Greetings, gots an idea maybe

" I can even see another way to get signals in which is to use an RC transmitter and use the sticks."

You could - but have you ever tried playing a synthesiser with a joystick or bend wheel? - I have! ;-)

Even when driving a simple analogue (Mono) synthesiser from any controller like J/S or whatever, I find it near impossible to play tunes accurately - the nearest I ever got was when I tried to replicate a tea-chest bass using a single axis heavily loaded industrial joystick (this joystick came from a demolition vehicle ;-) and a twangable trigger device (a sprung door stop with a piezo wire wrapped round the spring).. It did seem that it was easier to play when it was heavy force needed (emulating the action of stretching a heavy string) - the tea chest bass is a tea-chest (or other suitable square box resonator) with a string connected to the centre - one has a broom stick which pivots on this box, the string connects to the top of this stick, and one stretches the string by pivoting the stick - and plucks the string.. It shares the same problem as the theremin in that one does not know the pitch until it is plucked..

But I still found the tea-chest bass easier to play - I personally wonder whether ones hands actually 'feel' the resonance even before one plucks the string - a feedback completely missing with an electronic version - so I was planning to vibrate the joystick a bit to test this idea --- but some other distraction came along...

Fred.

TUI's(tactile user interfaces) are very interesting.  MIT has a whole lab devoted to new ways of interacting with computers.  A musical instrument has a user interface that works or we wouldn't have musicians making music.   

I get it that a user interface should work or why mess with it.  I suspect when I get to try my little experiment, Happy Birthday, the Hello World of music, could be a major challenge or maybe not.  It's worth it to see where it takes me though.    

Hey Harry - I agree with you completely! You gotta try it for yourself!

Its only by messing hands-on with hardware (even if it means grabbing a joystick from a skip and repairing it, LOL) or one doesnt get ideas..

I do hope I dont come over as discouraging - that is NOT my intent... I suppose im just an old fuddy-duddy who thinks I can help folks by telling them 'bout my stuff, and steer them in more "useful" directions...

But I wouldnt have listened - and its just as well, cause if I had listened I wouldnt have learned as much as I did by making huge expensive life wrecking mistakes!!

ROFLMAO !  ;-)

Fred.

I appreciate what you have to say on any of this, Fred. 

It's funny though how I ended up here.  I fly RC planes and helicopters and there has been a revolution there that started a few years ago.  The revolution has been in stability and control using gyros, accelerometers, magnetometers, GPS and itty bitty computers to control it all.  I bought an IMU and programmed it using the standard program and stuck it in a plane and it worked, but that hasn't been the end of it for me.  I wanted to do something different with it and started playing with my own code and display programs.  As I played with 3D cubes and real looking airplane instrumentation, I started thinking about music of all things.

Who knows maybe what I really want is a way to fly through sound, now we're all ROFLMAO.  The Theremino is on its way and we'll see where it leads.  Somewhere I hope. 

This is where my head is, some might say stuck up me bung, LOL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptWf5v2bLeE

Ok - ;-)

I do fully understand the attraction - thats the kind (and the only kind) of maths I enjoy - visual, auditary .. not so keen when numbers and symbols start to appear though!  - Last buzz I got like that was sitting with someone who knows astrology on a "scientific" level - I was explaining to her how my additive synthesis engine works, when she said "thats exactly how astrology works" LOL ;-) .. Well, it wasnt "exactly" how astrology "works" - but it was certainly interesting to see the musical relationships in planetary positions etc...

Ok - The scientist in me says "bunkum!" LOL - I know the charts are put together by people trying to create "meaning" .... But I am now inclined to think thats what everything "is" - That, in fact, we create "reality", we dont "find" it - Perhaps the "myths" from the past are all "true" - Perhaps when we believed that the world was flat, it was - and we could sail over the edge (as I am probably now doing.. ;-)

Thanks for sharing that video - I really enjoyed it!

Fred. 

"This is where my head is..."  - TheIMUman

Shhh, or before you know it people will start demanding 4th dimensional "tuners" on their Theremins! ;-)

It is interesting the patterns that emerge from harmonics and chords.  There is a web site that discusses a system of notation starting at 0 with +1 for each semitone, rather than starting at 1 and +1 for each half or whole step in the major scale, but I can't seem to find it now.  A natural minor scale is symmetric this way.

I've played with (on paper) different arrangements of LEDs for Theremin pitch indication.  A recursive arrangement like a circle makes the most sense (with a separate octave display) but patterns (like major and minor scales) on 12 LEDs in a simple circle are difficult to resolve.  But the more you deviate from a simple ring the more pattern variations there are.  A simple in/out stagger, with 6 inner LEDs and 6 outer LEDs means you have to be able to recognize the same pattern in two different configurations (the first starting on the inner ring, the second on the outer).  It's give and take in terms of the ease of pattern recognition and the level of memorization required.

dewster -

"Shhh, or before you know it people will start demanding 4th dimensional "tuners" on their Theremins! ;-)"

That's a deal.  The next thing would be asking for a transporter like this thereminist has:

I've seen pics of that, but didn't know it was based on a fairly awesome video.  I'm probably the only one here that didn't know that though.

Dewster is from a distant planet ... :)