e-ther, the e-theremin
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- čas přidán 15. 08. 2024
- *This video contains out-of-date information. An updated video is at: • e-ther - new and impro...
e-ther is available at: peacockmedia.s...
It's played like a theremin and has audio or MIDI out, several octaves and a range control. Launched 25 Nov 22
0:00 teaser
0:07 introduction
0:51 using audio output
1:29 using MIDI output with Logic Pro
6:02 using MIDI output with MIDISID - Hudba
Are there videos of professionals using this? I'd love to see that.
Composer Nicky Green / popliak used it in music for a BBC trailer, his blog post is here which mentions e-ther www.popliak.com/work/bbc-young-families-square-eyed-boy-sam-gainsborough . Josh of Jon Valt and the Evil Robots has several in his setup, mostly used as CC controllers, there are many examples of use on his CZcams and Instagram: czcams.com/video/GrYqMt3-TsQ/video.html Those are a couple of examples I'm aware of.
It works with a reversed volume control and seems to be proximity sensor based instead of a capacitive field so professionals might have to relearn to play this one.
pros will not use such things.. there is latency in this cheap junk
Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh I NEEEEEEDDD ONE!!!!!! ..... ... .. ah hem.. ... I mean I would very much like to procure one when possible. Now all I need is money so I can get one!!
haha
I love this! I've always been fascinated by theremins but the cheap ones are either really limited or clunky and unreliable. I can see so many uses for this, so much fun to be had.
The pricing is really great - beyond me right now as I'm just starting new work but once things settle I'll definitely be getting one. Absolutely stellar work to get a unit this useful to production stage and such a beautiful, minimalist unit (although if you ever want to make one with a neon green perspex case...I love seeing the guts of my electronics and still loved the translucent Gameboys and iMacs in neon colours)
I'm glad that you like it. Thanks for the comment and suggestion. A perspex cover is not out of the question at all. Ask me about it again when you're ready to order.
Neil, since your comment, I've had some face-plates laser-cut in both clear and neon green and yellow. If you'd like to see pictures, please email or use the contact form (link in the description)
Love it!
Oh my gosh! This is really wonderful!!! WOW!!!
Thanks David, appreciate the comment.
This is fantastic! So clever, portable, and versatile. I just ordered mine!
Thank you so much, that'll be on its way very shortly
I ❤ this!!! I agree the reversed left hand is more natural. Very smart. I really like the aesthetic and the name. I also think it was brilliant to have an optional sound module. Some folks might just want to use it as a controller. Really nice design.
Thanks for the comment Kale. Part of the reason for the sound module being optional is that I'm not intending to supply it, it'll be up to the user to obtain their own. I also wanted this to be as compact as possible, and it's a trade-off ... the module adds height, so if you're only interested in the MIDI output then e-ther can be slimmer.
@@midi_in I just ordered mine. I'm so excited!!!
@@musicalmiscellany Thank you so much, Kale, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. I'm sorry that it wasn't easy to buy, trying to manage the demand has been a crazy time. Really glad you jumped in there.
@@midi_in No worries. I know how it is to be a small business. I'm anxious to receive my e-ther.
Worth it just for the sad trombone control!
lol!
Imagine the fun she had ...
Love the size of this, great item
thank you Ms Horn 🙂
Fantastic!
Nice gadget!! 😉
Interesting
Wonderful! ❤
Loving these instruments. Always searching for something different. Might need to give a go
Wonderful work. Subscribed, and I hope to get an e-ther soon.
Maybe sell this as a kit as well 🤔
there's also an instrument called ether by Soma btw
Very interesting device! I put myself on the mailinglist. Would like to try it with a midi to cv convertor to control my Volca Modular.
Tip: send one to Hainbach, I can't wait to see and hear what he will do with this!
Hi Martin. Note that as things stand, this starts a single note and relies on expression, pitch bend and RPN0 (pitch bend sensitivity) to move the frequency and level around. So any MIDI host would have to recognise the pitch bend sensitivity message and also respond to pitch bend. *however* you'll see from the back of the manual that I'm planning an alternative mode, which will send separate midi notes, for a stepped stylophone effect. This would then remove the dependency on those control messages, but does rely on the host having a glide feature if you still want a non-stepped theremin-like sound (that would then settle on semitone positions, like kind of autotune!)
I love Hainbach! Thanks for the suggestion, I'll definitely write to him (though at present I have a lot of people wanting to buy them and am waiting on more boards and components). PS, did you sign up using Tindie? Please email me, because my own personal list will take priority when I start making the next batch.
@@midi_in Thanks for the thorough explanation, makes it clear to me that I have some research to do 🧐
I signed up with Tindle.
