Enhancing The EtherWave Sound

I am so excited I almost pee'd my shorts. I mentioned trying one channel direct and the other with a mic. 

"There are those that go through life always hearing the noise and those that only hear nature."

Noisy Mic Sound.wav 6 megs first recording will try to improve my mic side signal to noise ratio, but hey it took me 15 years to get here.

Other than using a mic on one channel there is no extra processing. EWS direct to sound card.

Not being a musician, I think my dynamic mic should be one of those phantom power type? I have the three prong pre-amp with 48v button.

An entrepreneur could take this $35 technique, apply it to a new EtherWave Standard and sell it for 2000 euro. In my thinking this classic sound is what some E-pro owners were hoping to find and surrendered to what they bought.

dewtser - will peek at what I am doing first because his one piece of knowledge shared openly in this forum opened the door wider to what I was looking for. Now if I could find that local budding classical Thereminist to learn with the sound aspect from my research. Exploring life beyond the castle.

An expression from the vision on my webpage:

"It is interesting to me that a beautiful pitch is easier to play. It is as if the theremin finds joy in expressing herself."

Christopher

My research cannot move further ahead until I meetup with an accomplished local musician that wants to explore the classical theremin. If you just want to make digital chips oscillate then have fun and I wish you well.

Because of dewster I think I hold the future key to any analog theremin design. The same PCB board works great with my vacuum tube or transistor LC theremin oscillators. Think Clara Rockmore in sound, on her last birthday she said "it is time".

Christopher

Edit: After you warm-up your theremin would you rather have her scream or whistle? sample.wav 6megs

dewster said:  "I believe the "secret" to the Rockmore sound is in the mixing and post processing, and that's about it.  The actual oscillator type employed is probably very secondary to the post mix sound, so it may be selected among many for whatever traits one deems desirable (mine are absolute sensitivity & high voltage)."

Sometimes I completely agree with dew, the above is one.

All of my sound byte posts until now have been raw wave forms, theremin direct to sound card. They are somewhat different than a musically developed sound. This allows the true results of an experiment to be evaluated. The following sample is a first for me, theremin to amp/speaker and then recorded with a $10 microphone into Audacity so some acoustics can develop, no other added effects. I am no musician, just cobbled together cords and junk.

My first mic'd sample.wav 3 megs (if I knew what I was doing I could improve the signal to noise.)

My future now has a real goal to work towards. I sit here thinking… Clara after 15 years have I finally captured your voice? After a brief moment I feel this tap on my shoulder, “I could never sing that good, what you have been given is the voice of Lev Sergeyevich Termen.”

Delusional?   I don't think so.

Christopher

But anyway, what is the sense?.. 1000 + 1 words and no any schematic.

Hello Alesandro,

In all my years in theremin design, and my knowledge developed without ever looking how anyone else designed one, my expression was “get a sound byte from any design or designer to validate their work" before you buy or build anything.

"Sound is worth a lot more than tricked out theoretical schematics online that evaporate to no where, like butt gas."   (-'

Sound demonstrates what is possible instead of imaginable.

Recorded audio waves reveal how the collective of circuits play together. I am in the design stage so the schematic or PCB changes slightly everyday. I found the sound I liked 10-years ago but until I started this thread I’m writing on now, I did not have complete clarity in why my sound comes about or why it can easily transfer over to all theremin designs including vacuum tube oscillators which I have built.

One gentleman from Saint Petersburg, like you, told me my sound was interesting a few weeks ago. That is the first time in ten years I remember someone showing interest and now you. My hearing has issues so I always think the silence of people that listen is because they are being polite.

The sound adjusts from what I think of as a nice whistle – to Clara – then reedy. 

The engineering mind of dewster has seen my schematics. What makes his opinions funny, but I do respect them, is when he does not understand the purpose of how I use a basic component he suggest I get rid if it. I do not even know if he likes my sound. LOL

Thierry says get the opinion of a good Thereminist when you are designing, that is my next step. If I get validation everything will be made available to anyone on earth at no cost which includes the two small circuit boards which mount neatly inside the EWS box. I can do this because not many of us are left.

Christopher

 Edit: That Moog tuning the EtherWave Standard approach makes me kind of uncomfortable, anyone else?

"The engineering mind of dewster has seen my schematics. What makes his opinions funny, but I do respect them, is when he does not understand the purpose of how I use a basic component he suggest I get rid if it. I do not even know if he likes my sound. LOL"  - Christopher

Christopher, I very much appreciate your sharing of schematics, IMO schematic sharing is the cornerstone of trust here. 

What I saw in your schematic was a pulling of the signal this way and that via a phototransistor optoisolator and transformer.  The isolation of the optoisolator doesn't seem necessary to me, so I believe it can be replaced with an ordinary transistor.  And it's difficult to simulate, so due to my limited interest I decided not to pursue that angle.  The sound you're getting is pleasant IMO. 

I'm not saying what you're doing isn't worthwhile, it just isn't close enough to the core of my Theremin interests at the moment for me to devote significant time to.

dewster said: "The sound you're getting is pleasant IMO."

Well hot dog, now I have three people that think my sound is interesting. Maybe I will order the first boards this week, I call it the breakout board which uses a 4-pin ribbon to feed the 3"x 3" harmonic exciter board.

Before these three people there was no need to order boards, my theremin works just fine.

dew - the purpose of the Opto is not what you think. On my website there is always somewhere I do an experiment of modulating an LED output with an audio signal. Serendipitously many years ago I found sending sound on a modulated beam and picking it up with a photo transistor did something to the sound that gave me something better than I started with, switching or isolation are not quite the purpose.

I think on my Harmonic Exciter board I am re-modulating my audio signal with a slight phase shift. Any electronic component I use has been extensively re-tested in application over years.

Here is an old webpage where I exploit LED modulation somewhere. It should be a fun visit though some should remember it.

I have hundreds of past experimental pages, I always thought people would pitch in with better ideas, they don't, they just plague you with endless hours of email troubleshooting. After facebook got started nobody was interested in my stuff anymore, maybe that is a good thing.

dew, I do appreciate all your contributions.......... ok ok most of them. 0-'

Christopher

Jan (Jpascal) you bring enthusiasm to this grouchy old man club. I will put up the first of two webpages that develop the theremin sound I like.

I will order 10 PCB of board #1, maybe this week. Need to try out the manufactures on Ebay.

The second board may be another month or more away. Always changing something.

Visit my EtherWave Standard breakout webpage, you might like it.

Breakout Board 

Check out the sound byte on the page where I start with my Clara effect Off then turn it On, it is done in real time so needs a moment to stabilize.

Christopher

I was working on my one click Mouser Parts list and I remembered the power diode I remove from the terminal strip on the back edge of the EWS board.

Looking at an old photo it appears to be reverse bias across  ground & +12v

1. Can someone verify for me if this connection is correct and what does it do?

2. Will a 1N914 work, less confusion. I think it will, it has a min 100v breakdown.

   I want to add it to my breakout/buffer board if it is necessary. 

   Christopher

I don't see this diode on the schematic, but if it's across power supplies (sequencing or reverse protection?) I'd make it a power diode, not a wimpy 1N914.