"Unfortunately, the primary consideration in deciding what sort of theremin to purchase is usually the cost of the instrument rather than the musical goal of the buyer." - Coalport
True - But this economic fact of life probably applies to all musical instruments and probably most items people buy.
For musical instruments, I think the lack of playability which some cheap instruments 'impose' can have a discouraging effect, and I dont think that this applies only to theremins.
Theremins, being the strange instruments that they are, probably suffer worse than most from the above "added" difficulty which a poor quality instrument imposes.
" it's amazing how many people leap into the theremin without having given any thought at all to where they want to land! They do this because they believe that they will be able to make any kind of music they want with whatever sort of theremin they decide to buy"
I think perhaps the above could apply to any instrument - or at least applies to many (most?) people.. You hear an instrument and like what you hear - for whatever reason, you want to 'have a go' for yourself - You do not, when buying your first Cassio keyboard think anything like "Do I want to be playing Rachmaninof, or do I want to be playing boogie" - Perhaps one "should" think about what one is likely to want to play, but you dont - You dont know whether you will really get into the instrument, and cannot afford a full weighted keyboard costing a grand - you can afford to 'gamble' a hundred quid or so..
And most of all, you are not aware of the huge difference that a quality instrument WILL make to your expierience.
I only discovered this after I owned several expensive synthesisers which had crap keyboards - I never knew they were crap - I assumed that for the price-tag and reputation of these instruments, the keyboards must at least be 'reasonable'.. Then I bought a faulty Yamaha weighted master keyboard, fixed it, and my whole expierience with playing altered completely - Yeah, I am still crap! - But at least I dont get two keys next to each other being activated simultaneously when I try to play fast.
Back in the mid 70's I was designing and building analogue synths both as a side-line business and then for a Uk synth manufacturer - the keyboard was seen almost as an unfortunately required "accessory" - back in those days one could buy keyboards at various quality levels (there was an industry supplying components for organ and synth builders, and companies now long defunct, like Kimber Allen, who supplied everything from crap through to high-end keyboards, contacts, stops etc), and almost all synth builders chose the cheapest they could find.
I see the situation with theremins as having some similarity to the above - Except that the main extra cost required to provide more playable instruments may not be the cost of the extra components, but the cost of the required R+D.
If I was to bring a theremin to market, and if I was to attempt to recover my R+D costs (as, from a commercial perspective, I probably should) then the instrument would go on sale at a high-end price and be off-the-scale for beginners, even if I could bring the manufacturing price to comparable cost of competitors instruments. As it stands, the extra circuitry and specifically the custom magnetic components required for my linearization scheme would, at present, price the instrument at the EW tag or higher and my profits would be marginal.. This is the catch 22 - Build more than 100, and the cost of the custom components (and all other costs as well) becomes much smaller, and the price could drop substantially - down to a level possibly affordable by a beginner.
Fred.
