Mew

Mew from Emily Groves on Vimeo.

"Mew is an interactive sound piece. As you walk towards the curious and gawkish object, it begins to emit a soft purring sound. If you stroke the fur, it will emit distorted meow sounds that are manipulated by the direction your hand moves. Pushing on the object will also alter the sounds, but pressing too hard will make Mew hiss.

Mew was part of a collaborative sound object project between Design Products, Information Experience Design and Visual Communication students at the RCA, London.

Sensors and sounds were programmed with Arduino and Max MSP."

A bit like a cat Tannerin or theremin.

Coco the Cat Covers Good Vibrations with a Mini Theremin

Coco Mini-Theremin Demo Published on Dec 25, 2014 mdaane1

Good Vibrations - Theremin intro


Synth trivia: the theremin sound on Good Vibrations was actually the Tannerin.

"The Electro-Theremin was a unique electronic musical instrument developed by trombonist Paul Tanner and amateur inventor Bob Whitsell in the late 1950s to produce a sound to mimic that of the theremin.[1][2] The Tannerin was a later re-creation of the original. The instrument features a tone and portamento similar to that of the theremin (or thereminvox), but with a different control mechanism. It consisted of a sine wave generator with a knob that controlled the pitch, placed inside a wooden box. The pitch knob was attached to a slider on the outside of the box with some string. The player would move the slider, thus turning the knob to the desired frequency, with the help of markings drawn on the box.

The instrument was custom-built at Tanner's request. Tanner appreciated the theremin's sound, but wanted greater control of pitch and attack. The Electro-Theremin uses mechanical controls, a long slide bar for the pitch (analogous to the slide of the trombone that was Tanner's main instrument) and a knob to adjust volume. This contrasts with the hand movements in space that formed the original theremin's signal feature. The Electro-Theremin also produces a slightly less complex timbre than the original. This is not due to the nature of the instrument, but due to Dr. Theremin's intentional harmonic generation in the output of the Theremin, which Tanner did not do."

Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys 1966

YouTube via pshaky | October 15, 2010 |
via Ricko
"'Good Vibrations' is a psychedelic pop song by American rock band The Beach Boys. Composed and produced by Brian Wilson, the song's lyrics were written by Wilson and Mike Love.
Released as a single on October 10, 1966 (backed with the Pet Sounds instrumental "Let's Go Away For Awhile"), it was The Beach Boys' third U.S. number-one hit, reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 1966, as well as being their first British chart-topper. Initiated during the sessions for the Pet Sounds album, it was not taken from or issued as a lead single for an album, but as a stand-alone single, and later placed on the album Smiley Smile eleven months after its release."

Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman at the Radiophonic 08 Festival

via Dana Countryman:

"Just a quick note to mention the upcoming lecture and concert by Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman at the Radiophonic 08 Festival in Gateshead, England. It all happens on March 1st, 2008. More info here and here"

Be sure to check out these previous posts on Dana Countryman and Jean Jacques Perrey.

During their previous shows (where I actually took this shot myself) Dana played his MOTM/Dotcom modular and Jean Jacques Perrey played his favorite istrument, the Ondioline which is similar in concept to the Ondes Martenot and Tannerin.

PAiA “2-Transistor Ribbon Kit”

"We're going to show you how to make the world's most bare-bones electronic music instrument – and a bunch of other things, as well.

This instrument is called a 'ribbon controller', but it's also known after its inventor, Paul Tanner, as a 'tannerin'. He called this instrument an 'Electro-Theremin'. That name didn't catch on because this is not a Theremin (the musical instrument you control by moving your hands in the air) even though it sounds like one. You are going to build a sound generator that changes pitch as you slide wires back and forth on a conductive “ribbon” we will make as part of this project..

We also discuss how you can take this same circuit and do many other experiments with things you have around your home.

Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys' song “Good Vibrations” used the magic of Paul Tanner's ribbon controller to make its distinctive sweeping wee-oo-wee sound. Wikipedia has a great page on the history of the ribbon controller"

click here for more detail.

Solar photosynth

YouTube via jonjb2a.

"Synthstick circuit with resistor replacing potentiometer. Circuit powered by three solar cells. Instrument has no moving parts; "played" in manner similar to that of theremin or tannerin, regardless of vast differences between it and the other instruments."

Solar powered?

via sendling

The Tannerin and Theremin Like Devices

It is a common misconception that the instrument used in the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" was a theremin. It instead was an electro-theremin, a theremin like device with a keyboard. It was built by Paul Tanner in the late 1950s.

Paul playing the final version of the electro-theremin.

The Tannerin is a similar device recently built by Tom Polk for the Brian Wilson Tour.

Via Francois Dion on AH:

"That's definitely a very very crude martenot keyboard. Looks like one of the 1926 early revisions of the Martenot keyboard. Missing all the tonal and expression parts as found in the "drawer" on the later martenot. Missing also the floating keyboard (for the vibrato), and the references for the slider.

It is interesting to note that by 1931, there were at least 4 commercial instruments with heterodyne oscillators:

1- the theremin
2- the Ondes Martenot
3- Clavier a Lampe (Armand Givelet)

##### Update: The 4- Trautonium (Franz Trauntwein) did not use a heterodyne Oscillator. See comments link below. Also neither did the Tannerin according to another thread.

(The Audion Piano was never available commercially)."

The Ondes Martenot (it had a ring device on a string that scaled the entire range of the keyboard).

The Trautonium:

I couldn't find a picture of the Clavier a Lampe and we all know what a theremin looks like right? : )

Also check out the Theremax. Some good sound samples there as well.

For a controller similar to the Ondes Martenot, check out Analog Systems The French Conncection: