More report. Richard Helyer.
As names for symposiasts and concert goers arrived in my in-tray I did a little research to find out anything about them that could benefit the symposium. So when Richard Helyer let me know he was going to the concert I found something very interesting. He was based in the Oxford area, had spoken at Oxford Uni on the subject of theremins and ondes martenots and had a couple of his theremins in the Bate Collection (http://www.bate.ox.ac.uk/). And that the curator of the Bate Collection played the theremin.
So I contacted Richard to invite him to speak. During the ensuing conversation I learned that, sadly, the curator had passed on a few days earlier, and that he had been in touch with Lydia Kavina and George Pavlov, who currently live close by. (Apparently Lydia had been visiting the collection, which is open to the public, and was playing the instrument through the barrier. She left her card, but no-one clicked who she was until Richard turned up three weeks later and his jaw dropped.)
Now to his theremins. Interesting. Beautifully cased - I recall there are some pictures in Jon B's collection - one a squat box inlaid with marquetry and controlled by four organ stops along one side, the other a rectangular glass pyramid atop a wooden box. No antenna - these are high end optical theremins (!) with two small slots for invisible light beams, or something. (I was busy running a symposium at the time, so missed some of the details.)
Anyway, the upshot is there are two lines extending from the boxes, at 45 degree angles, like a giant V, that are the playing areas, one for pitch, one for volume. And inside are a bunch of DSPs (96 kBits) doing clever stuff, and then the signal is passed through an analogue stage to give the sound a bit of analoguey goodness.
Clever stuff includes playing exact notes and chords only, either chromatic or major or minor, as well as continuous pitch. I think he mentioned they has midi out (I can't imagine why they wouldn't) and have samples of various theremin sounds available, as well as an option for automatic vibrato.
I found these instruments very interesting. Not only because I had never heard of a high end optical theremin before, but because there is plenty of room for development, in the player interface and in the functionality, and I am keen to see how the feedback from both builders and players at Hands Off influences future development.
As names for symposiasts and concert goers arrived in my in-tray I did a little research to find out anything about them that could benefit the symposium. So when Richard Helyer let me know he was going to the concert I found something very interesting. He was based in the Oxford area, had spoken at Oxford Uni on the subject of theremins and ondes martenots and had a couple of his theremins in the Bate Collection (http://www.bate.ox.ac.uk/). And that the curator of the Bate Collection played the theremin.
So I contacted Richard to invite him to speak. During the ensuing conversation I learned that, sadly, the curator had passed on a few days earlier, and that he had been in touch with Lydia Kavina and George Pavlov, who currently live close by. (Apparently Lydia had been visiting the collection, which is open to the public, and was playing the instrument through the barrier. She left her card, but no-one clicked who she was until Richard turned up three weeks later and his jaw dropped.)
Now to his theremins. Interesting. Beautifully cased - I recall there are some pictures in Jon B's collection - one a squat box inlaid with marquetry and controlled by four organ stops along one side, the other a rectangular glass pyramid atop a wooden box. No antenna - these are high end optical theremins (!) with two small slots for invisible light beams, or something. (I was busy running a symposium at the time, so missed some of the details.)
Anyway, the upshot is there are two lines extending from the boxes, at 45 degree angles, like a giant V, that are the playing areas, one for pitch, one for volume. And inside are a bunch of DSPs (96 kBits) doing clever stuff, and then the signal is passed through an analogue stage to give the sound a bit of analoguey goodness.
Clever stuff includes playing exact notes and chords only, either chromatic or major or minor, as well as continuous pitch. I think he mentioned they has midi out (I can't imagine why they wouldn't) and have samples of various theremin sounds available, as well as an option for automatic vibrato.
I found these instruments very interesting. Not only because I had never heard of a high end optical theremin before, but because there is plenty of room for development, in the player interface and in the functionality, and I am keen to see how the feedback from both builders and players at Hands Off influences future development.
