Claravox Centennial Theremin - Post Your Thoughts Here

ContraDude, I feel for you, but this is just how modern companies "work."  Everything is so secret even they don't know what they're doing.

I know of a few people who decided to scrap their orders. It's money that can go towards other instruments (esp modular), and many people thought they were "investing" in a theremin that had a limited order window and potentially limited production (which is what Moog implied at the launch.)

However, orders are still being taken now, seven months after Moog introduced the Cvox, and the lackadaisical and obfuscated communications from Moog are really putting people off.

Some really great synths have shipped in the meantime, and I'd be lying if I told you I haven't been tempted to stuff my order in favor of a B2600 + a LXR drumsynth + a fancy sequencer...I have a vocoder build I put off for the cvox as well...

And of course the Dewster D-Lev III is starting to look like *the* viable Claravox alternative...!

Dewster, I’m afraid you’re right. That still doesn’t excuse Moog for their dishonesty/refusal to communicate. Frankly, even if I don’t cancel, I’ll never purchase another Moog product again.

Prior to the time I ordered the Claravox, I purchased a Burns 3 but was never happy with it. So, I bought a Theremini. While I thought that might work until something better came along, it’s sluggish (even when adjusting all of the settings). Just as disturbing, if not more so, is that the “Theremini Software Editor,” which Moog touts as greatly expanding the potential of the instrument, is, quite literally, non-functional! Indeed, Moog hasn’t update the editor in SEVEN YEARS and until I wrote to them, several months ago, they appear to have been completely oblivious to that fact. I mean this literally. Specifically, when I first contacted them about this very evident problem, they first seemed surprised as they claimed it worked. Shortly after that, they wrote back again and stated I was correct - it does not work with new Mac, iPad, and PC OSes. To make matters even worse, they had hired an outside contractor to create the software and that contractor is long gone. In order to update it, they will need to find someone to rewrite and completely recompile the editor. This is a rather shocking and reprehensible situation. I can’t help but wonder if they will do the same thing with the Claravox editor (if and when it is released).

Flounderguts makes several good points. In my case, I’m specifically looking for a high quality  theremin - Moog had that reputation but now I wonder if that is a thing of the past. I did; however, spend more than I would have liked. BTW, I’m not interested in synths or modules - my main musical pursuits lie elsewhere and I’ve taken up the theremin to enjoy at home. I also believed (wrongly) that the Claravox was a limited edition and would maintain and probably increase in value. That certainly does not appear to be the case now as Moog has the audacity to still allow dealers to take orders for it, many months after their original claims, and despite the fact that they failed delivery as they originally stated. I wonder if the current shortage of Etherwaves is an indication that they’re being eliminated and replaced (eventually) by the still non-existent Claravox?

Getting back to Dewster’s D-Lev III, I hadn’t really looked at it until today. It looks very interesting! Will that be a commercial instrument? I don’t know how many Claravoxes have been sold but a couple of months ago my dealer, Prymaxe, had indicated they had already sold about 350 of them.

At the moment, I currently spend most of my time practicing on an Open Theremin 3 that I built (hey, I’ve never soldered a thing until a few months ago). While a bit quirky, it is far, far more responsive than the Theremini, although I certainly can’t compare it to most other instruments. 

Hi ContraDude, I share many of your concerns, and am therefore still putting off getting in touch with a dealer about ordering one. My procrastination in this seems to still leave the door open to order one, but I have also had quite bad experiences communicating with Moog about an issue I had with my purchased Theremini, had to go without the second Theremini after a quick exchange of the first for about 2 months having it sent to the European repair centre for diagnostics/repair after which it came back with a "no problem could be found" message. Probably they had the Theremin plugged into a well regulated bench PSU when they couldn't detect the reported problem, because after i got it back I diagnosed the problem myself and the PSU proved to be the cause of the soft but to me unnacceptably irritating noise out of the speaker and on the line outputs. The music dealer ordered a replacement power supply wich took another 1 1/2 month to arrive and had exactly the same problem. By then I had bought a 12V power adaptor meant for keayboards that had solved the problem (amplifier it gets pluggd into anyway provides the required grounding). Moog hardly acknowledged the problem, maybe it doesn't trigger the same misophonic reaction in others? What I got as an answer was that some units could have a problem with EMI noise caused by the power supply.

