Fix fo unintended sounds when touching the volume antenna.

Hi, I have a Moog Etherwave Standard. Not all EW standards have this problem, but in some cases, when you touch the volume antenna, an unintended sound is made by the theremin. According to Moog Music, this is a normal charactoristic of the EW Standards, but the problem does not exist in the EW Pro series.

My work around for this problem is simple, quick, and cheap. There's a product known as nylon cable sleeve. It's used by computer technicians to put around cable bundles to reduce cable clutter in PCs. It turns out, this stuff is great for stopping the unintended sounds when touching the volume antenna.

To modify your EW Standard's vol antenna, go to one of the many computer parts supply sites on the web, and order a few feet of 3/8th inch diameter nylon sleeve. It's sold by the foot, so if you want 6 feet, make sure you enter 6 in the quantity box when ordering. It comes in many colors.
To apply it to the antenna, cut off the amount you need to cover the entire length of the antenna, open the sleeve with a pencil, and then make sure to fuse the cut ends with a lighter, or by touching the end of the sleeve to a hot metal surface. This will keep the sleeve's brades from coming undone like a torn rope. Next, slip the sleeve over the captive nut on the antenna, and work the sleeve along over the nut until it's all the way on.

The antenna will now have a cool new techno look, and texture to it. The chrome will still show nicely through the brades, but there will be a practical advantage. Now, when you play, it's ok to rest your hand on the volume antenna while silencing the instrument for whatever reason. This is critical if you intend to take the EW Standard into a recording studio, or are doing paid gigs or performances. Nothing's worse than being in the middle of a great piece, and having the instrument squeel as you try to rest your weary volume hand in a silent part of the piece, and have to spot erase, or deal with it in a live performance. If the performer happens to be blind, as a close friend of mine is, (and I'm legally blind), this is a real problem.

Here's a cool thing you can now do with the theremin's modified antenna: As long as you only touch the antenna with your open hand, or fingers, no sound will result. But, if you grasp the antenna in your fist, and apply gentle pressure, you can actually play the instrument! You can evin gently hold the antenna without making a sound, and tap the antenna with your other hand, and get a percussive stacatto effect going.

This nylon cable sleeve is so cheap, it costs more to ship than the product. You may be able to find it locally at a place that sells computer parts. I got mine from www.performance-pcs.com.

I chose black, as it's a universally acceptable color in any genre, but now, you can personalize your theremin with your choice of colors, while ending a nagging nightmare too.

Have fun,

Thomas Grillo

Hi.

Neat idea.

It would look good with the pitch rod matching.

Does it have any effect on the capacitive field of the antennae?

So far, there is no change in the way the theremin responds.

I also put the sleeve on my pitch antenna for looks, and that makes it so that when you come in contact with the pitch antenna, you don't get that half octave jump anymore. Comes in handy when hitting notes close to the antenna.

I'm sleeving the antenna for a totally blind friend in DC too.

One of the members here was saying he had really sweaty hands and was worried about ruining the finish on his antennae.

This would be the perfect solution for him.

I am lucky in that my Etherwave Standard doesn;t usually chirp but I may try this anyway.

Hi, I remember that posting about his condition. In his case, the cable sleeve may work, but an evin better fix in his case would be to order an unfinnished antenna from Moog (if it's an EW Standard) which does not have the captive threaded nuts, and nut retaining rings on it yet which will allow the application of a clear latex, vinyl, or rubber tube with a 3/8th inch inner diameter. Unless I'm mistaken, the pro does not use captive threaded nuts. The Pro's antenna just slips into the instrument. A clear tubing on the anenna would protect the finnish, and retain the anenna's chrome appearance too. The only big difference with the clear tubing is, it's thick enough that you won't be able to squeeze the antenna and make the theremin scream like with the cable sleeve, but ether would look, and work well.

A nice coat of Krylon clear paint should do what I think this mod is doing, preventing a DC contact between the volume antenna and body. That would change the appearance the least, you could do the pitch antenna to match, and that would not change the resonant frequencies of the circuits in any detectable way.

This looks like a useful thing to know, if I have this problem with the Etherwave I'm building, I'll know what to do.

I considered painting the antennae, but opted to use the calbe sleeve first to see if the fix would work. It also gives me the ability to change colors easily. I was also concerned about chipping, or scratching when transporting the instrument. I may still try the clear paint. If I can find the stuff in different colors in the clear version, it would be interesting to see what the antennae would look like. It might be cool to find a clear tint paint that would make the antennae have a gold, or bronz look. It would be cheaper than using a gold plating kit albeit not as good as real gold plating. You'd still have to use one of the fixes after plating if you had the chirp problem though.

Heat-shrink tubing comes in a variety of disturbing colors if you know where to look, just shrink on, and if you don't like that color later, cut off with a knife and start over. You can genrally always find black, red, white, and clear. There are neon colors out there though.

Model as in R/C plane and car shops have some neat stuff too, various tapes and tubings, as well as paints.

Heat shrink tubing sounds cool. I'll look into that.

I noticed mine (Big Briar Etherwave) doing this so I put on heat shrink tubing today. I had to take the compression fittings off of one end and the nuts, then string everything back together and shrink the tubing, you need a heat gun - a hair dryer won't do it.

It doesn't look too bad. I used clear.