I learned something useful about my Kees today:

If you drape the audio cable over the volume antenna it kills the sound. So who needs a mute button? Not me!

And all it took to figure that out was twenty minutes of swapping batteries and cables around, switching in and out the stomp boxes that sit atop it and wondering if my new one was either flakey or really ate batteries at a phenomenal rate. Then five minutes thinking what an idiot I was for not noticing that the problem only happened when the audio cable was touching the antenna. And then another minute of thinking what an idiot I was for not realising immediately that this could be a good thing.

Oh yes, I got a new effects unit. Rewind to this morning...

Announced whilst driving the wife to work that I was planning on going to Hooters. Followed by a very hasty explanation that it was a music store, not the restaurant chain. Ho ho ho. Followed it up with a suggestion that we visit the Whip and Collar over the weekend. (Local pub, not fetish club!) More ho ho ho.

So, took my instrument to Hooters, having previously checked that this would be a good time to do so, and started auditioning stomp boxes. Probably would have been a good idea to take some headphones, but after about ten minutes they rather nervously volunteered a pair for me to borrow. Spent a good couple of hours working my way through box after box, until I was completely spaced.

Conclusions.

There appeared to be no variety of guitar distortion box that I like qua theremin usage. Good. That will save me some expenditure. When I want a hard edge to the sound I'll stick with the half wave rectification offered by the Kees and the gain knob on my fender amp.

Chorus is just as unpleasant in a box as in software.

Octave boxes do things I don't want to the sound too.

Even expensive vibrato boxes are nowhere near as good as my coffee-frother trill. Honestly. This is not a Gordon wind-up. (Incidentally, I discovered the amount of vibrato is easily tempered by pushing my hand though the field so that I am playing with my wrist, rather than the end of the coffee-frother. No need to stop playing to twiddle knobs.) When I am ready to upgrade I want one of these, so I have variable speed too. (And I am achingly curious to find out what it does to the waveform at 25,000 RPM!)

So what did I end up with?

A Marshall Echohead Delay. Yes, a second delay box. I'm not going to list what it does here. If you're curious there's a downloadable manual here. Some of the settings appear to introduce an unpleasant click from time to time, and what is presumably a warm, mellow tone for a guitar translates to muddy and indistinct to some extent, but I really like the hi-fi setting which doesn't mess with the sound at all, and chaining it with my Danelectro PB&J is just a load of fun. Turning all the knobs not quite fully clockwise and giving it the finger wriggles turns my cluster drone into this rich, thick velvety texture that is just gorgeous. Mixing fast and slow delays gives a really good deep water submarine sonar bleep with the right settings.

(One other negative - varying the delay speed whilst playing it makes a weird digital noise, unlike the PB&J, but that was not something I was looking for anyway.)

Honestly, the couple of little moans I mentioned don't bother me in the least, and I am one happy camper, looking forward to hours of experimentation.

Gordon-

I can very much relate to your analogy of the playground...I too, spent most of my childhood (read, "early development-formative years") without someone hovering over me telling me "you can't do that", or that I "shouldn't." I am quite sure that my creativity was not stifled in the least bit, only to later on in life have people try to quash my playing styles, merely because they couldn't understand how to do certain things themselves.

I was playing in a full-time rock 'n' roll band touring in the mid-to-late 80's, and our drummer was quite an accomplished musician. He had all the necessary degrees from university, deeming him worthy of instructing 6th thru 9th year students. One day, as we were travelling, our conversation led to time signatures of odd meter, and he was trying to explain the theory of why it sounded a certain way, and himself being quite amused at my saying, "I'm not that interested in why it sounds that way, but only that it works."

He offered to have me come in to his classroom and basically be "on display" of some sort of mutant-musician who actually "feels" the groove of a song, rather than counting meticulously for the proper placement of each note, whilst risking the potential for playing the notes, rather than the spaces in between. He also found it quite interesting that I referred to certain dynamics of a song in colors...

Once, while working up some songs in a different band, the other guitar player was trying to follow a particular progression I was playing, and looked at me quite puzzled as to the fingering I was holding for a certain chord, and asked me, "What in the world do you call that positioning?!!" I told him I was self-taught and wasn't quite sure myself, but compared his book & lesson training to "store bought" tomatoes, and mine was more like "home-grown". And of course, most would say that the "home-grown" garden variety is usually better in a lot of ways. :-)

My apologies for the reminiscence of "days gone by"...but I found your description of your experience very similar, and just wanted to say that I concur. Who says it "has to be that way"?!!

