Several weeks ago, I emailed Frenkel Thierry and asked him to send me his Etherwave Pro modification kit. He did, and it got here but not without an appropriate {{{*oooooooEEEooooooo*}}} element ...
When the small box from him arrived, I emailed him to let him know it had come, and then set it aside until I was ready to take it and my theremin to Dave Weiner, local theremin tech extraordinare.
A couple of weeks went by and with all the usual commotion going on around here, the module slipped my mind. I just hadn't had time to take over to Dave for him to install for me.
I got a follow-up email from Thierry asking if I had received the module. He said he had not heard back from me about it, so he was somewhat concerned.
So, as I sat down to email him again to let him know the module had arrived, I opened the box and looked inside. It was filled with styro peanuts and some bubble-wrap. And that was all! I looked through the peanuts several times, combing through them carefully to make sure a small part wasn't hidden inside somewhere. But the box was empty!!
The box did not appear to have been tampered with or opened, and there were no holes or unsealed areas where it could have fallen out (which has happened before with parcels). So I wondered if possibly Frenkel could have overlooked putting the module in the box before he sealed
the box and mailed it to me.
I emailed Thierry and let him know about this.
He replied saying he couldn't imagine having made such a mistake, because he writes down the modude's serial number when he packs it.
He wondered if I might have overlooked something. He said that the module is very small, about 1" x 0.8". He put it in the middle of three foam pieces and wrapped tape around it. He wrote 'CRL' onto that before wrapping it with bubble wrap and stuffing it into the parcel together with styro peanuts.
So I looked through the box again very carefully, and even looked around on my desk where I had opened the box and on the floor around the desk to see if it had fallen out and I hadn't noticed it. But it was not here.
I emailed him again and assured him the module was nowhere to be found.
He was so incredibly gracious as to send me a second module, and would not hear of my paying for it; he would not even let me cover the additional postage.
When the second box came, I opened it to make sure it had contents and this time it did! I emailed him to let him know, and then I sealed the box back up. Then the next day, I took it to Dave's house for him to install.
He did so, and then last night I went over there to try it out.
As I said in the subject line.......
******* WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!! *******
The volume response is ABSOLUTELY incredible. The tone comes up perfectly smoothly without the slight "pop" that was there before. And the volume range from pppp to FFFF is magnificent. My Pro was nowhere nearly as expressive or smoothly responsive before. It has wonderful response and sensitivity in even the softest volume levels, and then when I soar up to full volume it literally makes the hairs on the back of my neck tingle because the range is so sublimely expressive.
I'm running out of glowing adjectives, so just let me say that anyone who has an Etherwave Pro MUST get Frenkel's modification in order to fully maximize their theremin's potential. Frenkel's module has added a beautifully expressive dimension to mine, and I have gained a new appreciation for what a fine instrument it is.
Oh, and by the way, the setting that did the magic was #3 (there are four choices, selectible by jumpers).
"Frenkel... That's DAMN GOOD!!!" :)
~
CRL
