Playing the theremin with headphones, a few questions

I’m quite happy about it. I’ll try properly this week-end, see if the sound quality is all right etc. Next step is making a nice support to clip it to the mic stand (in the picture it is just taped).

So just a little follow-up after using it for a while.

I’m very happy about it, it’s so compact and works well. Being able to mix the sound of the theremin with another source is so great, especially since they both have their own volume knob. So it is definitely a product I would advise to play with headphones. Sometimes though it seems to pick-up some ghost noises, but it’s very occasional and I can’t really figure out the reason.

Here is how I mounted it on the mic theremin stand:

Here I use a Sansa Clip+ to play music tracks at the same time. Closer view:

I put some Sugru (great mouldable adhesive material) on each side of the amp to be able to clip it with mic stand clips:

So I guess this is the end of this topic, until I try to make some internal amp at least!

Hi there, after seeing this, I purchased a MA400, however it’s giving me some strange effects. The sound is very distorted and the field is all over the place. I see you have what appears to be an earth cable coming from the bottom of the Etherwave, where is that going to?
Many thanks.

A theremin must have an earth ground to work properly. Some say throw some long cable on the ground but this may only be beneficial to a digital theremin

If your theremin wall-wart does not have a three prong plug then adding your device blocked you from getting it from an amplifier with a three prong plug.

You need to get earth ground back to your theremin. How you do this in your country I do not know. A start might be to plug a Y adapter into the audio output jack and use the extra side shield or negative side connected to earth ground.

Christopher

Thank you, will give it a try. 

Hi Downsy,

Which AC adapter are you using? I think the American one has a ground pin but the European one has no ground, and it probably differs from plug type to plug type?

I have the European one and so yes, this extra cable under my theremin is a ground cable, it’s soldered inside to some ground part of the circuit, and outside it just goes to a normal plug but it only connected to the ground. It’s a bit messy, but that’s the only way I could find to get the theremin connected to the ground knowing I was almost never going to use it with other grounded equipment.

What would be really cool to do is a proper grounded European AC adapter for the theremin.

Ahh, it’s a UK plug, but the earth pin is plastic, so no found for me! I’ll make up a plug with an earth strap and see how it goes. Many thanks.