Theremins are super fun production lines of weird squeeps and bloops, the de rigueur sound of kitschy black-and-white sci-fi movies and DJ rave parties alike. Anyone with an appreciation of music, or just noise, should play with one given the chance—and now you can do so from the comfort of your computer, thanks to Femur Design’s Theremin webpage.
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Sometimes annoying just isn’t annoying enough. For DIY enthusiast and self-described “maker of awesome” Sarah Petkus, the incentive to irk was merely a happy by-product of her latest goggle design. The steampunk-ish effort, chronicled on Petkus’ blog Robotic Arts, combines some artfully arranged scrap metals with an integrated optical theremin that lets the wearer manipulate an incredibly unpleasant tone just by waving their hands and adjusting the amount of light fed into the sensors. Since the volume control and speaker are housed inside the eyepieces, the goggles are little more than a head-mounted accessory. But that shouldn’t stop cosplay types (or sociopaths) from strapping on a set and tweaking the nerves of unfortunate passers-by. That’s if Petkus gets around to selling the “eyewear.” For the public’s sake, we hope this inventive mod remains a one-off. Head past the break for a video demo of this cringe-inducing, gesture-controlled cacaphony.
Via: Adafruit
Source: Robotic Arts
If you feel that you have some kind of talent when it comes to assembling DIY kits, even more so electronic ones, then you would surely be able to identify with the $39.99 Theremin Mini Kit – perhaps even drool over it, no? Well, what can we say more about the Theremin Mini Kit other than what has already been shared? The Theremin Mini Kit is an easy-to-assemble, entry-level Theremin kit, where it will come with a magazine as well as plenty of additional images. The thing is, you had best get down and dirty with your Japanese, otherwise deciphering whatever is printed there is going to drive you nuts, even with Google Translate.
You can say that the Theremin Mini Kit is a magical mix of science and art, where the former is used to secure the perfect tone, while the latter is to ensure that said tone is more than capable of moving that stone cold heart of yours. Mix that formula with some instruments and magic, and you have something quite unlike any other. For folks who have always wanted to play the Theremin, the Theremin Mini Kit is the ideal entry-level kit. Thinkgeek claims that it is extremely easy to assemble, although mastering it is another story altogether.
[ Theremin Mini Kit copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Remember Miselu’s Neiro — that prototype app-based Android-powered synth we last played with at SXSW? Not only is it being showcased at Google I/O 2012 here in San Francisco, but we got an exclusive first look at some of the apps being developed for the new platform ahead of the event. The company’s been on a roll since our meeting in Austin, gaining (ex-OQO CEO) Jory Bell as CTO and building relationships with partners like Korg and Yamaha.
Now on its second iteration, the laptop-like synth has evolved from the hand-built prototype we saw at SXSW to a more polished reference design — complete with breakout board for SD card and Ethernet support. As before, the device runs Gingerbread on a dual-core TI OMAP processor and features a two octave velocity and pressure-sensitive keyboard, a capacitive multitouch widescreen, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, audio and MIDI I/O, plus USB and HDMI ports. This version even adds XLR and quarter-inch audio jacks — just keep in mind that those specs have not been finalized.
What’s really exciting about the synth is the apps. The company’s ongoing partnership with Retronyms to create a suite of touch-controlled, cloud-enabled musical apps has evolved beyond the drum-machine demo we covered at SXSW. Called nStudio, the suite now also includes a pad-based sampler / sequencer and a mixer. Plasma Sound is a touch-based musical instrument that’s part theremin, part keyboard / sequencer. It’s already available for other devices on Google Play, but was easily tweaked to run on the Neiro — sight unseen — thanks to Miselu’s musicSDK and OS X-based emulator.
Miselu will be showcasing two more apps on its synth here at Google I/O: Korg’s Polysix and Yamaha’s Vocaloid. The Polysix app fainthfully recreates Korg’s legendary 1981 synth — known for its rich, thick analog sound. A real, mint-condition Polysix was even available for comparison during our brief time with the app (see our gallery). Vocaloid takes full advantage of the NSX-1 DSP chip that’s built-into the Neiro. It’s a singing synth app produced by Yamaha that “uses concatenative synthesis to splice and process vocal fragments extracted from human voice samples.”
We’ll be spending some time with the Vocaloid app and its creator — video game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi (of Sega and Lumines fame) — later today. In the meantime, check out the gallery below and watch our hands-on video with the other apps after the break.
Gallery: Miselu Neiro Google I/O update
Miselu Neiro synth at Google I/O: exclusive first look at apps from Korg and Yamaha (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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