Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Theremin: Magic Ceramic Custom Synth

Happy New-Year everybody!
I hope you all had a great holiday season...
I found this one on the web, but it's not really new...

Video: Magic Ceramic Theremin Lamp Doepfer A-178
" The first test of the Magic Ceramic Theremin lamp. 
It was developed as a peculiar piece for the opening of the Exhibition of several ceramists in Gallery Artibrak. from November until 28th of December 2011.
A Theremin is normally step-less, but in this case an A-156 is used as a quantizer..

Small explanation for those who are not familiar:
In this magic piece of ceramic two antenna's are integrated. 
One antenna for the volume and one for the pitch. 
The instrument does not have to be touched. 
The volume can be controlled by your left hand (when approaching it the volume increases), the pitch can be controlled by your right hand (when approaching it, the pitch of the sound goes up). 
 By approaching the antenna's you are influencing the potential difference. 
Just like the antenna of your transistor radio which functions well or not when approaching it.

(Ceramic Art by Mance)
The Magic Ceramic is based on the original Theremin invented by Léon Theremin in 1919. 
That electronic instrument is step-less variable and very expressive. 
It sounds like an opera voice or violin.

This ceramic version of the instrument has a much more variety than it's original. 
You can make the sound stepless or let it be quantized, so that you hear a real tonescale/musical scale. 
The sinus-tone of the Magic Ceramic is quantized (chopped in pieces), and in the way it is presented now only the Minor notes are heard. (like the black keys on a piano) 
In this way the steps between the notes are bigger and easier to distinguish. 
Other possibilities are just Major notes or the complete tonescale, quantized or not. 
There is also a small sampler added, so when you reach the highest note a spoken voice can be heard."
More info HERE
Video uploaded by creativegallerysynth

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