Best sounding Theremin question

One feature of the distortion and fuzz pedals that I tried is that they all made significant amounts of noise when the theremin was muted, unless one particular knob was turned right down. (I can't usefully tell you the name of the knob, as part of the art of creating boutique pedals appears to be giving the knobs imaginative but unhelpful names. For example the BuzzBoy has three knobs - Fizz, Fuzz and Floss. Huh.)

Having to keep one knob turned down somewhat limits the range of sounds the pedal can produce. However I shall be circumnavigating this by inserting the pedal into the effects loop of my etherwave.

Effects loops (i.e. the facility to place an effect after the Beat Frequency Oscillator but before the VCA, so that the effect always receives the theremin sound at full volume, before it is attenuated by the volume loop) do not come as standard in Moog theremins. This is part of an extensive mod that Thierry made to my etherwave. As far as I know the only theremins that come equipped with an effect loop are recent Subscopes. An effects loop is useful for this sort of circumstance, and also for defeating noise gates in pedals.

"BuzzBoy has three knobs - Fizz, Fuzz and Floss. Huh"

Ha ha!  This reminds me of the DOD "Milk Box" guitar compression pedal:

LEVEL, COMPRESS, HI EXP, ATTACK => QUARTS, CREAM, PASTEURIZATION, SPILL

I blame idiot marketing.

So the Talking Machine likes it a little rough on the front end?

My transistor sound today raw A little Rough .mp3  No whistling flutes here.

TM - just make the sound more human so the theremin recaptures audiences with its uniqueness. A theremin should only be compared in sound to a theremin, not other instruments on the market.

I also have the TM on order but Guitar Center bailed on the bargain they had for the monitor speaker. I don't know why I fell for that online Ad swindle they pulled again, they are just down the street from me and now online for the TM I pay an extra $15 ground shipping charge!#$%  Could of went to lunch!

Pictures and sound give a thread life!

It does sound rough, although I have no idea of which kind of roughness the TM likes :)

If sounds give a thread life, let's post some more... I have been fiddling with Guitar Rig, a piece of software that I own and has several filters implemented. In particular, it has something called "Formant Filter", and I had no idea of what that was until I read this thread, but now I know it's related with trying to imitate the sound of vowels. It also has something called "Talk Wah".

Here are some versions of Vocalise that I have just played with my EW plus, with and without these filters. Sorry for the bad playing (even worse after listening to Peter's), it's just so that anyone interested can see what these filters do:

* 1. My normal setup: EW + EHX Holy Grail Plus (physical) reverb: vocalise1-standard.mp3

* 2. Played one octave lower, and with EW + Guitar Rig's Formant Filter + Guitar Rig's Spring Reverb: vocalise2-bass-formant.mp3

* 3. Played in the same octave as 1, with EW + Guitar Rig's Formant Filter + Guitar Rig's Spring Reverb: vocalise3-standard-formant.mp3 

* 4. Played one octave lower, with  EW + Guitar Rig's Talk Wah + Guitar Rig's Formant Filter + Guitar Rig's Spring Reverb: vocalise4-bass-doublefilter.mp3  

* 5. Played one octave lower, with my normal setup:  EW + EHX Holy Grail Plus (physical) reverb: vocalise5-bass.mp3  

Obviously, these filters are not like the TM, but I think they are interesting. They do make the theremin sound more "organic". I quite like how 2 sounds (crappy playing aside). Not good enough that I would always prefer it to my normal setup, but for some pieces I could, for a change.

The problem is that the filters make the sound more human, but they make it like a human speaking in an old radio :) I don't know to what extent this is due to (1) Guitar Rig's filters being worse than the TM's, to (2) the EW output not being "harsh" enough for these filters, to (3) not having found the combination of knob positions in the filters and the theremin itself that will give the best results, and to (4) my playing.

By the way, Guitar Rig also has distortion modules, but I haven't been able to get anything good by placing them before the formant filter as suggested before. I just get a more distorted result. I guess they are not the right kind of distortion...

PS: the backing track is the one that terrymin uploaded to these forums: http://www.thereminworld.com/Forums/T/24529/vocalise-backing-track 

Thanks for the compliment, although I'm still very far from being good... but I'm happy with trying my best, learning and having fun in the process :)

Yes, Guitar Rig is a piece of software that I have in my PC, and it includes simulations of a wide range of boxes (reverbs, effects, filters, amps, etc.) The reverb in recordings 1 and 5 is physical ( EHX Holy Grail Plus: http://www.thomann.de/es/electro_harmonix_holy_grail_plus.htm ), but the spring reverb in recordings 2, 3 and 4 is from Guitar Rig too. The reason is that if I use the formant filters in Guitar Rig, I have no way of getting the sound back out from my computer to the physical reverb pedal (or at least I don't know how to do it), so I need to use the reverb in Guitar Rig too.

"The problem is that the filters make the sound more human, but they make it like a human speaking in an old radio"

Yup, that's a problem if it's not the sound you want. Typically, listening to old radio, you don't hear anything below about 150Hz or above 5kHz, so it may be that the high and low frequencies that give the sound richness are being filtered out somewhere. It might be interesting to look at the sound with an audio spectrum analyser.

There is a bit of a human quality to the sound but it's buzzy too. Perhaps it's ... no it can't be ... THE MONSTER CREATED BY ATOMS GONE WILD! Noooooooooooooo!

LOL, never saw that movie... looks good!

Although I don't have a spectrum analyzer, I'm pretty sure that it's the formant filter itself that cuts off the frequencies. If I tune the knobs to apply the formant filter more "slightly", I get a less "organic", but also less "radioish" sound.

*6. This is like 2 but with lighter settings on the filter: vocalise6-bass-slightformant.mp3

*7. This is like 3 but with lighter settings on the filter: vocalise7-standard-slightformant.mp3

I don't know if the formant filter does that on purpose or because it's not very good.

I will not post more of this... too much spam already! 

Gordon....helppp meee,  helppp meee!  Us kids were all saying this!

I use a simple version of spectrum analysis on every sound byte, that is why I add buzz to most samples today. The theremin sound that is rough I believe enhances the illusion within the sound.

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology."

The TM will be the first pedal I ever purchased, has the old method of theremin sound been laid to rest on Memorial Day 2012, a day that will pass into history?

I don't think so!

Nope, me neither. 

But I do think there is an important point here. Peter has demonstrated that it is OK for a classical thereminist to alter a theremin's sound with external processing, and that with skill, understanding and the right effects delicately applied one can find another good voice for the theremin.

I just hope that people don't come away with the idea that the EHX Talking Machine is a panacea. It is a first step.

"...has the old method of theremin sound been laid to rest on Memorial Day 2012, a day that will pass into history?"

Perhaps that day will be when you build/buy your first digital Theremin!

</empty boasting>

This is how dense I am: It just occurred to me that the PAIA Theremax moniker is a play on min/max.