Creating a theremin sample set

As a composer and neophyte thereminist, I have a really big problem. I can write a theremin piece of some arbitrary complexity, but at this point I have no hope to play it. Still I want to get a feel for how it will sound. I can create a sampled orchestra with just about any instrument you can think of but good theremin samples are few and far between, most synth-based creations that are not that true to the sound that I am looking for. 

Christopher has been kind enough to try and create some .WAV files using his self-designed (tube-based I believe) creation. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but from the .mp3 file he posted,  it sounds a heck of a lot more like the original theremin than my Etherwave does so, I'd like to use some of the samples he creates to see how they work as a real sample set and if this shows promise the goal will be to create a full sample set that can be loaded in Kontakt (the most popular digital sampler program out there) that anyone could use.

Since this will be based on his sounds, I have to ask Christopher if he would be willing to make whatever sample set I come up with available to the TW community. If so, this will be some new original content we can post here that could be extremely beneficial to composers and arrangers and also bring new interested parties to the site. 

Of course it would be nice if some owner of an original instrument created a set of wave files for this purpose, but I just don't see any movement there.

So hopefully the initial goal will be to come out with a simple sample set and then maybe add on to it with different articulations, dynamic levels, etc. as key switched components - as most of the more sophisticated sample sets do. But let's start small and see where this heads.

Rich

Or white the theremin line with a synth like sound and ask someone who can play the theremin to record that for you. :)

"I can create a sampled orchestra with just about any instrument you can think of but good theremin samples are few and far between, most synth-based creations that are not that true to the sound that I am looking for."  - rkram53

You might try feeding a synth through a guitar cabinet simulator / room simulator / mic simulator / short reverb.  A lot of the richness and complexity of the "vintage" Theremin sound is likely due to the open backed speaker and room acoustics.  RS Theremin's recent mp3 clips sound almost like they are room mic'ed.

Rich,

With the greatest respect, when you say "the original theremin" which theremin, exactly are you talking about? also, the fact that the EW doesnt sound like any "original" theremin is kind of moot - some people love its sound, some people hate it - (I am certainly no fan of it).. But then I like the sound of the Tvox, and that (IMO) certainly doesn't sound like a "Lev" or "original".

Opinions about what constitutes the "original sound" span the whole theremin spectrum.. Uncle Howie (Howard Mossman) who has played (and owns) more "original" theremins (Lev built, RCA etc) than most people claims the Enkelaar theremin sounds like an RCA (The Enkelaar is based on the low cost Silicon Chip / Jaycar kit , it has a small LM386 power amplifier to drive its crappy internal loudspeaker - Kees Enkelaar over-drove this amplifier to distortion and takes its output to line-out.. This circuit was probably lifted from the many "DIY Stompbox" distortion units that use the LM386 in this way) but to me it sounds nothing like a RCA.

And there are others - Some scammers are selling the PAiA Theremax with a modification (an RCA switch) that 'captures' this illusive sound - LOL ;-)

So yeah - a set of samples from a theremin..

But unless this theremin was designed and / or built by Lev Theremin, or was built exactingly to the plans using components with the same specifications - OR - The theremin was built after precise evaluation and harmonic analysis of Lev theremins (and such analysis would need to be on the whole instrument, including amplifier and loudspeaker) then it probably wont sound like an "original theremin" any more than an Enkelaar does.. But to some it will sound authentic, while others will wonder how anyone thinks it sounds like an RCA.

Some people wilt think it sounds like an "original" - But the real problem is that we dont have a good set of samples from the originals to compare against, leaving us in this murky subjective world.

I also have the opinion that even if one was to sample an "original", it would cease to sound "original" when played back on most (all?) samplers.. I strongly suspect that a primary source of the theremin sound is the dynamic distortion that occurs to the waveform as pitch is changed - There is no waiting for the next cycle to update - every HF cycle directly alters the audio waveform - we are talking about an audio waveform update rate at least at the frequency of the reference oscillator (say 200kHz for argument - usually higher) that's an update every 5us !

No sampler I know of can do that! Only analogue can do that! (and only analogue voltage controlled synth's have this same quality, AFAIK)

This rapid update may seem irrelevant - after all, we cant hear 200kHz! .. But think about what happens as the pitch is changed rapidly - the faster the change, the more the waveform will distort (portion of an audio cycle being stretched or compressed asymmetrically) and when down at the bass end, where a single audio cycle can easily be 10ms or more, quite a bit of musical distortion can occur which would be entirely lost by a sampler splicing cycles or even half cycles together.

 "You might try feeding a synth through a guitar cabinet simulator / room simulator / mic simulator / short reverb.  A lot of the richness and complexity of the "vintage" Theremin sound is likely due to the open backed speaker and room acoustics.  RS Theremin's recent mp3 clips sound almost like they are room mic'ed." - Dewster

Yes - Also a fat set of formant filters, and set these for the formant's found in whatever you think the "original" sounds like - if you think its "vocal" set for vocal formant's, if it sounds "cello" set for cello - about 6 bandpass filters with variable Frq and BW and peaks, and one can get whatever natural resonances you want. Oh, these formants stay fixed.. I think there are some minor shifting 'formants' on the "original" but am not sure - and without good samples will probably never know!

