Picture of the Month Gallery
Send your submissions for Picture of the Month to submit[REMOVE]@thereminworld.com.
December 2003 - Pierre's custom tube theremin
Pierre sent us this great photo of a new custom tube theremin he is building. It uses European tubes, loosely based
off of the RCA design. He's still working on the power stage. Stay tuned for some MP3 samples of this beauty coming soon!
November 2003 - Rita's AR-1264
This month's picture was sent to us by a reader named Rita. Here are 2 shots of her AR-1264 theremin. Notice
it's missing its doors and the pitch antenna is in rough shape. Still, it's better than ending up in a landfill!
Hopefully Rita will have some luck restoring this instrument back to working order.
October 2003 - Erik Strommen
No, it's not a Halloween costume, it's a black-laquer finish on a Moog Ethervox! Erik Stommen of Washington State sent us this picture of his Ethervox. Apparently,
this is the standard finish in Japan. This particular instrument, number 46 of only 48 made, was originally destined for Japan but found a home with Erik when the original purchaser backed out of
the deal.
September 2003 - G.S. Wylie
Another great example of what you can do with an Etherwave and a little bit of imagination... G.S. Wylie sent us this great picture
of an Etherwave Theremin board installed into a faux mahogany painted Masonite case. It's very light and much smaller than the RCA and sits on a mic stand, he reports.
Great job! Check out his website for more pictures and some cool
effects pedals.
August 2003 - Dan Marcus
Dan Marcus of Seattle, WA sent us this picture of himself playing an Etherwave suspended upside down above his head.
Dan recently finished up a run at Teatro Zinzani, a Seattle dinner theater known for spectacular shows.
This month's picture comes from rockabilly act Billy Joe Winghead. The photo is of their frontman John Manson, with his flamejob theremin made out of an old "fatshaker" weight reducing machine housing...
BJW has a new CD titled PRECIOUS MOMENTS WITH BILLY JOE WINGHEAD, on RAFR Records; on it is the theremin version of "Caravan", as well as a theremin lead on Skynard's "Freebird".
May 2003 - Don Congdon
May's pic o' the month was submitted by Don Congdon, a member of the engineering faculty at Bob Jones University in
South Caroline. Don writes:
The following picture is of an infrared-controlled theremin called Theremod that I've just completed.
Theremod is an infrared-controlled modular theremin designed to be used as a test-bed for experimental designs. Its four-slot backplane holds modules that manage the different functions of a theremin system (sensor conditioning, audio oscillator, wave shaping filters, and volume control). By making all signals available on the system bus, the designer can easily create a new module to experiment with any aspect of the system that he wishes.
The design shown in the picture has two sensor conditioning modules, an analog waveform generator/filter module, and a volume control module installed in the backplane. In this configuration Theremod functions as a traditional analog theremin with both pitch and volume control. It outputs one of two switch-selectable waveforms: square wave and a sine-like waveform that varies in its harmonic content across the pitch range. The control field is about two-feet and is quite linear.
My next project is a digital synthesis module to replace the analog waveform module.
April 2003 - Alexander Rastopchin
This month's submission comes to us from Alexander Rastopchin. The theremin is a basic picth & volume design (plate antenna for the volume control) with line and headphones outputs. Flip the switch- and volume control becomes disabled, you get the sound by blocking four laser beams inside a star-gate-shaped triangle. Trimpots inside the box let adjust the individual pitch of the four sensors (pitch antenna controls the master pitch).
John Macaluso uses his right hand stick to cross the beams and left hand to control pitch antenna. It's more of a noise machine, but with the use of delay, octave divider and distortion it sounds huge, and with practice you can play melodies and arpeggios.
Alexander is the owner of RASTOP Designs, makers of several guitar and other instrument effects.
March 2003 - They Came From Hollywood!
Meet Clara, a custom theremin built by Sparky and Lars. They are a two-member video game design team and are using the theremin for sound effects in their upcoming PC title, They Came From Hollywood!. it's a game about 1950s/60s giant monster movies, so the theremin sound is a natural fit). Clara is a PAIA Theremax inside a wooden box with a model skull providing the place to mount the antennae. The box is lit from
within with red lights, and they plan to put red lights in the skull's eye sockets as well.
To our knowledge, this would be the first time a theremin has been used as a sound effect in a video game. Check out their theremin page for more photos.
January/February 2003 - Bruce Bennett
This month's picture is from Bruce Bennett. He's building a PAIA Theremax theremin and decided to go for a far-out
flying saucer look instead of the traditional cabinet. He's using 2 semi truck hubcaps for the base of his design.
Go Bruce Go!
More Pictures!
