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Theremin creation

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Author	Topic: Theremin creation
Joel Newport Member	posted 12 April 2004 12:12 Does anyone know how I would go about creating a theremin like in the old Sci-Fi movies of the 50's? Thanks. Joel IP: Logged
Bill Meadows Member	posted 14 April 2004 07:53 There are lots of plans and kits out there - Google "build theremin". IP: Logged
SSC Administrator	posted 14 April 2004 09:42 I think Joel was looking for some tips on creating the sound of a theremin...not necessarily how to build one...Although, knowing how to build one would give you some ideas on how to emulate the sound. My sense is that you could create an oscillator on a waveform of 2 or 3 harmonics and put that through a low pass filter. I don't think the theremin is quite a pure sine wave. The most important part is the control. In the Frequency field, you could try pasting a PeakDetector. Then feed a Constant into the PeakDetector and in the Value field of the Constant put a fader controller like !thereminPch. (In the Frequency field, you'll have to scale up the fader to the frequency range, for example [PeakDetector] L * SignalProcessor halfSampleRate IP: Logged
bfelton Member	posted 14 April 2004 09:44 I play regularly with a theremin player; we find that the addition of the Continuum controller to Kyma permits some astoundingly theremin-like levels of (perceived) response. Perhaps not the full spectrum the theremin is capable of, but quite a large range. (Mind you, I'm talking control here, the typical sound of a 'gestural' control function, rather than the strict tonality of the instrument ... ) cheers, Bill IP: Logged
SSC Administrator	posted 14 April 2004 10:28 Just out of curiosity, Bill, have you ever done a spectral analysis of your friend's Theremin? I'm curious whether it is closer to a filtered Sawtooth, a pure sine, or.... (I think you're right about the gestural control being even more important to the "Theremin sound" than the actual waveform, though) IP: Logged
bfelton Member	posted 14 April 2004 16:02 Hi, No, hadn't thought to do an analysis. Maybe this is because much of what Wolf does is rather heavily processed post-Theremin ;-) But it's an intriguing thought. I'm only just now getting the new setup in the new place in Chicago put together. He'll be down this weekend, I'll see if I can at least capture some 'straight' theremin for later analysis. cheers, Bill IP: Logged
Bill Meadows Member	posted 19 April 2004 11:07 quote: Originally posted by SSC: I think Joel was looking for some tips on creating the sound of a theremin...not necessarily how to build one...Although, knowing how to build one would give you some ideas on how to emulate the sound. I maintain that the main reason we recognize something as "sounding like a theremin" is because of the way in which the pitch and volume are controlled, not the particular waveforms produced. There have been many different Theremin implementations over the years and they don't all have the same oscillators, yet when we hear them, we recognize them as Theremins. It is much like the sound of a guitar. Guitars make many different sorts of waveforms, depending on if they are electric, classical, etc. Yet because of the fact that they have six strings, physically arranged and tuned in a certain way, we recognize the sound as coming from a guitar. This is why imitating non-keyboard instruments on a keyboard sampler is so difficult. The physical interface has more to do with it than the waveforms. Bottom line: if you want it to sound like a Theremin, use a Theremin. [This message has been edited by Bill Meadows (edited 20 April 2004).] IP: Logged
pete Member	posted 20 April 2004 05:21 I think your right bill. If you've ever played with an analogue sine wave sig gen (with a big rotory knob for the pitch) it sounds very theremin like. Maybe a simple sine wave osc with controllable vibrato and carefull use of the swarm feature in kyma (in single mode), may emulate the type of portamento (with the overshoot) that you get when a theremin is played. May be the key velocity could control the rate of change. Also randomly detuning (by a tiny amount) each time a new note is played might help. Also theremins were normaly played through valve amps so adding a bit of distortion and some reverb might add to the over all effect. Pete IP: Logged
babakool Member	posted 20 April 2004 20:06 While I would agree with Bill's basic premise I can't concur with his "bottom line" conclusion. As an avid user of physical modeling (not really found in Kyma) and a MIDI wind controller, I find that the key to emulative synthesis is the proper mapping of controller info to the model and then learning how to play it. In the case of the Theremin, independent MIDI CC data to pitch and amplitude (one for each hand that provided the gestural control of the Theremin) would be critical to a good emulation. If I was stuck with just a keyboard controller, I would map keyboard pressure to directly control amplitude and perhaps pitch to pitchbend or modwheel. A ribbon controller would be better than a center detent wheel or bender. A keyboard implementation of pitch could probably be made workable using Pete's suggestions but my bottom line would be that it would take some time and effort to learn how to play the "virtual Theremin" just as it would if you followed Bill's suggestion to stick with the real thing (not to mention finding or buying one). I do, however, agree with him about sampler limitations. The static "snapshot" approach of this sound model makes for impaired dynamic and expressive response (outside the realm of percussive type instruments) even with multi-sampling, velocity mapping; etc. The relative simplicity of the Theremin sound should yield some good results with enough effort. For some untested by me alternatives check out: http://www.theremin.info/index.php -under the Top Downloads. There's even a Palm OS to MIDI control mapper (Theremini)! As an interesting note, if you haven't seen the excellent Steven Martin documentary "Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey" it's well worth finding. There is lovely footage of the great Clara Rockmore playing much more than your "sci-fi soundtrack" type Theremin sounds that are generally associated with the instrument. In the same vein, if you have seen the movie, you may remember some brief footage of the Stanford Centennial CCRMA event in 1991 that featured the 95 year old Professor Theremin. He had only recently been discovered to be still alive after the Berlin wall came down. I had the good fortune to be in attendance that night. They helped Leon onto the stage to give a delightful demonstration on an original Theremin. When he made the classic siren sound, the audience erupted with cheers and laughter. My friends and I were hooting and hollering "Leon!" and "You Rock!". In attendance were the likes of Bob Moog, Tom Oberheim, and Don Buchla (who had performed earlier). Theremin's daughter Natasha came out after him and played a Stravinsky piece on the original device to a taped string section backing. It was an amazing performance that capped a memorable night. [Off Topic links of interest: Harm Visser (IMO a Scaletti-like type programming genius) has a website for his physical models he developed for the OASYS DSP platform (and an IRCAM Open Music library for those who may be interested): http://www.hvsynthdesign.com/index.htm On the OASYS plug-ins page, each of them has an MP3 that Mr. Visser created to demo the model. Contrast his (self admitted simplistic) keyboard played material to the excellent Jaime Newman pieces on the Users Page of the same site or some quick and sleazy demo's of mine in at: http://webpages.charter.net/heyoka/MP3_s/ for a insight into what technique can do for a instrument model. Please reply to me directly on off topic matters. Thanks!] IP: Logged
Bill Meadows Member	posted 20 April 2004 22:04 quote: Originally posted by babakool: While I would agree with Bill's basic premise I can't concur with his "bottom line" conclusion. As an avid user of physical modeling (not really found in Kyma) and a MIDI wind controller, I find that the key to emulative synthesis is the proper mapping of controller info to the model and then learning how to play it. I don't think we are disagreeing. Perhaps I should have said "use a Theremin, or create an interface which responds to human gestures in essentially the same way." My point is that the user interface is extremely important to successful mimicry - I assume you are using your wind controller to mimic wind instruments, not organs or timpani. It's very cool that you got to see Leon - the movie is truly amazing. (btw - Some of the mp3 examples were very nice - to bad the Oasys is out of production.) IP: Logged

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