Etherwave Pro and pitch preview

[Thierry Frenkel]

One of the major weak points of the Etherwave Pro is the lack of a true pitch preview. There is the tuner output, but it does not follow the register switch which makes that the player has to transpose the signal eventually by one or two octaves. Out of that, the signal is too weak to drive a headphone or ear plug directly, so that an external headphone amplifier would be needed. A workaround for the octave problem has been suggested by the late Bob Moog, but the second problem persists.

On the other side, there is a headphone output which is not very useful in the original configuration because its audio quality is not very good and the volume response differs strongly from the main audio output. But it has its own volume control which makes it a good base for a comfortable pitch preview.

These were my thoughts when I started having a closer look on the EPro's volume board. And I found a finally a way to keep the original audio signal (register and timbre) on the headphone output, but at a constant volume level independent of the volume loop and the mute switch. The headphone volume control knob remains operational and allows to adjust the audio level of the pitch preview signal. The modification is somewhat tricky and consists (among others) in cutting off a part of one of the copper straps on the circuit board and soldering a resistor across two other points. It's an operation which is risky and thus should be done only by very experienced people. I will give a detailed description by email to interested people on demand. Those who don't dare this but want this pitch preview "de luxe" though, may send me their volume board in to get the mod done. (25€ plus shipping costs)

[Peter Pringle]

When I received my Etherwave Pro, I was surprised by the lack of pitch preview (and the tuner output was useless) so I emailed Bob Moog and asked him how to install a pitch preview that would respect the register selector, and be impervious to volume changes and the cutoff switch. Here is Bob's reply:

"There is a point where you connect to the audio signal before it gets volume-controlled. The most-lower-right resistor on the pitch board is R80. It's a 4.7K resistor. The signal you're looking for is at the top of this resistor. There's already a 22K resistor soldered to R80. Solder another 22K resistor to this point, and then take your signal from that 22K resistor. You'll need a ground connection too. Just scrape away some of the green solder mask from the circuit board near R80. The copper under the solder mask is the ground. It's a fairly hot signal. If the signal is too hot, then connect a 4.7K (or less) resistor from the free end of the 22K that you've just added, to ground."

It is very important to be able to control the volume (and possibly the tone as well) of your preview, so I use a matchbox type amp (I use the same 9 volt battery unit - a POCKET ROCKIT - for all my theremins including the RCA's). I plug the matchbox into the E'Pro preview jack, and then plug my earbud into the matchbox. 

The advantage of the RCA's is that you don't need to plug the matchbox into anything. You just turn it on and sit it on the music rack. The RCA leaks enough of a signal that the matchbox can pick it up by proximity alone. You can change the preview volume by moving the matchbox to the right or left along the rack.

Thierry, I have had Fauré's APRES UN REVE going around and around in my head for days. I am going to have to record the piece in order to exorcise it! The big question is: what theremin should I use? Sarah Rice turned me on to French soprano Veronique Gens, whose version of the song is (IMNSHO) about as close to perfection as it is possible to get.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCU7YyTtX4A

Many people have emailed me asking me to do things on the Goldberg RCA using the Electro-Harmonix TALKING MACHINE but I hesitate to do that because I think it may be too gimmicky. Of course, if I were to use the TM the song would be in a lower register - comparable to the version sung by baritone Gérard Souzay, 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRrdWhKuwQ4

The Goldberg RCA with the TM has a unique, uncannily human sound that is unlike any other theremin I have heard. Is the song as effective in that register as it is in the soprano register?

Thoughts?........Anyone????

[Thierry Frenkel]

Peter, thank you for these detailed information about the Moog suggestion. It is about picking a signal which you will have to wire to an existing or additional output and which needs an external headphone amplifier. I think that my solution is somewhat more comfortable since it uses the (normally unused) headphone output and it requires no additional wiring in the instrument: The volume board is unplugged from the flat cable, modified and replugged while all other circuit boards, outputs and the wiring can remain unchanged.

About Fauré: IMHO the talking machine is a nice gadget but will never give a better musical expression than a professional theremin player would get out of a good theremin. As we discussed often here and on TW, it is mostly the player's technique which will decide if the theremin will sound like singing or bowing, and less the timbre. Thus I'd suggest that you take your RCA (not the Goldberg which as a too weird tone) and make it sing with your hands and not with electronic effects.

[Thierry Frenkel]

P.S.: I didn't like the baritone version. Although it is sung, it is not really singing...

[Rob Schwimmer]

Hi, Peter, Thierry, and all--

Why choose? Do both... One soprano and one w. TM on Goldberg... It would be very cool to hear what the comparative pluses and minuses might be... if any. Might both be great and totally different. 