Fred

There's no theoretical reason one couldn't update the output waveform at the sampling rate (44.1kHz or 48kHz) though there are practical reasons not to do so on a SW (i.e. PC) based synth.  The reasoning is along the lines of: parameter bandwidth is usually lower than the audio bandwidth, so why not save a bunch of cycles by updating the parameters less often?  Filters often need trig functions to calculate their coefficients, though this could likely be eased with tables and interpolation.  I think a SW synth could be designed from the ground up to give much higher parameter update rates than those likely normally found in practice, particularly if it doesn't employ "scientific" filters.

Hi Dewster,

I agree, it should be possible to change the waveform at the sample rate, but I dont own any wave-table or sample playback stuff which does - either in my ancient collection going back to the Yamaha TX16W or my (old) PC based samplers.. But things may have moved on - everything I have is >= 15 years old ;-)

I am sure the situation is different with some digital synths (non wave-table) .. This issue only becomes a bother when one is synthesizing instruments where pitch can glide between notes (analogue synths and theremins in particular - but I think slide guitars, violins, trombones etc also never sound right from a wave-table or sampler)

But I may just be imagining it all ;-) ... We can fool ourselves into believing all kinds of nonsense, and sometimes it takes a scientific double-blind test or verification that the "wonder drug" which was curing all your ills was, in fact, a placebo, before one wakes up.

And then you wish you were blissfully ignorant - because the damn placebo was at least working...

;-)

Fred.

Dewster said: “RS Theremin's recent mp3 clips sound almost like they are room mic'ed”

My very first build sounded like a room mouse, then evolve into a roar. (-‘

No two RCA theremins could sound exactly alike, my sound is most likely better. PP gets his RCA sound with 1000’s of dollars in equipment, I get a good sound with a $5 vacuum tube, they are cheap because they should be around for the next twenty years.

My design is original so all my sounds will be original. I have never heard the direct wave shape of an RCA that was good; it needs acoustics to be tolerable. Does a stock RCA sound good, most likely it is the Thereminist.

* Not being a musician my question about the sampling experiment… is it 12 notes per octave that is needed and 3 octaves.    60 hz to 1500 hz seems to me to be a good range to shoot for.

         36 notes x 10 sec durations, will need a nap after that one.

* What if the wave file rose in pitch from 60 hz to 1500 hz like a slow steady ramp over several minutes, can samples be taken from that? Seems a timing jig could be setup to control the pitch rise speed. With this I could spend more time on developing sound files than capturing 36 ten sec note durations.

Christopher

First, all I can say is Christopher's file sounds to me more like what I expect a theremin should sound like based on the older instruments used in the classic movies and some older instruments I see people playing. Some people might love the Etherwave, not me. But it's what's pretty much available at a decent price and its not a bad instrument. But I don't have anything else right now so there's no point in my sampling my Etherwave.

If I wanted to do this with a synth I could, I suppose. I thought it would be nice to take Christopher's .wav file and see what might come of it. Frankly, all I need to start is one steady tone for about four seconds I think to play with. Then we can think about the other tones.

I don't think you want a steadily increasing tone as this will have to map to MIDI in Kontakt. So we'll want a set of chromatic tones. Typically sample sets will have them in different articulations, some with vibrato, some staccato (or at least shorter), etc. But again for now let's just start with one steady tone (good if you can get an acceptable envelope on it too but I can probably add that if needed).

Now some people just transpose samples to create a sample set (but no great sample set does that anymore) as the timbre of the tones changes as does pitch (and the theremin is no exception here). But one tone can be used to create the sample set and then when that's done, you can just plug in the new real samples.

This may come to naught but its worth a shot. And once the basic structure is set up if we can get other samples, new sets can easily be created.

Rich

Amethyste said: "Or write the theremin line with a synth like sound and ask someone who can play the theremin to record that for you. :)"

Ah. Yes that would be nice, however it has certain logistical and practical issues.

1. Where do I find a thereminist that can play what I have written, especially if it's complex? Would they even want to do it? They would have to come here with their instrument, perform many takes, or I'd have to get them DAW stems in a format they could use to record it and send it back, they would likely need to be paid, etc. It's likely the accompaniment would be 20 sampled instruments or more in some cases.

2. Time. If #1 is feasible, it still would take a lot of time (and my goal might be just to create a piece for a production or video needed very quickly). So much of TV, commercial and other productions today are (alas) totally sampled/synthesized in MIDI-based DAWs.

3. A good sample set might be used to do things that no thereminst actually can - or the piece might be so difficult only a few people in the world might actually be able to play it (so this can also be used as a compositional tool in and of itself - people may have some issues here - but the history of computer/synthesized/sampled music is now replete with compositions that are not actually playable by humans).

4. Perhaps I want to take that sample set and process it further so it turns into something else - maybe do some experimental composition with it.

5. Other people may really want a sample set like this, so it could really benefit the compositional community

But in the end, yes your suggestion would be very nice.

Nicer would be for me to just learn how to play it!

Rich

Perhaps, learning to play it would be best. Cause not everything can be played on the theremin. Someone reached to me to play a theremin line ~ it was too fast and with too many note changes... he had to rethink that :)