062702
Theremax 1
(c) 1996 PAiA Electronics, Inc.
Portions of this document are excerpted from
an article appearing in the Feb 1996 issue of
Electronics Now
magazine, copyright 1996,
and are reprinted by permission of the Publisher.
Model 9505
Assembly and Using Manual
Theremax
Since it's introduction to the general public in the late '20s, the Theremin
has been evocative in image and tone. Even eyes that had seen such
wonders as pictures flying through the air widened at the sight of a
musician producing sound using only a conductor's gestures. And it's pure
tones, able to stand out without distortion against even the full fortissimo of
a symphony orchestra, were like nothing anyone had ever heard before.
Was it a hit? You bet, theremin concerts were SRO in halls where
audiences were ordinarily sparse. The place of the Theremin in a "mod-
ern" orchestra was a given for such maestros as Leopold Stokowski, who
used one or more in numerous concerts of the Philadelphia Orchestra
during the late '30s. RCA thought that every cultured home would have
one, but for a lot of reasons things didn't work out quite like that.
Theremax employs the same heterodyneing principles as the original
Theremins and produces the classic sound while adding embellishments
made possible by the economy of transistors and Integrated Circuits. It
can function as a stand-alone instrument or as a gesture-sensing control-
ler for other musical instruments or in performance art applications.