I'm sorry to hear that the Theremini editor software won't run anymore on recent OSs, and the firmware has some annoying bugs that for me make the "theremin mode" unusable as on unpredictable moments it spontaneously turns the master volume level to zero.
Since I bought my Etherwave Plus the Theremini gets rather very little playtime, but (in the settings set to Fast Reponse) I was actually surprised that the lagginess of the reponse is not as bad as I thought, I do think that the ergonomics leave things to be desired (things that seem to have been corrected on Dorit Chrysler's custom Theremini like a taller pitch antenna and a larger volume loop antenna, and a more gradual gradient for the volume field). As to sluggishness, keeping the delay/echo effect close to or on zero/off appears to reduce the latency of the pitch antenna response.

As to the stocks of Etherwave Std and Plus having as good as run out of stock everywhere, this may just mean that the manifacturing line is being prepared and set up for the Claravox at the cost of pausing the manufacturing of the EW Std/Plus untill the C;aravox production run has been completed. There is a rumour I've heard, but no idea if it is true or something that's being concidered but not decided, or what someone is expecting/predicting to happen, or perhaps I've dreamt it, that the Etherwave Plus would be discontinued and that something akin to the Claravox but in a more plain packaging would replace the EW Plus for a price more in the range of the EW Plus.

Just my current 2 cents...

I'm totally guessing here, but IMO Moog Inc. put too much R&D into the Claravox for them to limit production past the intro period.  Probably the only "exclusive" will be the word "Centennial" on the control panel, and perhaps the expensive burlap face / wooden cabinetry / steampunk wooden stand. 

The Etherwave is the sort of thing you do one-off, or sell very few to a very tech savvy clientele who are up to the task of properly tuning it. From a corporate standpoint it's likely a nightmare black-eye product, and I'd kill myself if I had to support that thing in the field after selling them to the general public on Amazon and such.  Moog Inc. was probably desperate to replace it with the Theremini, but by all appearances they screwed the pooch on that, and it seems they lost the keys to the editor.

Continued communications with many external devices takes a long-term corporate commitment (almost an oxymoron, so don't pin any hopes to it) or an open interface that can be easily targeted by 3rd party software (as sometimes happens with a full MIDI spec, or via entirely open software).  Editors are great and all, but a couple of years go by and suddenly you're locked out of the "app" due to Apple changing their OS / processor family as often as I change my underwear.  Move really fast and keep everything broken.

DreadVox, sorry to hear about your Theremini ordeals. I am surprised to hear that Dorit Chrysler uses a custom-built Theremini. The changes you mentioned (such as antennae length) probably help a great deal. I recently took an online workshop with her on setting up the Theremini in order to coax more out of it and her suggestions definitely helped but, when compared to my Open Theremin, it’s still doesn’t match up.

Dewster, given the delays by Moog and their initial inference the Claravox is an exclusive instrument, I’ve often wondered if they should do something “special” to make those purchased prior to their initial deadline unique. Walnut is prohibitively expensive (I’ve often wondered if that’s one of the problems they’ve faced) and other features, such as the burlap face,  might be substituted with lesser, more cost effective materials for instruments purchased after last December 31st. In other words, produce the “exclusive” Claravox Centennial and then a “standard” Claravox - essentially what DreadVox suggested. Given that Moog continues to accept orders for a long overdue “exclusive” instrument causes significant bad will toward their brand. I know I won’t purchase another Moog instrument again.

Regarding editors, we can only hope that Moog makes it open source as that would help prevent the nightmare that exists with the Theremini editor.

Excuse a little off-topic sidestep, this is regarding the Theremini. I suddenly remembered a page about the Theremini that mentions an open source MIDI editor that can be used as Theremini Editor and if I remeber correctly somebody found that out before Moog released their 'official' Theremini Editor, so that may be of some use if it works on recent Windows versions (and maybe the Moog Theremini Editor works with WINE in Linux? Could be worth a try?).
Using MIDI Sliders software as Theremini editor

Monsieur, vous êtes fou :-)

For what it's worth.

Following comments made here, I prompted my retailer [edit: in Edinburgh, Scotland] to get in touch with their Moog contact and see if they could get any updates. They were pointed at the March communication that we've all read by now. My technical thoughts on the matter: 'poop '.

Hope we all have other instruments to scratch our musical itches!

Hi All,

Moog FINALLY responded to my request for information as to whether or not production had begun. I contacted them nearly two weeks ago with no response. A week later, (last Thursday) I sent a much stronger request for information and just heard back regarding that; here's a portion of the response I received a moment ago:

". . . thank you for reaching out, and thank you for your patience.

"I apologize that your first submitted question was not answered, that was a mistake on our end. To answer your question regarding production, yes production has begun, we expect to release another statement updating our customers by the end of this week."

Wish I had more information to share but, perhaps, we'll know more by the end of the week.