Thierry, as far as your comment, 

"Thus I'd suggest that you take your RCA and make it sing with your hands and not with electronic effects" 

That sounds pretty ridiculous to me... You realize how many people would say the exact same thing about the theremin? Insert "real instrument" for "RCA" and "theremin" for "electronic effect" and there you go... I think being a purist in this instance is silly. If Lev had been a total purist there would be no theremin... I think anything that might be an advancement or enhancement should be seriously considered... No reason things can't improve or morph or whatever... One can still choose where progress is no longer feeling like progress...

I'm not advocating using the TM instead of a straight RCA version at all... but I hate to see the stigma of using an additional electronic device as a less than even match just because you're using it. I draw my own personal line (I personally don't like the idea of using pitch correction) but not in that spot

PLUS--Peter, this is your discovery! Who gives a fuck if somebody thinks it's a gimmick... If it doesn't speak (sorry, Talk) to you for that reason well that's your call but why be conservative now? It might very well be the right tool for the right job...

My take on the TM is that I love using it for one or 2 pieces in a set... not for a whole set. It's a nice change for the audience and me, too

Also I don't think 

" Although it is sung, it is not really singing..."

is really an accurate assessment of what's going on with the baritone. Thierry, if you're reading this I think it's fine to say you hate it and to you it sucks but to say it's not singing seems a bit harsh... I know there's been times before when language plays a significant barrier to expression so I'm not attacking you in any way... But I am disagreeing 

Rob

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[David Curtis]

PP: I have had Fauré's APRES UN REVE going around and around in my head for days. I am going to have to record the piece in order to exorcise it! The big question is: what theremin should I use?

If you are going to play the Casals transcription (as did Lucie B. Rosen) then the Hoffman RCA in the cello range seems like a good match (assuming the instrument is up to the task), or your Ethervox, if a theremin that can deliver the soprano money note(s) is desired.

Speaking of French singers, what do you think of Sandrine Piau? Mme Piau is mostly celebrated for her work in Baroque opera, but she also sings art songs, eg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np0DKTPp0KM

Gérard Souzay was practically peerless in this repertoire. Fantastic.

--

[mpic...@earthlink.net]

I would think it would depend on the key.

The accompaniment can sound heavy if it gets too low then you have to revoice it maybe.

There is a certain sound and feeling in the accompaniment. I go through this all the time when I have to change something (usually popular, songbook or Broadway) into my key which is usually about a 3rd or 4th higher. 

You have impeccable musical taste Peter, go with your instincts.

So glad you like Veronique Gens. My husband doesn't like her sound. He feels that there is no height in the sound. Like a low ceiling. But I really like her sound and her interpretations. Her songs of the Auvergne are gorgeous. She is from that region so she has the accent and feel down pat.

Sarah

[Peter Pringle]

Hi Thierry,

Yes, your preview modification is more streamlined and definitely more convenient than the improvised arrangement suggested by Bob Moog. The only advantage to the separate matchbox miniamp is that you have controls that allow you to alter the timbre of your preview tone. In certain circumstances, this lets you adjust your preview so you can hear it better WITHOUT having to raise its volume. As you know, I have always said that the first rule of the audio pitch preview is never to have it any louder than necessary in order to be usable.

If you could hear the normal volume level of my preview, I think you would be surprised at how low it is.

Yes, I'm also a little leery of the "gimmick" nature of the Electro-Harmonix TM. And YES, the natural sound of the Goldberg RCA is harsh and unpleasant due, I believe, to slight changes in the voltages when the power transformer was replaced in the 1980's. Curiously, it is this very harshness that mixes so effectively with the TM.

I was surprised by your remark that the Gérard Souzay version of APRES UN REVE was "not really singing". The first time I heard Souzay was in the early 1960's when I was studying piano. I HATED the sound of the man, and disliked that weak-kneed "chanson aux yeux fermés" approach to the music. No cojones! I loved the French 'art song' repertoire, but only enjoyed it when it was sung by dramatic sopranos. 

You are certainly not the only person to reject Souzay's singing style, and the late German lyric baritone, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, was sometimes criticized for what many considered the same shortcomings. Curiously, it was through listening to Dieskau that I came to love the singing of Souzay (but it took 30 years). 

I am old enough to remember when many people were claiming that Rock & Roll wasn't music. I suspect that these people meant the same thing you meant when you suggested that Souzay was "not really singing". 

What you mean is, YOU DON'T LIKE IT and further, that you disapprove of it.

