BØRNS - Supernatural Theremin Solo Settings

I'm very new to the theremin and recently purchased a used (excellent codition) Moog Etherwave Theremin Standard. After sanding it down and restaining it walnut, as well as messing around with the sounds it makes, I'm ready for my first piece. The whole reason I was introduced to the theremin was the song "Supernatural" by BØRNS. I already have the sheet music for the theremin solo and have learned a little, but my struggle is getting it to sound less— electronic. The solo makes the theremin sound similar to a voice, and the closest I can get to that is to set the waveform nob to 3 o'clock and the brightness nob to 9 o'clock so that they face each other. This sounds more like a horn however. I also don't know what the volume nob does, but setting it to 9 o'clock sounds best in my opinion. Any suggestions are helpful. Thanks.

Hello golp,

Not seeing the theremin my first impression it is an EtherWave Pro by Moog. The EtherWave Standard you have does sound more like a horn but that is better than a gazoo. I agree there is something about the theremin that seems Supernatural.

That Theremin X thread has what I think you are after, the sound is much more sexy.

If you are an electronic builder in the states there is a practical way to get a theremin female sound that is not very far away.

Christopher

Hello golp,Not seeing the theremin my first impression it is an EtherWave Pro by Moog. The EtherWave Standard you have does sound more like a horn but that is better than a gazoo.That Theremin X thread has what I think you are after, the sound is much more sexy.If you are an electronic builder in the states there is a practical way to get a theremin female sound that is not very far away.Christophe

I believe you're right about the EtherWave Pro. I also live in Texas. What it the way to get it to sound like a voice?

"What it the way to get it to sound like a voice?"  - golp

Three or four bandpass filters with variable frequency, Q, and volume wired in in parallel, and fed by a waveform halfway between a sine and a sawtooth (you want the harmonic series amplitudes to fall at a roughly 12dB / octave rate, rather than the 6dB / octave rate of the sawtooth).  That will fairly realistically do any voice type from female soprano to male bass.

Female voices are much easier to "accidentally" produce using other ad-hoc methods because the formants (bandpass filter frequencies) and the basic pitch are placed higher.  Higher basic pitches have wider spaced harmonics that tend to interact less with the formant filtering.  So you'll find the Etherwave and such often able to do some semblance of a soprano over maybe an octave or so, just on the basis of wave shaping and simple filtering.  But that only gets you so far due to the limited pitch range of the effect, and you'll have little to no control over the characteristics of the voice in that range.

Human vocals are a great match for the type of control a Theremin provides.  I find myself returning again and again to a higher female voice as it is quite forgiving in terms of pitch and vibrato.  And you can gliss / portamento your ass off all day long without it sounding strange, so the volume side doesn't require a lot of control to sound good either.

"Three or four bandpass filters with variable frequency, Q, and volume wired in in parallel, and fed by a waveform halfway between a sine and a sawtooth"

"Female voices are much easier to "accidentally" produce using other ad-hoc methods'

I would like to understand this better, can you give us a female vocal sound of two octaves, a simple demonstration?

What devices are already on the market do this for the EtherWave Standard? I have heard some good EWS sound before but not consistent or good from one performance to another. There is more to it than just the talent of the Artist.

Christopher