The wild world of sound

Hello all. I was gifted This for Christmas. It is fun to try to teach myself technique, but I am very excited by the prospect of possibly modding it to make it louder and to add a second antenna. 

Check out Moog's Theremin website. They have done leaps and bounds of creating a multi-antenna pitch Theremin. Though, I've never seen it on sale anywhere.... But the video makes the possibilities of have a polyphonic Theremin a dream come true. Simply because as others can testify, creating a choir of Theremins is not a easy task.

Here's why:

My wave lengths between me and my Theremin will be vastly different to your wave lengths to your Theremin. Which makes every Theremin performance individual and unique unto themselves. Amazing! However, it hasn't stopped Theremin players to congregate and play anyway. Which sounds amazing too. I implore a couple of youtube examples in your spare time.

Meanwhile, welcome to the universe of Theremin's!

The reason you have never seen a Moog polyphonic theremin for sale is because the instrument does not exist. The video was created several years ago by Moog Music as an April Fools joke. Unfortunately, it was never removed and thousands of people who do not understand why such an instrument is not possible have subsequently believed it was real.

Put sumpthin’ on the internet and it’s there FOREVER.

the polymin, again! the IDIOT technology didn't make it. too complicated. ^^

spudwave, here some japanese stuff about the gakken mini mods and how a two antenna-one sounds like:

mods in japanese and  eri plays the star trek theme . erhm....well...not really worth the effort. but a line out, the grounding foil and maybe a LDR for volume seems simple enough.

better check out lydia kavina on the gakken : greensleeves

I don't know about playing it in a polyphonic manner, but having a bunch of antennas probably isn't a huge deal from the engineering side of things.  You simply drive all the LC tanks identically and analyze the phase shifts between them.  You could process the result  much like the Continuum processes its hundreds of hall effect sensors.  The hardest thing would likely be getting the tank capacitances largely the same (small differences could be compensated for in software) - solutions here are intentionally degrading the Q to get a larger resonance range, and/or plate antennas made in a precision process like PWB etching.

Well dews, I didn’t understand a fucking word of anything you said above, but the real challenge would be creating an android that is sophisticated enough to play the thing you described because no human being could possibly do it.

Look at the problems we have just playing a single antenna, let alone a row of the things!

A number of years go, someone sent me a prototype for a two voice theremin. VOICE ONE worked on the heterodyne principle we are familiar with, but in order not to interfere with the electrostatic field, VOICE TWO worked on the principle echolocation. VOICE ONE was played toward and away from the pitch antenna, while VOICE TWO was played with left/right movement of the pitch arm.

Where the heck is Mister Data when you need him?

I'm with Peter. There may be 10 people (20 tops) in the world that really, truly know how to play professionally with one pitch antenna. Multiple pitch antennas? First, assuming the antenna deal is worked out, you need someone that is totally ambidextrous to be able to even play a single note with good vibrato with both hands. Then you need to have vibratos that move at different rates to make musical sense - never mind playing two part harmony. But Dorit does makes it look good the way she always convinces you she's just about to conjure something magical out of her theremin.

All this aside, knowing me, I'm sure that I would buy one the day it's out and that night put up a sound file that would incur the Wrath of Khan.

However there are certain cases where two antennas may not be totally crazy:

Anyone up for a Theremidoo?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsJFLxec9ZI

The “theremidoo” may have two antennas but it can only play one note. The experiment reminded me of Ed Eagan’s recent foray into formant control of the Continuum via the MIDI E’Vox.

"... the real challenge would be creating an android that is sophisticated enough to play the thing you described because no human being could possibly do it.   Look at the problems we have just playing a single antenna, let alone a row of the things!"  - PP

Oh, I wasn't seriously proposing someone should build such a thing.  Though, with much more limited playing range than we are used to with the Theremin, a lot of capacitance sensors together could give you something very similar to the Continuum.  All of those Hall Effect devices must be a bear to hook up and monitor.  It would be kinda nifty to dramatically cost reduce the Continuum and get it into the hands of more musicians.

I don't see how a polyphonic-multiantenna is plausible if all of the antennas are using the same range to interact with the player. Would one antenna be like a lazer harp, another that response only to touch ect? 

Then again, I don't know how to mod my own minitheremin, so I might sound like a delusional loon.