[Peter Pringle]

David Curtis wrote: Speaking of French singers, what do you think of Sandrine Piau? Mme Piau is mostly celebrated for her work in Baroque opera, but she also sings art songs, eg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np0DKTPp0KM

Hi David,

Not crazy about Sandrine Piau's version of APRES UN REVE. I find the tempo much too fast, and she tosses the song off breathlessly and excitedly, as if it were a light encore tune, rather than a dark, reflective, dreamy piece of late romantic French music. She is also, for several reasons I won't go into, much harder to understand than Veronique Gens or Susan Graham. You need to hear every word clearly in a song like this and many of Mlle Piau's words are swallowed - sacrificed to the sound. I could have lived without the pix of Ava Gardner & company. (Not that I don't like Ava. I named my dog after her!)

Here is the late soprano Galina Vishnevskaya's Russian language version of the song. She sings it with her usual tempered steel voice, but it's kinda fun to hear this in Russian. As you probably know, Vishnevskaya was the wife of cellist Mistislav Rostropovitch. She died last year at the age of 86.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iOlPgrXlTo

[mpic...@earthlink.net]

On Jul 23, 2013, at 8:13 PM, David Curtis wrote:

PP: I have had Fauré's APRES UN REVE going around and around in my head for days. I am going to have to record the piece in order to exorcise it! The big question is: what theremin should I use?

If you are going to play the Casals transcription (as did Lucie B. Rosen) then the Hoffman RCA in the cello range seems like a good match (assuming the instrument is up to the task), or your Ethervox, if a theremin that can deliver the soprano money note(s) is desired.

Speaking of French singers, what do you think of Sandrine Piau? Mme Piau is mostly celebrated for her work in Baroque opera, but she also sings art songs, eg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np0DKTPp0KM

Gérard Souzay was practically peerless in this repertoire. Fantastic.

Sandrine Piau has a lovely voice and obviously her dream is a little more sprightly which makes it a little less sensual to me. But beautifully sung.

Gérard Souzay has that fast French Baritone vibrato which some people love and others don't. That is the kind of vibrato I was getting on the theremin at first. I prefer a more string like vibrato or a little slower vocal vibrato (no wobble) personally. But he is considered one of the premier interpreters of this music. I think he was teaching here in NYC and still may be. Is he still with us?

Such an incredible gorgeous piece of music. I have been wanting to sing it for the longest time and I think it would be lovely on the theremin because the melody is so extraordinary.

Hav you heard Babs Streisand's interpretation? Interesting but a bit OTT for me orchestrally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbTJtkSutH8

XOXO,

Sarah

[mpic...@earthlink.net]

what kind of cello is this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVyza9jzw18

Sort of on point since we all do the vocalise on theremin.
S

[Peter Pringle]

Thierry wrote in reference to the TALKING MACHINE: "Thus I'd suggest that you take your RCA ...... and make it sing with your hands and not with electronic effects."

This is a curious comment since the theremin IS an electronic effect. 

If you run the theremin output signal through some kind of peripheral device strictly in order to change the timbre, why is that different from changing the timbre by using the timbre controls built into the instrument? 

Lev Termen provided his custom theremins with many different sounds and did not consider any particular one to be more "theremin" than any of the others. Clara Rockmore's instrument was provided with a variety of sounds, but Clara used only one.

Effects are classified by type, roughly as follows: DYNAMICS, DISTORTION, MODULATION, FILTER, PITCH and SUSTAIN/FEEDBACK. You cannot lump all these things into the same acoustic bag because they do very different things. The Electro-Harmonix "Talking Machine" falls into the FILTER category, and filtering is something that many theremins are already provided with by their manufacturers. 

Regardless of how you process the sound of your theremin in regard to filter, the skill required to "make it sing with your hands" does not change. There are all sorts of electronic effects that can and DO mask a lack of technique on the part of the player, but it seems to me that filter control is not one of them. 

I experimented a lot with the TM when Electro-Harmonix first introduced it, and I was amazed by the way it transformed the sound of Julius Goldberg's RCA, but I lost interest in it when everybody hopped on the bandwagon and the device became the theremin flavor-of-the-moment. 

[David Curtis]

The Yamaha 'Silent' strings are just electric instruments with digital sound processing (DSP) built in. 

In 'Plugging In: Electric Fiddles are Opening Ears and Opening Doors' by Christopher Roberts (Strings, Feb 2013) 

Johannes Moser briefly discusses shifting between electric and acoustic cellos: 'Playing an electric instrument "does not require the bow-hand skills you need for an acoustic" 

... adding that he always needs a day or two to rediscover the refinement in his right hand needed for classical repertoire.'

Moser plays the Yamaha SVC110, in this case through a pair of Roland Jazz Chorus 120 amps (one as monitor, one for sound 

projection into the hall):

Johannes Moser on the Electric Cello and MAGNETAR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYuZ-EoE-pE

Dudamel - Moser - LAPO: Magnetar Rehearsal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IisxwQUi_tQ

Glossy brochure with some technical details: http://download.yamaha.com/api/asset/file/?language=en&site=europe.yamaha.com&asset_id=54258

Luka Sulic (along with 2Cellos partner Stjejan Hauser) wants to attract a younger audience while flirting with Rock-like stardom 

as can be heard in this rather goofy interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=531gS0UW-XQ. New, hip instruments are part of the appeal.

