Sunday, April 03, 2011

The Moog Polyphonic Theremin

Introduced in 1928, the Theremin is one of the earliest and most widely known electronic instruments played by artists manipulating the pitch and volume of invisible sound waves radiated from a single antenna with their hands.



Now, Moog Music engineers carrying on the legacy of visionary founder, Robert Moog have announced the first major technical Theremin design advance in over 40 years.

The PolyTheremin™ incorporates bleeding edge IsoDirectional Inductive Oscillator Technology, to isolate space around five individual pitch antennas thus enabling each to be played simultaneously (finger-by-finger) without interference from it’s companion antennas.


YouTube link.

This revolutionary concept breaks the long held belief that the Theremin could only be a monophonic instrument.

Please note: This was announced on April 1.

10 comments:

Ratz said...

.. manipulating the pitch and volume of invisible sound waves radiated from a single antenna ..

Unless this is a major departure from a normal theremin I doubt that's correct. A theremin works by an oscillator generating radio frequency signals and outputting them through an antenna. Something (such as your hand) placed near the antenna changes the capacitance and changes the oscillations, it's that change in frequency that's the basis of the sound.

Ratz said...

d'oh. Should have read the whole article before going WTF.

Ratz said...

Doubly embarrassing in that I spent no small amount of time building a theremin.

arbroath said...

Heh!

cath said...

Sheesh. I missed your note at the bottom and fell for it. I was so puzzled as to how they could "isolate space," but still jumped in with both feet. Well done, Moog.

Hickory Johnson said...

way COOL!

Hickory Johnson said...

hmmm April Fool's joke? the GMail controlled by body language was a good 4/1 joke

Vincent said...

Iso
Directional
Inductive
Oscillator
Technology

The 5 capitals forming I.D.I.O.T. gave it away to me...

arbroath said...

Heh heh, I was just about to post the very same thing, Vincent!

It's highlighted in orange letters at the end of the video.

Aaron said...

aaahhh, that'd be so cool!!!