeks from now.  I knew before your review that there would be some compromises with the “mini”, but the overall benefit of having a portable, flexible “Theremin” is very alluring.  For me, the deal maker is the pitch correction, more so than the FX, which is icing on a beautiful cake.         

“Now the main con. The Theremini just does not respond to pitch motion as quickly as the Etherwave. There is no getting around this now. Moog has drastically improved this in the latest firmware with the “fast response mode”, but it still is not as responsive as the Etherwave. What does this really mean to you? Well, theremin music is generally very slow music to begin with so playing notes fast is not the real issue. Vibrato is the issue. The Theremini cannot get as full and deep a vibrato as an Etherwave.”

This was my biggest concern, the latency.  Novices would have to not only tolerate this but find a way to work with it as well.  The best thing about your review for me is that you’re telling me what I can expect to deal with if I choose the “mini”.  Excluding this aspect of the device I am still very excited about the Theremini!

“…the Theremini is a digital synth on the back end so the sonic possibilities are rather endless…”

Be still my heart.  For recording purposes alone this is the mother lode.  The aural possibilities are like a fine dessert.  You could make a layered soundscape with ease.  You could contrast delay with voice – like timbres.  You could construct a cacophonic din and have it resolve into an ethereal choir.  I’m in!    I wouldn’t want to get too carried away with the sonic variations, as at worst they can be a distraction from what you want to learn, but on the upside – you have this enhancement / flexibility at your command.

“-  Portability is a key issue for you. You just want to learn theremin but you don’t want to connect up amps and pedals (sooner or later you will – but let’s say initially you don’t want to).”
   

 I’ve decided to get the Moog amp for the Etherwave with the Theremini.  It’s very affordable and will be a nice option to the built in speaker.

Well, Rich, you sold me.  My mind was pretty much made up for the Theremini, and your review cements that decision.  Man, you gotta love the internet!

E P

Thanks a million for the terrific side by side on the Theremini and the Etherwave....... It just so happens that I just put money down on an Etherwave (to have shipped to me next month) and lo and behold a Theremini  shows up for sale as well.

I was quite perplexed as Im definitely an advocate of  byuying something good right off the bat and not fiddling around with anything cheap or junky (at least this has been my MO more or less with guitars). Anyway, your review gave me the feeling that the Theremini isnt an entry level clunker that I'll be displeased with in  6 months and leave me longing for the Etherwave and wishing Id have followed my own rules.

One last question for you though.... Is either unit better for playing in a live setting with a traditional 4 pc rock band. Just wouldnt want the theremini to leave me feeling under powered?

 Any thoughts on that??

Thanks !

Well, I can tell you my Etherwave is really hot compared to anything else I have. It can pull the soul right out of your body if you so desire with that amp cranked up. But the Theremini can get really loud too - especially on some of the synth sounds when you open up that filter. Note that the Theremini has stereo outputs useful if you set the onboard delay. But I suspect you will be running either through some pedals - especially the Etherwave as it needs delay & reverb added. But then, I often don't use the Theremini delay and run it through outboard effect processors as well.

If you are in a rock band you really need to think about how you are going to use the instrument to make your decision. Check out the music of Clara Venice on the internet. She uses the theremin and Theremini on some of her tracks. About the best comparison I can find of someone really using both instruments in the setting that is kind of similar to yours. 

Rich

hi there all,

i am new to the Forum and about to purchase a Theremini Etherwave from the USA.

As i live in Australia i will need 220Volt power supply . I heard of some stories that wrong adapter were delivered and blew up the Theremini. Anyone able to give me some information and could help me .

i appreciate any answers. Also it seems difficult to purchase one in Australia.

any ideas 

Thank you kindly 

Anjama

Don't know where you heard that. The Theremini I have uses a power supply rated 100-240V and I would think that is the standard supply. If Australia uses plug type I UG-C, you'll need the wall adapter.

But you should go to the Moog Forum and ask if there are other supplies that are shipped with it.

I concur with Rich. 

For those who do not know me, I have owned an etherwave for several years and record and perform experimental freeform improvisations as Beat Frequency. (Albums and EPs available at all good digital outlets. Not the album "Electrify" - that's a different Beat Frequency. Also find me on YouTube and Soundcloud.) I have owned a theremini since February, courtesy of my lovely wife.

I would compare the etherwave to a piano - not the best one in the piano shop, but a decent piano nonetheless. It has a limited range of sounds, but they are good ones, and it's all about the playing skills. A serious pianist would not want any less of a keyboard (the keyboard being analogous to the pitch and volume fields of a theremin). The theremini, on the other hand, I would liken to a Casio synth that you might pick up in a supermarket for a similar price. It has a very basic keyboard and straight out of the box it is a preset machine, equipped with a fun set of preset voices that are designed to demonstrate the range of sounds it is capable of, but are not necessarily a useful set for the performing artist. 

In my opinion it is an absolute necessity to be able to create your own sets of presets, either from your mac or PC or an iPad, and Moog provide a simple utility to allow this. It too is not brilliant - it is nigh on impossible to set exact values with their app - but it does the job and is understandable. (You would be advised to research wavetable synthesis though, to understand some of the available settings.)

(If you have an android device, all is not lost. Any "slider app" capable of generating MIDI messages will work just as well as Moog's editor app, and allow you to reach some of the settings that Moog have not publicised, like much finer control for many of the settings, and hidden wavetables, and even a white noise generator. Things that might surface in a future update of the firmware. The downside is you will have to design the user interface yourself, but these slider apps are not difficult to master and a basic understanding of MIDI will suffice.)