@@midi_in RPN0, is that the second 7 bits of the full 14-bit MIDI pitch bend? (Been some time since I dealt with the MIDI protocol) If so, great, otherwise I'd highly recommend going that route, as most (modern) synths readily accept the full 14-bit range pitch bend. Which then lets you select/decide the pitch RANGE on the actual synth itself, which makes it very versatile.
@@maxhult830 Definitely full 14-bit, we want it to be as smooth as possible. I'm glad you've mentioned it, because I do list a few caveats ("host must support...") and 14-bit pitch bend should be in there.
@@midi_in My apologies for not RTFM first (or checking previous comments), and thank you for your time answering my questions.
When will it be available?
Please make thousands of this because it's just great..!
I'm working on it! The response to this has totally taken me by surprise. If you'd like to be sure of one, I am keeping a list, please email me (link in the video description to product's home page).
But I am left handed (turns it 180 degrees) oh, ah, right then. I’ll take four! :)
I waaaaaaant one!
I am sorry - I made a small batch and they sold out almost immediately. It shouldn't be too long before the next batch are ready.
really interesting. curious how this might work with ableton vs logic. or channeling to my hardware synths like the matriarch. hmmmmm. will pick one up some day soon. great work. and though i've not used a real theramin, your reverse proximity approach seems totally logical to me as well. in fact i'm surprised it's the other way around on those!
Thanks Alland. I'm using Logic all the time, and if you explore my recent videos I'm sure you'll find examples of me capturing the midi output in Logic and using that in tracks.
Note that a very imminent enhancement is to add a slightly different mode which will suppress the note on / off signals so it's just acting as a CC controller with pitch bend on one hand and expression or modulation on the other.
It's like scrolling. We've gotten very used to scrolling up to make the page go down, like what happens with a typewriter page, and not like what happens with a bookmark being used as a line reader.
I was wondering why I could see a red glow near the sensors, which are invisible infra-red. Then I realised that digital cameras can 'see' infrared and and it is rendered as visible red in video.
It's a little more mundane than that. The sensors have their own little red LED which brightens or dims with the distance measured. I've often thought about adding light pipes to the top panel. There will soon be a clear top panel available because some people like that style and with the cleartop, you can really see those LEDs in action!
this is so cool
i'd love one of these but afraid i would never touch it
HI, I'm just now walking in on all this. I am very interested in it, probably will buy one. I have been playing with MIDI Theremins from Zeppelin Design Labs for a while, really love them, but I'd also love to try yours! One very neat feature of theirs is to add an integral arpeggiator, it really works great.
Thanks for your interest! I really don't want to tread on any toes, I hope I'm not doing that here. (I genuinely only became aware of theirs after working on mine.) I am using a different type of sensor, although the playing experience may be similar, I'm not sure (I've not tried a Zeppelin.)
@@midi_in there is always room for new ideas 👍 About the arpeggiator... that's easy, just add an arpeggiator to the sound and voila.
@@midi_in Well I highly recommend trying them then, but I don't mean to tread on your toes here either, plenty of room in this tent. I am not employed by Zeppelin, I just bought a couple of their Theremin type devices. I am not sure but I think they have just improved on an open source project. Yours is looking and sounding good to me!
@@afreezaphorogiancossack2194 no worries, and thank you.
This looks interesting, I wonder I well in might work with the Monome Norns or a Midi to CV converter like the Polyend Poly 2
It's difficult to say for sure without trying it, but the midi messages are basic note on, note off and either expression or modwheel for the vertical control. It does rely heavily on pitch bend and so the host must support pitch bend messages and RPN 0 (pitch bend sensitivity). When connected to a MIDI host via USB it should appear as a MIDI device. Or it can send good old-fashioned midi via a TRS>5-pin-DIN lead.
@@midi_in I just added myself to the waitlist, the more I think about this the more gear I want attach it to.
@@oddObjekt That's great, thank you very much. More boards are ordered, I went for the faster shipping. Should be about a week.
Neat! I have one constructive criticism, in case of a v2 or something... as someone who is used to playing the theremin with the vertical amp control normally, would it be very cumbersome to add a switch, software or hardware, that simply reverses the vertical direction? IF so, this is very interesting to me. At first, I think I also considered the usual vertical direction of the theremin backwards, but having gotten used to it, I think it might be hard to reconfigure my brain for the opposite direction. I absolutely see the upside to reversing this though, like you have done, as it won't output sound when you're not in proximity to the sensor. Anyhow, really great work here, kudos!
Thanks. I've answered this question more fully elsewhere in these comments, but I'll make it an FAQ on the web page. In short, I have no plans to reverse or make it switchable. Initially I did try to make it that way, but reversing it a/ made it seem more natural to me (as a non-theremin player) and b/ solved some problems (you mention one of them). Making it work the other way is more involved than simply flipping a number and it works pretty elegantly the way it does. I'm not trying to emulate the theremin experience here (though that may be another project....) It's a midi controller with really interesting and expressive controls.
