TECHNICAL HIJACK!

imho: since the original theremin sound depends on the instruments physics, (RCAetc.),it comes up that every other approach to get that sound is imitation, so it can be produced right away by a synthesizer, formant filters etc. and since everything goes digital and nanosized, it doesn't matter anymore how the ears get fooled. – xtheremin8

That is an astute observation, you are very good. I have two no name vacuum tube theremins, one of them the sound is remarkable and always commented on when people try it out. Though the EWS is the workhorse of the industry it is a muffled sound in my opinion, it lacks brightness out of the box. Ask a digital guy about what they expect their sound to be like and you get silence.

This word latency always fascinates me. A normal theremin reminds me of a natural guy doing push-ups and the digital approach reminds me of another guy who adds a handclap in between pushups and can not figure out why he cannot keep up with the natural guy. He spends the rest of his day calculating how does he speed up of the Clap.

The digital guy has trouble solving these first two so moves on to linearity when this may not even be a real problem area. My EWS tuned, as Thierry mentions is quite good.

"This word latency always fascinates me." - T

Latency is one of the greatest 'perils' IMO to any electronic musical instrument, be this keyboards or theremins.. With analogue (heterodyning) theremins of the "original" style, there is no pitch latency - movement of the hand is immediately converted to change in the pitch. Some original Lev theremins DID have severe latency on the volume control however, due to the tube heater being used as a VCA control element. AFAIK, all theremins have some volume latency due to required integration to derive a smooth CV, but there is no reason for this to be more than a ms or so, and can be less.

As soon as one does any processing on the pitch control  signal, be this analogue or digital, one adds latency - I think that the (original heterodyning) theremin may be one of the only electronic musical instruments (apart from other directly controlled oscillators like used on the original Tannerin or other similar instruments) where pitch is directly under the control of the player and there is no delay at all between 'action' and audio.

IMO, every moment spent on improving responsivity and reducing latency on any electronic musical instrument is time well spent - IMO, when one gets below 10ms, one is in the "just acceptable" zone, below 5ms one is in the "ok" zone, and below 1ms one pops the champagne!

Fred.

"so it can be produced right away by a synthesizer, formant filters etc. and since everything goes digital and nanosized, it doesn't matter anymore how the ears get fooled. – xtheremin8"

Yeh - the fact that most music is converted to some low-res crap digital form (Digital recording can be fantastic quality, but I am talking about the mutilations most people listen to) almost removes any point in trying..

But for those with ears that aren't fooled, there are some thing which are not so easy to imitate with a synth - or certainly not a simple one.

I would be surprised if any synth available today (analogue, modeling, FM, Wave-table, PD) could be programmed to produce a sound which, even if driven by control signals derived from a Clara Rockmore performance, would fool everyone into believing they were hearing the Claramin.

Oh, I believe it would be possible to build such a synth - but I think it would require a special "theremin synthesiser" which embodied the required elements.

And then people could record it, and compress it into a crap MP3, and play it on their earplugs, and say "that sounds just like the Claramin!" - which, of course, after having been mutilated, it wouldnt! ;-) LOL

(but its probably true that most of us have never heard a RCA or Claramin - Only those with these instruments and their original amplifiers and loudspeakers, or have been in the presence of these when they are played, have truly heard them)

Fred.

fred: thanks for posting the japanese translation of the tvox inside. for me, how it's built and how things are placed is always interesting. minimalistic as one can go. so sad that many are lost on sea. i tried to get more infos from that japanese tak/e-wave theremins but they got hit by that f+"* tsunami. nature is  against us. read the signs brethren! no, really i think the theremin will be unnecessary in 100 years from now, replaced by neuronal sensing stuff, that translates ones ideas directly to sound, prints a orchestral sheet and all listeners have the same emotional shit going on as the composer intended to. in a far future maybe some steampunkers  in white long gown with a golden sign on their breast blow their own tubes and still complaining how far better it was in the old times. and some lucky fews have one in the museum: watch but don't touch. and the crowd wonders of the primitivism of cap-sensing and it's translation to sound. on the other hand might cap-sensing stuff be implemented in almost. like that hospitalbed. or onstage with dancers, like the legenadary terpistone. reacting on each dancer individually. but personally i hope electronics are used more wisely then.hopefully i won't bother me at all then