Going beyond that, the most value you can extract from a cheap and cheerful synth comes when you start twiddling the knobs during a performance, so that the timbre varies continuously and "comes alive". The theremini makes a nod to that by associating some of its internal knobs with the pitch and volume fields - for instance you can achieve a nice "auto-wah" effect by mapping a low pass filter to the volume field. Ideally you would want to control the filter with an expression pedal, as Rich mentions, and that is possible too.

After trying out several slider apps and other ways of generating MIDI messages externally, I have come to the conclusion that the best one for my purposes is the Lemur app, based on the original hardware Lemur touchscreen interface. It is far more than a slider app - it is programmable and with a little ingenuity can be used to automate "knob twiddling" in just about any way you can imagine. (If you have programming experience, particularly in modern interactive rapid prototyping environments with C++ like syntax you should take to it quite quickly. For me it was a fortnight of brain-melting agony until I finally got the idea, as my programming skills predate computers with windows and mice and have atrophied from lack of use, but I got there!)

The theremini is not a great instrument, but it is a load of fun and, I hope, a glimpse of the future of the theremin as a hybrid device. For another comparison, my first digital camera had a nasty lens and 640*480 pixels in "hi-res" mode. By any reasonable standard it was a crappy device but I had lots of fun with it and could see the potential for digital cameras in it. 

It's two main failings are the capacitive fields - they are not stable, they vary over time, even after a lengthy warmup period (linearity is ok but could be corrected a lot better in firmware), and the Digital Signal Processor - I'm not sure which model it is, it's a Texas Instruments chip and I'm pretty sure it's from the lower end of the range, maybe a $20 chip. It really needs the $200 chip at the top of the range! The MIDI out signals are too slow to replace the internal synthesiser with an external one (this may also be a limitation of the MIDI protocol itself) although they would be suitable for generating, for instance a drone-like backing track, and even the internal synth shows signs of not being fast enough - it's not exactly a latency problem, but the sampling and averaging of the capacitive fields blurs even a medium fast vibrato into mush, and I have overloaded the firmware several times by flooding it with too much incoming MIDI, necessitating the familiar "turn it off and on again" manoeuvre. 

Also I have found some bugs in the firmware - for instance, setting too long a delay time can cause the delay feedback to be reset to zero. Hopefully they will be corrected in future updates. 

Nonetheless, the future is bright. There are DSPs out there fast enough to process radio frequency signals directly, so one could do true heterodyning in software and use physical modelling synthesis, for example, to generate sounds which will appeal to people who are not enamoured of Moog's trademark sounds, or a digital approximation thereof. (I heartily recommend the Electro-Harmonix Analogizer pedal to make it a little less "digital", by the way.)

Anjama - I'm in the UK, we have 240V mains here and my locally sourced theremini works fine. Came with the right plug too.

Welcome to Theremin World. :-)

"The theremini is not a great instrument, but it is a load of fun and, I hope, a glimpse of the future of the theremin as a hybrid device. For another comparison, my first digital camera had a nasty lens and 640*480 pixels in "hi-res" mode. By any reasonable standard it was a crappy device but I had lots of fun with it and could see the potential for digital cameras in it."  -- GordonC

I agree, and your comparison of the Theremini to early digital cameras is a good one.

"It's two main failings are the capacitive fields - they are not stable, they vary over time, even after a lengthy warmup period (linearity is ok but could be corrected a lot better in firmware)..."

This is almost certainly due to the use of temperature sensitive ferrite chokes in the tank.  They should have used IF transformers or similar, very few ferrite coils on the market are appropriate for Theremin use.

"... and the Digital Signal Processor - I'm not sure which model it is, it's a Texas Instruments chip and I'm pretty sure it's from the lower end of the range, maybe a $20 chip."

Indeed, the 32 bit 90 MHz TMS320F28069PZPS goes for $18.61 USD for singles at Mouser:

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/TMS320F28069PZPS/?qs=KC2rBGieF4oDH8tZit6PkA%3D%3D

If it does ~90MIPs then that should be sufficient to do a fair number of things well.  (I'm planning on using my own custom 200 MIPs processor which has the advantage of much more deterministic behavior than most commercial processors.  Just finished a console-based full sim / code development environment - 7 months of work - whew!)

"It really needs the $200 chip at the top of the range! The MIDI out signals are too slow to replace the internal synthesiser with an external one (this may also be a limitation of the MIDI protocol itself) although they would be suitable for generating, for instance a drone-like backing track, and even the internal synth shows signs of not being fast enough - it's not exactly a latency problem, but the sampling and averaging of the capacitive fields blurs even a medium fast vibrato into mush, and I have overloaded the firmware several times by flooding it with too much incoming MIDI, necessitating the familiar "turn it off and on again" manoeuvre."

Oh dear.  I was aware of the low gesture bandwidth issues, but not with the MIDI flooding issues.

There are DSPs out there fast enough to process radio frequency signals directly, so one could do true heterodyning in software and use physical modelling synthesis, for example, to generate sounds which will appeal to people who are not enamoured of Moog's trademark sounds, or a digital approximation thereof.

There is actually quite a bit more middle ground here than heterodyning or not.  Heterodyning is a frequency thing, which inevitably brings near field pitch compression.  IMO a more "organic" digital synth tightly tied to much more responsive capacitive period measurement is the clear way to go.