[mpic...@earthlink.net]

I experimented a lot with the TM when Electro-Harmonix first introduced it, and I was amazed by the way it transformed the sound of Julius Goldberg's RCA, but I lost interest in it when everybody hopped on the bandwagon and the device became the theremin flavor-of-the-moment. 

That would be because it improves the sound dramatically of the harsher theremin choices one gets with the etherwave standard. I hate the bees in a glass quality the ES has and it is hard to make a pleasing sound. Thierry's module improves the lower portion of the pitch field with a much better sound, but the upper still is not as pleasing as the pro or an RCA or even the Wavefront. 

When I had the borrowed Big Briar etherwave, the sound was so unpleasant that the only way to make it bearable was to hook it up to the TM. It gave it some roundness. Otherwise the sound was so comical, that combined with my iffy notes made people laugh at me even more than they already were.

The Subscope has a magic flute quality which is nice for many things, but difficult to get the rich cello like tones of the Wavefront orRCA. They all have such different sounds.

For certain things the TM is wonderful. I love using it on the Firebird (arr. by Robbit) because it imparts an otherworldly not quite beast or what is it quality to the music.

S

[mpic...@earthlink.net]

Thanks for the info! Verrry interesting!

S

[Kevin Utter]

Hi all! I thought at one time there was a mod, perhaps offered by Moog, that turned the headphone into a pitch preview which acted in reverse of the volume antenna, so that it played when the instrument was silent and faded as you got louder. If so, is it possibly still available from whoever offered it, and was it as useable as it sounded?

I'm also using a Pocket-Rocket, although I find its volume so high that its hard to control, and I usually have to dangle the earbud in front of my ear just to avoid the loudness and the hiss from the Pocket-rocket. It means the earbud is still fairly loud, and sometimes audible to the rest of the world.

Kevin

[Peter Pringle]

Kevin,

I use a Pocket-Rockit pitch preview and do not have the problem you described above. What are you plugging your P-R into? Have you installed a proper loop bypass preview jack on your E'Pro? 

If not, you are probably feeding an already amplified signal into your P-R amplifier and it's no wonder it is BLASTING your eardrum! Furthermore, the "TUNER OUTPUT" jack on the E'Pro is useless anyway because, if I recall correctly, the signal does not correspond correctly to the register. 

Unfortunately, there are a number of flaws in the Etherwave Pro that did not get ironed out prior to manufacture and distribution because Bob was already seriously ill at the time with the cancer that ultimately took his life, and the company rushed to market.

Here are the instructions for the pitch preview connection that the late Dr. Bob sent to me:

"There is a point where you connect to the audio signal before it gets volume-controlled. The most-lower-right resistor on the Pitch Board R80. The copper under the solder mask is the ground plane. It's a fairly hot signal. If the signal is too hot, then connect a 4.7K (or less) resistor from the free end of the 22K that you've just added, to ground."

[Kevin Utter]

Hi Peter! I do use the tuner output, as I don't find the difference in octave problematic. My main problem is how hot the output of the actual PR is. Its background hiss is quite high, and I have to keep the volume very low to avoid too much pitch-preview volume. The only thing I've found to do is put a little external headphone volume control in line with the buds. Its little and fragil, and just one more thing to worry about, but I guess that's my best option for the present. And it is better than no preview for sure.

Kevin

[Peter Pringle]

Kevin,

The output signal from the TUNER OUTPUT jack is already an amplified signal intended to feed headphones. Why are you using a Pocket-Rockit? Why not just plug your earbud directly into your E'Pro? As it is, you are re-amplifying an already amplified sound, and unnecessarily overloading your P-R.

An audio preview device should never be any louder than it absolutely has to be, otherwise it can interfere with your ability to hear your speaker

[Kevin Utter]

Hi Peter. I had tried before, but went right down and checked it again to remember. Although the tuner output can be heard without amplification, at least on mine it isn't quite enough. I could use it in a quiet place  unaccompanied, but it would quickly become completely inaudible with any background noise or even an mp-mf accompanyment. THE tone results would be better though, as the PR is getting somewhat overloaded, but is also getting some RF interfearance from the hetrodining circuit which adds distortion too. I wonder if a headphone booster amp would work, as they're already made to accept a headphone output, and I don't need a lot of amplification. I have never had one, and I don't know if they are even made anymore. I believe they didn't have volume control either, but I do have an inline one. Anyway, I can get by until I find something better. The PR was a good first step, and may still be the easiest solution, short of modifying the E-pro.   Thanks for the suggestions. 

Kevin