Never knew what it was called but I've heard it used in that Beach Boys song and apparently it was used widely in those s***ty sci-fi movies back in the day.

Stolen from wiki...

The theremin (originally pronounced [teremiːn] but often anglicized as [ˈθɛɹəmɪn] [1]), or thereminvox, is one of the earliest fully electronic musical instruments. It was invented by Russian inventor Léon Theremin in 1919, and it is unique in that it was the first musical instrument designed to be played without being touched. It consists of two radio frequency oscillators and two metal antennae. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.

To play the theremin, the player moves his or her hands around the two metal antennae, which control the instrument's frequency (pitch) and amplitude (volume). The theremin is widely associated with "alien", surreal, and eerie-sounding portamento, glissando, tremolo, and vibrato sounds, due to its use in film soundtracks such as Spellbound, The Lost Weekend, and The Day the Earth Stood Still. The theremin is also used in art music (especially avant-garde and 20th-century "new music") and in popular music genres such as rock and pop.

heh, very cool vids rev. :D

brisbane's local noise guy 'the namshub of enki' uses a theremin tube in his stage acts... as do his group monster zoku onsomb! ... they mainly just use it to make the big pitch rise & falls... the dude in the vids rocks it! (specially the first vid... the abba in the 2nd vid is a bit crap) :D

Awesome videos and a wicked instrument. It's actually quite a good way to represent how to sing by controlling the amount of air and the shape of the throat and vocal chords. I assume it's a variation of this instrument that people like Dave Grohl use in that Foo Fighters track "Generator"?

Not really, Dave uses a talkbox in Generator which is more of an effects filter than a complete instrument.

oh so are you on first name basis with him now Dan...

Yeh this was really big in the old horror flicks.

I've got a dunlop heil!

Nice find!

awesome

my brother bought one of these and asked me to put it together, i took a look at it and went LOL NO f***ING WAY. he eventually found someone with mad solder skills who put it together and its a pretty cool machine.

its great when you put it through effect pedals and make it do even funkier s***, really cool toy and if you are musically minded you can find really cool ways to implement it into songs.

singer in the tea party uses one live too, pretty versitile little gadget the old thermin is.

I think Jimmy Page used one in Whole Lotta Love.

he used to live

tesla coil > theremin

Prism Tower > Obelisk > tesla coil > theremin

got me listening to gnarls barkley again

John Spencer Blues Explosion and Cornelius are also big fans of the theremin.

You can buy pro ones for a couple hundred dollars or you can buy a kit from Jaycar for £50 or something (although that was 7 years ago). As mentioned earlier in the thread, if you are good with a soldering iron you can whack them together.

And yeah, the thing Dave Grohl uses is a talkbox, which is a bit like a vocoder. Very cool as well, although Dave's is one of those awkward ones where you have to stick a tube in your mouth.

and dont forget good ol portishead

gerhard reinke is also a fan of the theremin :]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIF-0xG0wTI

last edited by scooby at 09:31:37 26/Jun/07

And yeah, the thing Dave Grohl uses is a talkbox, which is a bit like a vocoder.

vocoders are just another electronic effects unit really, taking electric input and modifying it - talkboxes aren't cos they use a speaker and tube to bounce the sound in and out of your mouth, it's not all done with circuitry alone

Very cool as well, although Dave's is one of those awkward ones where you have to stick a tube in your mouth.

what other kind is there? I'm sure someone has made a talkbox emulator without a tube but would it really be a talkbox