theramins?

  • Thread starter Thread starter jimmychan
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jimmychan

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don't know if this is the right place to post this so let me know if i should move it on.

Anyways, I'm quite interested in attempting (attempting, mind :) )to build myself a theremin. I've done a bity of internet searching and there are quite a few circuit diagrams available (either free or copyrighted, but since i'm not gonna sell it i assume it's ok?!).

Has anyone out there done this before, and if so what circuit diagrams did you use? I've got friends who do electronics so difficulty isn't such a problem, and I'm assuming that a largely solid state setup would be cheapest in terms of components? ANyone got any advice at all, cos there seem to be so many circuit diagrams (based on 1963/1974 models etc etc) out there, I dunno what to do!
 
Actually, the AirFX is not very much like a theremin, I have them both - as well as an AirSynth. The theremin has 2 antennae; one for pitch and 1 for volume. The AirFX and AirSynth use an infared sensor somewhat similar to the Dimension Beam (which I also have one of). The theremin reacts solely to proximity, while the infared sensors react differently according to direction and position (i.e. the 3 axes- X,Y,& Z- of physical space can each have a different effect).
As far as building a theremin goes, I would recommend a kit from Paia or Big Briar (Moog), as they have worked out the 'gotchas' that a circuit utilising antenna input is subject to.

Scott
 
The older models all involve old electronics, components that are pretty hard to get, so you'd end up recalculating the schematics to fit modernday components. And it's analog electronics. With coils. I graduated as an electronics engineer 2 years ago, and they never even thought me about coils! :eek:

Really, I wouldn't know where to start if someone asked me to explain one of them old schematics. Well, I would, since I build 2 theremins myself. ;)

But it'd be just the explanation that was with the kit I built. :D

Paia has a kit. It's not all that expensive, and it's fairly easy to build. I made 2 of them, one worked right away, the other one didn't work, because of some broken transistor or something. I don't have the necessary measurement equipement to check it, so we took it to our amp tech, that just loves this kinda stuff, gave him the schematic, and he fixed it...

So, go look here: PAIA
 
I saw a DVD up at Blockbuster about theramins or something. I sorta remember it got alot of good reviews. I think it was a documentary.
 
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