Pitch to CV, and related.. TECHNICAL!

Hi Thierry.

I wrote "IF pitch to CV does not work well in the lower registers, AND if you are using the pitch CV to generate a tone on a synth [i]and are not using the theremin's audio output at all[/i],"

(Although I have to admit that for the sort of "music" that I make I find the possibility of using the audio output at the same time intriguing, and have had several mad ideas about replacing the "shift" and "stretch" potentiometers with expression pedals - or even CV inputs - and then combining the synth tone and the theremin tone with a ring modulator.)

Gordon wrote:
....I find the possibility of using the audio output at the same time intriguing.

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It works wonderfully and it will open up all sorts of creative possibilities. DO IT!

The Ethervox MIDI theremin can be played simultaneously in three different ways. As a MIDI controller, as a traditional theremin (using VOICE ONE) and as a theremin FX device (using VOICE TWO and putting it through various kinds of effects chains).

Of course, the same gesture must apply to all three applications, but even then the possibilities are limited only by your musical imagination (and to some degree by your budget for peripherals).

The advantage of the smaller theremins, like the Etherwave and E'Pro, is that they can be played seated which frees the feet for pedal control. I think most people would agree this is essential for effective multiple-voice playing.

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Coalport wrote: [i]The advantage of the smaller theremins, like the Etherwave and E'Pro, is that they can be played seated which frees the feet for pedal control. I think most people would agree this is essential for effective multiple-voice playing.[/i]

I'm not most people. :-) I can manage two hands and one pedal if I don't try to do too much at once, and I certainly don't have the coordination for both hands and feet at the same time - my control becomes ineffective. :-( Mostly I try to leave my pedals at fixed settings throughout a piece. (With a couple of exceptions - Butterflies Of Vertigo, Dance Of The Flower Pot Men.)

What I have experimented with is doing something similar to what you describe in post production, copying a single recording onto several tracks and processing each copy differently, and I would certainly like to do similar things in real time. (Articulator, Kraken, The Housefly's Lament Remix.)

CV appeals to me more than MIDI - somehow it seems more in keeping with an instrument that generates continuously variable pitches, and I'd like to be able to draw on my experience of dataflow programming too. (Many, many years ago I developed a 3D graphical notation for the programming language Forth combining data flow and control flow paradigms - StackFlow (http://www.taygeta.com/forth_intro/stackflo.html).(*)) The ability to do maths with control voltages is integral to this, and Fred's CV Shift+Stretch is the basis of a useful component. (And, used by itself to drive a second voice, an effect I have not encountered before; a pitch shift which shifts by a variable amount depending on the pitch!)

The other obvious component would be a CV delay - in combination with the CV S+S makes a difference engine - I already do something similar in the audio domain with delay and ring-mod. (Iron Sun, Gently Drowning, Point Of Collapse.)



(*) The third example on the page about the Forth Interpreter shows how the CV Shift+Stretch can convert Celsius to Fahrenheit.(!)

Gordon wrote:
I can manage two hands and one pedal if I don't try to do too much at once, and I certainly don't have the coordination for both hands and feet at the same time......

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Well Gordon, you can forget a career as an organist. I have emailed the rector and told him to look for someone else!

Most musicians who use effects use more than a single effect at a time. They are usually applied as "chains". The high end devices (such as the Lexicon) offer the musician an extraordinary range of possibilities that can be preprogramed into the unit. Every parameter of every effect in a chain can be minutely controlled as well as the order of effects. Very useful for performance when you know precisely where it is you want to go FXwise. The Lexicons are also artifact and noise FREE.

As a traditional precision thereminist, I don't use FX on my theremins (beyond a bit of reverb) but I do use them extensively with some of the other instruments I play, (hurdy-gurdy, EWI, gravikord, etc.)

I have not found the CV interface to be of much use for the kinds of things I do. It is not polyphonic and it doesn't have the possibilities of MIDI.

The real challenge for thereminists is finding a way to control peripherals, whatever they may be, when the simple act of playing the theremin already demands so much from our available appendages. Squatting on the floor under your theremin, for example, to change the parameters of your looper is fine in the recording studio but on the concert stage it looks awkward and ungainly (particularly to an uninitiated audience that is not familiar with the demands of the instrument).

As Clara Rockmore said many years ago in regard to the theremin, "The important thing is to know what it is you want to do. If you know that, you will find a way to do it."

I imagine the rector is very relieved.

I know what you mean about effects chains - although I do think some musicians could do with fewer effects and spending some time learning to get more out of them. It tickles me no end to turn up at a gig with my etherwave, amp and just a couple of old-school effects (you really can't get more classic than delay and ring-mod), set up and then sit back and watch the other turns wrestling with more electronics than you can shake a stick at and piles of spaghetti covering the floor.

Trouble with buying effects is, I am working out - very slowly - exactly where I want to go FXwise, and it seems to be in the direction of "What The Heck Would You Want To Do [i]That[/i] For?" Not that I find this surprising - I have been asked that question a lot of times over the years - but it does mean that even with the vast diversity of products out there for every taste and budget I have to hunt far and wide.

[edit] Oops, filled up the thread. Continued here (http://www.thereminworld.com/forum.asp?F=3&T=3949&cmd=p&p=1). [/edit]