Moog Theremini!

Could someone please send Thomas Grillo a Theremini to review?     I was scouring Youtube today and have yet to see a professional thereminist play a classical piece the beast!

"Could someone please send Thomas Grillo a Theremini to review?     I was scouring Youtube today and have yet to see a professional thereminist play a classical piece the beast!" - bisem

LOL ;-)

"classical piece " ?  Arent you setting the bar a wee bit high? How about ANY "piece" - Even "happy birthday" played to an acceptable level without spurious added notes.

All I have heard so far is pads and effects, and a couple of brave attempts by capable thereminists to play a simple tune, but gave up.

So, I want to see at least a performance that demonstrates the theremini can stand its own against the Gakken toy theremin:

But I doubt I will see one that even matches the Gakken pitch-only toy in terms of playability.

Prove me wrong, someone! ;-)

Why is there no flurry of thereminists filling the void and producing performances demonstrating the theremini ? The only answer I can see is that it is virtually unplayable.

Why then arent there  thereminists demonstrating how unplayable it is? - Probably because they have a better sense of self-preservation than I have, and realize that saying any Moog product is crap is not the way to be popular, or retain popularity - The Moog disciples haven't yet realized the implications of the fact that Bob has gone.

Would have been fine if the theremini was being marketed as a toy, just like the Gakken's (Gakken is a Japanese toy manufacturer, and have no shame about producing toys and selling them as such)

Shame should come from selling something under false pretenses or with dishonest or at least misleading marketing and specifications - as Moog are doing... But hey, perhaps its mainly only Non-Americans who feel this way - perhaps us "commies" in the EU with our trading standards and consumer rights and "fit for purpose" criterion find it harder to understand any manufacturer risking "passing off" misrepresented or unsuitable product.

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Oh, I did get to play with a theremini for about 10 minutes today - A friend who plays an Elsian theremin called in with his Theremini because he wanted my assessment about why it wasn't working - he hadnt read any of the TW reviews. He left my house after a quick visit straight back to the shop in Southampton where he had bought it! - He had battled with it for a week, sure he must be doing something wrong.. (as he works for trading standards, he had no doubt about his right to a full refund ;-)

IMO from the briefest of encounters, its latency that absolutely kills it - I recon there must be at least 100ms latency from the farthest to nearest from the pitch antenna, and several ms even for the shallowest vibrato - I would have liked to play longer to hear some of the sounds though - some were quite impressive.. And I can understand people parting with their money after a brief encounter with the sound and assuming they will be able to play these on the theremini.

Fred.

I'm not a player so I probably shouldn't comment - not that that's ever stopped me before ;-). 

But if you can somehow wangle / catch the calibration at an opportune drift point the pitch field isn't too small and the linearity isn't too bad. 

The latency will likely be an issue for precision players as the feedback is kind of slow.

Overall, between the nutso cal and the sluggish response, IMHO it will drive most good Theremin players crazy.  It makes a better conversation piece for the uninitiated than say the EWS, but little of the majesty that comes with the big pitch field of a good Theremin is there.  The nice synth engine is lipstick on an otherwise rather porky sensor arrangement.

I just caught the Theremini acting up in the occasionally alien EM environment here at casa del dewster:

http://www.mediafire.com/listen/4hb4ju1dyam8wm4/theremini_2014-09-08.mp3

I was ~3' from the pitch antenna, seated and as stock still as possible.  A few minutes after I recorded that the pitch was bobbling over more than a one note range, but it calmed down when I plugged the PC into the headphone jack to record it, so it could be feedback from the speaker or a grounding issue (the Theremini is plugged into a grounded outlet).  My feeling is this is mostly environmental noise of some sort magnified by mathematical manipulations.  My desk lamp was turned off.  This interference around here comes and goes, sometimes my own Theremin oscillators are rock steady, other times they're tearing around to beat the band.

dewster "I just caught the Theremini acting up in the occasionally alien EM environment here at casa del dewster:

http://www.mediafire.com/listen/4hb4ju1dyam8wm4/theremini_2014-09-08.mp3

Hello dew,

With hands on practical many things will show up not found in modeling. I have experienced something similar to your sound byte and my first opinion it is coming from (power supply) AC power line fluctuations, it does not take much to give this effect. At different times of day it should change.

Also being so sensitive to this voltage variation tells me thermal drift might be an issue if the design does not compensate for it, both thermal and voltage affects go hand and hand in the same areas. IMHO

Christopher

I suppose that the interference could be coming in from the AC line, but I doubt that it's a voltage variation issue per se as the design is modern and appears adequately regulated.  The interference strikes me as RF but I haven't attempted to track it down.  The thermal drift issue is most likely due to the temperature dependence of the ferrite inductor they picked for the oscillator.

With all respect to Thomas Grillo, classical thereminists are not the right people to review the theremini because it is not a classical theremin. That is why Dorit's demo on Moog's theremini page does not focus on classical theremin playing.

In fact, if you listen to what she does - which is what it is intended to do, it sounds more like what I do than anything else. The vast majority of my pieces have been based around an echo pedal - the theremini has one built it - and I have even experimented with the theremini's most contentious feature - pitch quantisation. I would suggest that perhaps I am an appropriate person to review the instrument - in many ways it could have been built with me in mind - but please don't send me a review theremini until the latency and linearity are fixed!

I don't have a theremini because I don't have the money to purchase one at the moment ~ though I'd love to have one to play/add effects to my compositions and play/record with a "normal" theremin for the melodious content.

I have not played a theremini, but I would so love to hear a sample of EACH presets in order to evaluate if it is an item I'd like yo acquire first. The little fartsy videos on YT do not cut it for me.

Amey,

From what I have seen / heard, you would be far better off getting the Animoog app on something - ok, you cant play anything other than the theremin - dont get fooled into thinking you can play the Animoog sounds on a theremini just because there's some antennas on it! - I think you would manage to play Animoog better on a tablet than you would manage on a theremini - even with the theremin skills you have.

Or get a Nintendo DS and the Korg Ds10 ;-) IMO that sounds more analogue than Animoog I have heard! Can get the DS10 S/H for about £18 and a S/H nintendo for about £30..

I am buying DS10's for my children - each have a DS ! ;-)

Fred.

amthyste: i played it for half an hour in the shop, and ran through all presets, but wasn't much impressed by them, because the prestet sounds are somewhat similar to the animoog-app or from the  moog phatty-synths. like grindmybass for example. quite impressive when first heard, but i still have more and preciser choices for different sounds with a ew+ and a synth. or two. and some effect pedals. and a good amp. and more practice ! but a deeper look-video would do good...i hate unpacking anything videos anyway.

As far as I am aware, this is currently the highest quality preset demonstration of the Theremini that exists on the internet.

From user Synth Universe : Moog Theremini First Look: http://youtu.be/fw5-GO51Eas