theremin plugin

[darkside labs]

looking for a theremin plug in-
downloaded a couple but not really fitting the bill.

i'm after a mysterons / b-movie / portishead / beach boys style sound, not a modernised digital sounding thing.

any suggestions grateful.

[tomafd]

Any old sine wave will produce the sound- it's the control that makes it different, so no plug-in will really do it for you unless it includes the bar and loop things- and then you may as well get the real thing.

You can get somewhere near it by assigning a midi controller to pitch (on any synth plug-in that will produce a sine wave) and then pushing the fader and/or wheel up and down to get the pitch movement, and another midi controller to control volume (envelope initial gain) but the trouble there is subtle control of pitch- with the real thing, you're moving your arm and hand over a 2 ft area, not 2 or 3 inches, and so it's a lot more controllable.

But if you're just after standard old 'woo-woo' pitch flying fx where exact control of pitch isn't required- any sine wave, and any smooth control over pitch - usually by midi fader or wheel, will do fine for you. No special plug-in required.

[The Elf]

+1 what tomafd said.

I do recall a Theremin-ish plug-in that controlled pitch and volume by mouse movement across a window panel, but it was dreadful.

You'd do better to rattle up one of those Maplin ' My First Oscillator' type kits and widdle with the volume and pitch - you'd probably get a better noise that way. Better still would be any half-decent old analogue monosynth with portamento.

[hollowsun]

Any synth plug-in with a sine or triangle wave and portamento/glide will do it.

* Select single oscillator (switch the others off, whatever)

* Select sine or triangle wave

* Add portamento/glide (adjust the speed to taste)

* Set a soft attack, full sustain and soft release in the amplitude envelope

* If you can, assign the mod wheel to control overall level - that way you can 'phrase' the sound in a similar way to the original.

* Add a short delay (150ms or something) to re-create the echo effects of the day

* Think 'Theremin' when you play

That will be pretty close.

[forumuser695516]

As said, its essentially a sine wave and there are any number of ways to get that. But for a bit of cheap fun, a cool way to emulate how you'd control a theremin (To an extent!) is with a Wii bluetooth games controller. I started a thread about this a couple of weeks ago. Plus of course there is a feature on how to do this in Octobers SoS issue.
This can be made to work on PC or Mac and is configurable to do just about anything you want with your choice of music software, and surprisingly easily.

Theres a good idea of what im getting at in this YouTube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N-LpbXF33g

Paul

[Handlestash]

I downloaded a nice free theremin plugin a couple of weeks back. I'll check tonight and tell you either later or tomorrow what it's called .

[Džoni]

I downloaded a nice free theremin plugin a couple of weeks back. I'll check tonight and tell you either later or tomorrow what it's called .

As did I... The one I got is called Spook Keys.

You can get it here: http://www.simple-media.co.uk/music/vsti/vsti.htm#spookkeys

BTW, I've been too busy to actually try this, but I will as soon as I get the chance.

[geefunk]

The original ES1 in Logic had one - it's ok. I found a Theremax sample for the EXS24 as well - though cannot for the life of me remember where...i'll have a dig around