Bob Moog says in the film, “Theremin an Electronic Odyssey”:
“For engineers today who are used to sophisticated, complex electronics…
you look in a modern electronic organ or synthesizer
and there’s hundreds of parts and they’re all
extremely complex.
Then you look into one of Theremin’s original instruments,
and there’s nothing inside.
It’s all smarts, it’s all high efficiency design.
It’s something that we don’t do any more.
We can’t do it any more, we’ve lost the touch.”
Have we lost the touch? In the grand scheme of electronic instruments, I’d say we have. It’s often a lot easier to add another buffer, another op-amp, another trace on the PCB to amend that glitch we find in a prototype. But I’ve got to say that rekindling “high efficiency design” is a great priority. That’s what I’m trying to do here. And, I’d argue that Bob Moog was a great mediator between the old way and the new way.
For instance, in Radio and Television News, January, 1954, he writes about building his theremin design: “The Oscillator coils should be carefully constructed, however, since these are the ‘heart’ of the instrument”. Although Moog’s theremin design of 1954 is appreciably more complex than Lev Termen’s (Theremin), it shows Moog’s own “high efficiency” in describing a simple, living “heart” of the instrument. Why would one ever over-design at the cost of losing the “heart” of an instrument.
Indeed, I’ve built about 20 theremins, mostly of my own design — some good, some bad. However, I steadfastly and stubbornly swear that the large air core coil inductors Moog speaks of are indeed the expressive center of the instrument. As both the frequency determining, field generating and resonating locus of the theremin’s oscillators, it is the coils that shape the magical magnetic field of the RCA or other great theremins. They are like the strings on a cello, or the reed of a woodwind.
Of course, the other finely tuned intricacies of the instrument also shape the sound. I will even admit that a lack of inductors does not preclude a good Theremin. However, it is still magical, even to an expert that the significant changes in the electrical field, the sense of magnetism touching the player, the electricity coupling through the body — all are changed just with the slightest repositioning of such a coil.
Likewise, the lovely tone of the coils mingling their magnetic forces and pulling at each other is how the vintage theremin tone is created. On an oscilloscope it looks like the waves are cresting over, just beyond the form of a sine — being gently pulled up and over without a single hard edge. That’s a hard result to get without the magic coil inductors. Perhaps not impossible, but difficult.
Regardless, what makes a better Theremin is truly subjective, and can be done any number of ways. I dare say, though, that I am now addicted to the philosophy Moog eludes to as “high efficiency design”. Why push and prod the sound, adding more paths to traverse, more amplifiers, integrators and op-amps when we could search out the deepest resonance of one simple circuit… one resonating center?
Maybe because it’s really hard. Maybe because we’ve “lost the touch”. Maybe becuase it’s frustrating. Maybe because it’s easier on a computer. I don’t know. I do know, though, that the same coils are also the tricky, glitchy Achilles heel of the instrument.
I can only speak for myself, but the simple path is often the way. The paradox is, that it is too often the more difficult way to go.
I do think Moog was being too humble. I also think that there are plenty of other “high efficiency” designs, both antique and modern. It’s not surprising that I think that those designs sound the best — but, again, that is subjective.
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You can check out the Moog Theremin design and article at Theremin World here: http://www.thereminworld.com/moog1954.asp
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