but: My first synth I built when about 11years old  ran on 0.5V/octave so I could build it with 9V supply or battery - it could take a 1V/Octave input divided down to 0.5V/Octave with two resistors... But I never had (and couldn't afford) a synth keyboard so put contacts on an old upright piano keys and output 0.5V/Octave. that's one of the cutest imaginations i had here ever and comforts me over my own dark sights of the future as such. thanks for that moment.

touchless: what do you mean with nameless tube theremin? does such a thing exist? 

i'll have my latency with coffee, no sugar. thanks. who needs a body like that for theremin playing anyway? ah yes, it's for the chicks in the front row, i forgot.

"that's one of the cutest imaginations i had here ever and comforts me over my own dark sights of the future as such. thanks for that moment." -Xtheremin

Glad you enjoyed it ;-) .. I wish I had at least a photo of my first synth - it evolved into a monster ;-) .. We had this old upright piano, My mum and I were the only ones who ever bashed the keys (She really encouraged my 'adventures' and let me do things that would fill  most parents with terror! ;-) - I covered the face board  with knobs and had the electronics behind these, adding one bodge after another.. the keys had drawing pins stuck under them to form contacts.. I became so sentimentally attached to the instrument that I sawed the keyboard section off and actually shipped it with me to the UK when I left S.A. on the last mail ship voyage (Windsor Castle) LOL ;-) .. But it had some beetle infestation and eventually I had to dispose of it :-(

As for "dark sights of the future " - Yeh.   I think ive been using memories of a few great crazy past years when the future seemed to hold hope, as a way to escape from the dread I feel when I look to the future now..

Fred.

I have just seen something bizarre!

This Technical Hijack thread is being severely hijacked into non-technical discussion!

Is this some kind of revenge ?!  ;-)

Go on - start a NON-TECHNICAL HIJACK thread and put  those offensive physical exercise posts there! ;-)..  - Or I will be forced to invade non-technical threads with technical stuff just to fight back!

TW! - Absolutely no structure!  - We are like a bunch of kids!

;-)

Fred, read your post but am traveling for the next few days.  Will reply after I've had a chance to think about it.

(I also plan to test Theremini VC once I get back home.)

Hi Dewster -

No problem.. It was silly anyway! - I am working through the "maths" now and think I have a simple arithmetic -only way to quickly convert counts into V/Octave CV and give other stuff I dont really need but could be useful, like MIDI note number and cent error value for OKE.

I think I only need 8 look-up values to determine octaves, then a simple single floating point multiplication and a few integer operations to get the rest..

This page helped a great deal to sort my thinking out (I hope) - loads of real useful stuff in  this site, a lucky find! ;-)

Fred.

(ps - I may be jumping the gun, but I have no further interest in the theremini, am almost glad I never had the money to buy one, cause if I had done so in a moment of curiosity I would now be having the hassle of returning it or trying to get my money back! ;-) ... But I suppose it would be good to see how far my guesses about CV operation were / are from whats really going on ;-)

This is actually OFF TOPIC for here! LOL;-) .. Its not technical!

From Here

"can love be more than a biological chemical release?"

we have only one primary word "love" in english - but I wont go into that... I dont know the answer to your question.. Well, I do, but its part of some "truth" that I dont want to accept, and within that context the answer would be no.... I am talking here more in terms of 'empathic connection' - the realization (or delusion?) that we are all one. But whatever - if one, there's no point I can see in talking about it - it doesn't seem to change anything about the way we will actually relate to each other or abuse each other, or group into packs to bully the 'alien' - so its meaningless.. The "truth" is probably the unacceptable, unpalatable, horrendous hypothesis that we are just following a predetermined 'script' and that all notions like love and justice and freedom are entirely delusions... which is why I say "we may need our delusions more than we need the air we breathe".

