Theremin as double bass

Hey all!

I see this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHOGW5MDsz8

... and I find the idea of being able to play this bass sound very appealing!  Especially because it would vastly extend the kind of groups I could play with - also the instrument wouldn't have to be the "star" of a performance.

What are your thoughts?

Great stuff!  It seems you have to really have a good fingering technique and know what note you are on before you play (though the lowness of the pitch and the non-brightness of the voice will really help obscure any pitch errors).

The Pamelia Stickney (Kurstin) walking bass technique (along with Dominik's velocity option on his Subscope) inspired me to work on the D-Lev envelope generator for so long.

We discussed this technique also here: http://thereminworld.com/forums/T/31332?post=215045#215045

Noise gate pedal = quick and dirty substitute for talent :-)

bendra: what I do is crank the expression/volume knob all the way over so I need much less hand motion to make staccato notes.

The model 302 does fat bass effortlessly, inverse volume mapping makes staccato play easy and pizzicato play possible. I use the stereo effects octaver in the Zoom R16 to make it even fatter. The Source Audio C4 Synth pedal will do all that for the Etherwave too - except for the advantages of inverse volume mapping.

rupert: I guess you've heard something I haven't (quite possible, you've been at this way longer than I have) or we have different ideas of what theremin pizzicato play should sound like. I've never heard anything quite like what I consider a true pizzicato sound from any theremin including 302 and the closest I've heard is what I've achieved with noise gates. Compare e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IlR-noEnyg (violin pizzicato) with the staccato notes in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxcjSXOlWTg; it's just not the same type of note at all. I would love to be proven wrong.

The subscope approach to volume seems promising to me

Here's my cello patch modified to sound more like a double bass being plucked: [MP3]

The pitch correction is way up, but the velocity back-off is also turned up so you can do vibrato without pitch stepping.  I didn't listen to a real double bass when making this patch so the decay rate is probably off.  I think the noise level and overall harmonics are probably set too high as well.  I've got the damping set to damp faster if the hand is farther away, you can hear this more near the end.  And you can still play continuously if you're careful passing the knee.

I only spent ~10 minutes on this.  Downloaded it into my new patch librarian and saved it to a file (patch stuff is a breeze now).

A skilled theremin player can create the illusion of a walking bass and, like the elephant that plays the piano, it can be a very entertaining, but don’t ever play for a real acoustic bass player.

A skilled theremin player can create the illusion of a walking bass and, like the elephant that plays the piano, it can be a very entertaining, but don’t ever play for a real acoustic bass player.

Oh, you killjoy you... . Of course you are right; if I want a double bass sound I should get a double bass (or, since I don't play bass a midi keyboard bass will have to do). There's no good reason to use a theremin this way except "because I (kinda, sorta) can"...