@@midi_in OK, I see! I kind of suspected it wasn't as easy as simply reversing poles or something, but felt like I had to ask just in case... Thanks a lot for your replies, I will likely end up on that waiting-list of yours very soon! :) Again, great work, my impression of this device is pure amazement! Cheers!
@@maxhult830 Thanks, your comments are much appreciated and encouraging :-) Please just get in touch if and when you're ready.
This is awesome. I'm a bit sketched out by the sites you're selling it on (ETSY etc.) but other than that I'm definitely interested in acquiring it. How does the MIDI connection work with this? As far as I see it doesn't have a 5 pin MIDI. What type of adaptor does it need to work directly with an analog hardware synth? Also, is there a way to regulate the distance your right hand is from the device (for example increase it slightly) to make it a little easier to regulate the pitch? Thx.
Thanks for your interest and comments. I've recently added Reverb but if there's anywhere you think I should offer e-ther and MIDISID, please let me know. I do feel that these platforms would be more trusted than if I added a checkout to my own site but please tell me if you feel that would be a good option. (I'm very happy to deal direct and avoid the platform fees if you prefer that.)
My early prototypes had a 5-pin DIN but I made that sacrifice for a thinner device. Instead it now has a 1/8"/3.5mm TRS jack which is wired as per 'midi TRS A' as used by Korg and others. More details about this, including a wiring diagram in case you'd like to make rather than buy a lead, is in the manual
peacockmedia.software/e-ther/e-ther_manual.pdf
The only regulation is via the thumbwheel that controls the range - it controls the range of frequencies produced as you move your hand across the whole distance range of the sensor. The sensor itself is allegedly a 50cm distance sensor but in reality it's 30-40cm. So C will be in the middle of that range (and you can go up or down several octaves with the octave buttons). So the sensor has a fixed range of distance and we're using all of that.
Oh yes, you do have a Reverb page, I missed that. That's awesome. 40cm seems like plenty. I'll definitely grab one for my mom's B-Day. She once asked me why I need my whole studio if I can just get a Theremin 😝 "Gee I dunno mum, that's not quite how it works...but I like where you're going with this ))
Etsy is a massive and very legit website. No need for the sketch.
Lo quiero ya
Oops, just saw that in the video!
I assume this is using a one-dimensional proximity sensor instead of a three-dimensional capacitive field? Would make it tricky to play as a thereminist, since the normal aerial fingering techniques wouldn't work and you can't move your hand along the straight vision line. Also if the amplitude control is reversed it would need some relearning. But it's compact and simple. Might be interesting to try!
You are right, the sensors are one-dimentional (lidar - very accurate and not affected by ambient light). Well they have a bit of a cone. You can affect the reading by changing the shape of your hand, but someone used to a real theremin wouldn't be able to use the same techniques. It's essentially a distance measurement. Pocket-size and convenient while still being very useful was definitely the goal here.
When do these go on sale.....and how much? I love it!!!
Thanks for your interest. They went on sale and sold out quickly. I'm hoping to start making the second batch soon. See the product's homepage in the link description. Find the email address on that page, email me and I'll let you know when I have some ready.
This is brilliant 👏. Please let us know when it's on sale.
Thank you! It has been on sale and the first batch sold out overnight, taking me by surprise. I hope to have another (larger) batch made in the next week or two and I think those will almost all be going to people who have emailed me (see the link in the description for e-ther's home page).
Oh, you have my attention. I could see this being potentially fun to hook up to a microbrute or something. Is there any noticeable latency?
It's a fast microcontroller programmed in C, so when it detects a change, then in principle it can send the midi data or change the audio output very quickly. A more significant issue than latency is that the sensors are a little noisy and thus require a little smoothing. This causes a little bit of a lag for changes to volume or pitch but the nature of this instrument isn't like an instrument with keys or a strings. You're waving your hands around in the air, not plucking or pressing, so it's not as if your brain is really expecting that same relationship between action and resulting sound. If you really are looking for immediacy and responsiveness then you need something that works more like a traditional theremin, maybe see the open theremin project.
Congratulation!. I hope you will become rich with it and very famous. Did you patent it? I hope yes. There could be many music electronic companies interested on it. Good name by the way, easy to remember like made for it
Thank you! I don't know whether I will become rich or famous, but the first small batch sold out almost immediately. I'm working hard to get another batch made.
This is a neat device. I'm wondering if I would be able to control sounds in FL Studio with it since it's MIDI
e-ther's web page (link in the description) has an FAQ which isn't the answer to your specific question but it does give the specific midi messages that software needs to support.
Very cool! How does it work with bowed instruments, such as cello & violin?