However, there wasn't anything IMO particularly "metaphysical" in my use of the word love in the context of Bob Moog - It could be expanded to Respect, Admiration, Gratitude, Affection, and generally encompassing these a feeling of really liking the guy!

Sort of the opposite of the way I feel about you! ;-)

But my "spiritual" side objects to that - I should, being one with the one and all, recognize that you are me as we are those murdering xSxS bastards,  and the peaceful monks in Tibet.. And then my brain goes into meltdown and I think the hard scientific reality might even be better..

xSxS - replace x with I.. Yeah, im paranoid - dont like the idea of losing my head!

And MORE OFF TOPIC:

I noticed a comment on another thread by a Russian, hinting fear that the "political situation" might be impacting his relationship with (one of) us.

I really hope that this damn nonsense between the greedy expansionist "parties" who manipulate our lives doesn't get to a level where any of us brand individuals as "on the enemy side" -

Personally, I think the West and the EU was at least as responsible for the chaos in Ukraine as any Russian was - but whatever - even if Putin was entirely to blame, Our Russian and Ukraine friends are not to blame, and are suffering as a result of these events.

And the whole fiasco cannot benefit anyone, whichever way it goes - WHY are we so hell bent on going for lose-lose? The incredible arrogance and stupidity numbs me - we have been here before, again and again, repeating the same damn folly! - Only this time we have a new real threat to all of us, our world is dying! - We have plenty to do - we dont need war to boost "recovery" we can get that boost by turning our efforts to resolving our environmental problems!

Not (From Here)

Has been edited and moved to Here

"so now present yours rather than making digs at mine"

I have not said anything about your "sound" for an extremely long time.. I am not making any digs at you, if you like your sound, that's fine - want to know what I think? - I think that in the bass register your sound has the needed gritty harmonics - but that's all it has, and IMO its nothing at all exceptional - its a great sound - IF you could get rid of all the un-musical interactions - But alas, you cannot - simply because you dont know enough about RF and Heterodyning to engineer it.

So you fall back on mysticism - IMO your sound is not "mystical" and has absolutely nothing "mystical" about it - in the bass register it is damn close to that "RCA" sound IMO, but I have heard closer!

Added-> Perhaps your waveform could sound "mystical" if played by a great thereminist - but almost every musical sound can have "mystical" qualities when the waveform is skilfully 'distorted' in real time by a competent player - the "mysticism" and "magical" qualities are not "embedded" in the waveform, they come from the player! - If this was not the case, If there was some "magical" quality that could not be replicated with say digital synthesis, then one would never be able to hear these "mystical components" from a digital reproduction (MP3 etc) of the theremin.

IMO, digital probably only "fails" because it doesn't allow real-time crafting of the sound, its update rate is too slow, so waveforms cannot be distorted by the player with rapid pitch changes or vibrato.. but this limitation will not always be with us - not all digital things will go the way of the theremini.

The waveform is merely the "putty" - the musician can turn it into a thing of beauty, the putty is just putty - it can be good quality putty or bad quality putty, and this will determine what sort of quality the 'product' will be and how much skill is required to turn it into something beautiful.. But in the hands of a hack, even the best putty will not produce something of worth.

And if you weren't so goddamn deluded with your own grandeur, If you didnt spout utter rubbish about having created the  greatest theremin ever built, If you were willing to take the friendly help and advice which has been given to you over the years without turning on those who have spent many hours looking into what you have said you can achieve, in a paranoid frenzy ending up in personal attacks on those people when they dont see what you claim to see.. IF you werent as mad as a hatter and as deaf as a coot - THEN you might get somewhere!

Fred.

"Why do you bring up Bob, he "never" had it. Did RCA I don't know. "

So Bob never had it, and Lev didn't have it - Only you have it!

LOL ;-) You are the original inventor of the ONLY true theremin, all who came before, and all who will come after, are nothing - Your theremin will wipe the scourge of the EW-Pro from the face of the earth, and 100 years from now the names of Theremin and Moog will be forgotten, but the chosen ones will worship you, and your theremin will be in a tent in the holy city, and 3 times a day copies of this theremin will call the people to prayer..