Cheers-

Terry

Oh...and I'm not quite sure, but I think I heard a fraction of "Midnight Mescaline Moonlight" in an advertisement for one of our radio station's Severe Weather promos. I'll have to try and get a recording of it, and compare.

The first moment I heard it, I was pretty sure it was, but how did they get it? That would be an interesting story. I'll try calling the station to see if I can track the production person down.

Sorry I haven't been around. Life grabbed me by the nads and twisted. Spent yesterday recovering in front of a video game with a bottle of cheap wine. All better now, mostly.

The oscillator idea you and Kevin were going back and forth on got me a little curious. I just haven't had time to do the research. If I'm right, you're talking about controlling a bunch of synth's from a theremin to fatten the tone? I wonder if that's anything like what Roland did with their Boss Bass Synth stomp box.

I know where your coming from on the "self taught' front, Terry. I got kicked out of a band for daring to go back to school to study history instead of music. I took music classes prior to that and found them unsatisfying. I like mistakes. I like things to be rough around the edges. It seeems more honest that way. BTW Gordon, your swingset story is going to become a small poster in my lab/classroom at the school. That was awesome.

I can't wait to hear what you make the Marshall do. I may have to go to Guitar Center and check that out. I've been looking for a delay stomp box to replace a Digitech I foolishly sold a long time ago. It had a two second sampler on it and ate batteries faster than a Hummer eats petrol, but it sounded so cool. ugh.

On a personal note, I'm out of money so the big studio in the basement idea is out for now, but I have a mini-studio brewing in the spare bedroom/library and have found (finally) the power adapter for my theremin! It got packed with some toys instead of with the studio gear somehow. I should be recording in the next few weeks and might have something to share soon.

Cheers,
Weird

I like to understand the why of a thing, Terry. No, that's not quite right. I like to have a theory. Theories are good, even theories that are not quite right - they can lead to interesting ideas.

Since my house-spouse story went down well, here's another. I've learned a lot from my children. :-)

On the tube (subway) with Laura, 5.

     "Dad, why has the train stopped?" (Not in a station.)

I have no idea. But "I don't know" is one of my big three worst things to say to children. The others are "stop asking questions" and "because I say so." So...

          "The elastic band ran down. There's a long elastic band under the floor that make the wheels go round. You can hear it squealing as it unwinds. The driver has to wind it up with a handle."

     "What makes it go really?"

          "Electricity. We are waiting for the man with a big sack full of new batteries."

     "Really?" (Still not quite buying it.)

          "Really by electricity. See those wires? The electricity goes into the rails and through the metal wheels. Perhaps someone pulled the plug out by accident."

A train passes close by going the other way. We start moving again.

     "That's why we stopped, Dad. To let the other train past."


Thanks for the news about Severe Weather promos. It would be neat if it is MMM as you suspect. I'd love to hear about it.



Glad to hear things are on the up, Edweird.

I forgot to mention what the Marshall pedals looks like. Like Frankenstein's monster needed orthopaedic footwear.

Best thing out of the echohead so far is a triggered memory.

Theories are all well and good, but it's even better to hold the means of putting one into practice in your hand. That makes it real.

You can set it to repeat forever (I haven't had time to check that) and configure it to keep repeating after you stomp it off. You can sample yourself. A thought I've had and heard plenty of times. But looking at the device and thinking "I have room for a couple more on top of the Kees, and if I chained them then I could put a sample on the last in the chain, then on the next one up and so on" and I suddenly remembered switching on the TV to watch late night Open University on BBC2 as a teenager just at the start of a performance of Steven Reich's Clapping Music. (There's a fairly ropey video of it here.)

I was totally mesmerised. The way it kept changing but staying the same. Totally brilliant.

Then the narrator broke it down. The first pattern is constant. The second phase shifts.

The score is here.

It embodies one of the keys to the golden kingdom.

I'm sure the conservatory boys will back me up on this. The difference between your really good composer and your great composer is that cleverness can pile on the complexity and have the decency to stop before it turns self-indulgent, but it takes genius to find the depth in simplicity.

Ever had that feeling listening to say Bach or Mozart that if you tried to do something like that it would just turn out trite?

Emergent Properties.