That's a good question. It very much depends what the host chooses to do with the midi messages, but in Logic Pro, the strings work just as well as the woodwind that I demonstrate. As with the woodwind, you can interrupt the vertical beam to get a hard attack (I don't know what you call that with a bow) or you can bring in the expression for a very soft attack. You can then control volume with the left hand and pitch with the right. Because of the continuous variability, it sounds a little like playing the instrument with a guitar bottleneck (slide guitar). Unless you only move your right hand when the left hand is out of the way.
Is it possible to use this as a stand alone musical instrument? (Using power bank for power and output to a speaker via audio out.)
Yes certainly. At 0:52 you can see me doing just that. It needs 5v for power via a micro-USB socket and you can take audio from the 3.5mm jack on the side. This is an early video, I said that the audio was optional. Since e-ther2 (which is what you get if you order one now) the audio is built in, and can now be configured to give sine, triangle, square or sawtooth waveforms. There are demos of these sounds in this later video: czcams.com/video/DfwjUPKlbCg/video.html
Will there be availability b4 Xmas?
Great little device.
Thank you! Until I actually have the components and boards in my hand, I can't make any promises, but I do hope to post batch two out before Christmas. If you want to be sure of one of those, please email me because the list I am keeping is getting close to the number that will be in that batch.
Great development, but I don’t know if I could adapt to the reversed proximities : /
Thank you. It just sort of happened during development. You're not alone in that opinion, but besides feeling a little more natural for me (as someone who isn't used to a real theremin) reversing the vertical control solved a couple of problems too.
Does this work only along with a DAW or can it be simply connected to a speaker or headphones ? Does it have in built instruments?
It has audio out, so you can simply connect to speaker and headphones if you like. That audio consists of simple waveforms (like a real theremin) so it does have a choice of sounds (waveforms) but you couldn't really call them 'instruments'. For that you need to use the MIDI out and go into some kind of host. Some things in this video are now out of date, here's a follow-up: czcams.com/video/DfwjUPKlbCg/video.html
Thank you. Need one of these. What would be interesting is to see if this reacts somewhat like the bigger theremin when fingers are used to sort of microstep in controlling the pitch.
Have you tried that? To bring in one finger at a time then introduce more for a gradient effect?
@@saifff1 No, that won't work. This uses distance sensors (LIDAR - very accurate and not affected by ambient light) so it's all about distance, not capacitance.
Hmm okay:). Great piece of work nevertheless. Although I did wonder the lidar would pick the distance of the closest finger / digit then send signals based on what point in the palm is closer. I understand I may be confusing it with how infrared cameras measure distance.
The guitar pluck is brilliant. I suppose this coupled with one of those portable piano boxes and instruments would be interesting to see. I think there was this miiniengine midiplus or something.
It seems like not only the volume response is the reverse of a regular theremin, the pitch response is reversed as well. Is it basically an optical theremin, as there are no actual antennas attached, and it doesn't actually output a heterodyned sound?
you're right, it uses distance sensors. They're very accurate and not visible light, so they're not affected by ambient light levels.
@@midi_in I did wonder on the sensors. A great idea to use distance. I've been asked to build some basic noise box's for a sculpture, to create interactive pieces. I thought of using distance. Amazing work.
Play the original Star Trek theme song with this and I'd be impressed.
Yes, I tried that when this project was a prototype, czcams.com/video/4_IikToPcbE/video.html
Can it be used as cv out as a controller?
Hi Bruce, it doesn't have cv out. Many people have asked whether the midi output can go into a midi-cv converter and the answer is that it's untested and it probably depends on your cv converter's features. The full answer is on e-ther's web page, link in the description. I feel that something like this with cv output is a different product. The hardware of this doesn't lend itself.
Is there a dedicated Midi output so I don’t need a computer?
Yes. My first version had a 5-pin DIN, but I've changed that now to TRS (3.5mm jack) in order to make this slimmer. You can just use a lead to convert that to 5-pin DIN. There's loads of info in the manual: peacockmedia.software/e-ther/e-ther_manual.pdf
@@midi_in Yes, sorry, I noticed that after I sent the question! Very smart. I beta test for a variety of manufacturers if you are seeking any outside assistance or feedback, I'm happy to help.
when is it available?
Thanks for your interest. I didn't know whether anyone would be interested and so my first batch was a small batch. That batch went on sale when this video went live and sold out overnight. I have more boards and components on the way. If you would like one, the best way to secure one is to email me (visit the link in the description). I'm not taking money but I am keeping a list and will offer the next ones to the people on that list first. Alternatively you can use Tindie's 'watch' feature.
Roland d-beam?
Absolutely stupid device. So of course I totally want one. 🤣
%?cuanto mony
It's here: www.tindie.com/products/shieladixon/e-ther/
Tindie should show you the price in your currency.