I really must knuckle down and record Plummeting Man. Just waiting for health, mood and opportunity to coincide.

Also I'm feeling better equipped to record an intro to fx boxes for theremin as promised simply ages ago on another thread. I'll get to it eventually. Delayed delays. Ho ho ho.

The Procrastinator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

There's a joke to be found in there, but I can't be bothered to work it out just at the moment. Maybe later...



One last note. I figured out how to determine the speed of my coffee-frother. Tied a thread to the shaft and turned it on for about three seconds. It wrapped round about 50 times. So about 1000 rpm.

I'll need to find a slower variable-speed hobby drill than the one linked in my previous posting.

Gordon


PS - while writing this my Dad wanted to know the capital of Oregon. I noticed a brilliant factoid in Wikipedia that I just have to share.

The official Oregon State Seashell is the Oregon hairy triton.

Gordon, you mentioned Steve Reich. Reich is not just one of my favorite composers, he is one composer that truely inspires me. If someone were to hear a composition of mine and remark that it reminds them of Reich, I would take it as a compliment!

My favorite Reich pieces are Drumming, Desert Music, and Sextet. I am unable to decide on a single favorite.

Gordon, have you posted any videos or .mp3's of your Theremin-with-vibrator creations?

Whilst I adore Steve Reich's clapping music (It's nigh impossible to perform btw), New York Counterpoint was the reason I chose *not* to study Post Modernism as part of my A-level course. Whilst he chose perhaps the most memorable and least annoying ostinato he could have, I still found the piece about as enjoyable as drinking bleach. Heheh.

Berio would have been so much better. Listen to Sequenza II. You won't regret it, especially if you have the score to follow.

I actually haven't listened to anything else by Reich. After hearing Clapping Music I almost didn't want to in case I was disappointed. Sounds like you got a dose of that, Charlie...

However I was aware that he was a big influence on two of my favourites - Philip Glass and Brian Eno. (If I had to cite a single inspiration it would be certainly be Eno.) I might just follow up your suggestions. (And Charlie D's Berio - a new name to me.)

Anyway, since I found the score my exercise for today will be to figure out what "the second part phase shifts" actually means, while I sit with Laura - she's off school with a rotten summer cold. :-(

As I mentioned, I'm currently waiting for the right moment to do some recording. My coffee-frother is going to feature in Plummeting Man - it has a light, helicoptery feel to it that I think will work with my other ideas. And when I do the Theremin Effects 101 thing it is sure to get a demo.

Hmm. Today's exercise took about about ten seconds. Got it! :-)

Think I'll try sequencing it in Garageband if Laura falls asleep.

<drum roll>

Announcing...

<fanfare>

The world has been waiting for them, and here they are...

<pause for dramatic effect>

two completely new electromechanical theremin effects.

They said it couldn't be done, but they were wrong...

...I give you the...

Frothatrill and Twangulator.

<ting>


Well, OK, not completely new, the frothatrill is the coffee frother trill device, refined by adding a second wire propellor blade on the other side of the whisk to the first one. This doubles the speed. The slower speed is still available by folding back one wire.

But it's an interesting point, isn't it, that in live performance you have not only analogue and digital effects, but also electro-mechanical ones by introducing conductive objects other than the hands into the pitch and volume fields.

And they have the advantage that they do not mess with the output signal - this is still a totally pure theremin voice, unlike a stomp-box effect.

News flash - I recall omhoge lamenting here on the poor forgotten volume loop, and here a nod in his direction for setting me thinking - with a bit of adjustment to the volume field and, holding the frothatrill at the very end, letting the propellors (or propellor, I prefer the slower speed for this) dip into the centre of the volume loop, gives a neat tremolo.

And thinking about that led to the Twangulator.

Ever trapped one end of a school ruler against the desk and twanged the other end. Thrubbadubbadubbadubbadubdubdub?

50 cm (18") steel ruler lashed by the last 8 cm (3") to the top of a dining chair so the free end sticks under the volume loop, just below the active field so it doesn't get in the way when not in use. To use it twang the end or tap the middle rhythmically. The end bounces in and out of the active field, modulating the volume. Hence "the twangulator." The hand can be moved closer of further away whilst tapping to vary the overall volume. Attach a large fridge magnet to it to alter the speed.

What fun!

Any pending recordings of these wacky new techniques, Gordon? I really want to hear them!