Etherwave Plus Review (Factory Upgrade)

I copied this from my Moog forum post and I thought the Theremin World might appreciate a review.
Eric

The ups man left here a few hours ago, and I began to leave Moog purgatory behind as I opened the Box and checked out what was my factory Upgraded Etherwave Plus.

[img]http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/79/l_50b78b962c43413d87d88f6c8e795a49.jpg[/img]
I had sent the unit in on March 24th and it came today, April 3rd safe and sound. A very fast turnaround!


To answer 2 questions from another thread in this forum, Yes I got my Etherwave and No they did not include the original metalwork they replaced.

As I took it out of the Box, the first thing that I noticed was that they included a power supply that is different from the one that I sent. Mine had a much thicker gauge cord and was in brand new condition. Im not necessarily bothered by this persay but i thought that Id throw that out there FYI.



Upon removing the Theremin from its case, I noticed that the metalwork was not smoothe like the Ringmod and other Foogers or the Original Standard metalwork. It had a rough pourus type of surface exactly like that of the Freq Box. I guess they prefer this type of metalwork for their newer products. I think that it doesn't show fingerprints as easily.

[img]http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/90/l_a2bc3794456146dbbca726ccd9b3d6c3.jpg[/img]

Upon further inspection, they drilled large holes in the bottom for the CV jacks. The connections were really solid and the nuts were exactly like the ones featured on the back of the MoogerFoogers.

[img]http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/91/l_377cddcedad04ff28670565f0b425578.jpg[/img]


THe power LED is a very nice feature, Instant confirmation of the power status. Prior to that I had to remember which one was off O or I. No more guessing games.


Finally, I got to do what I had long awaited....controlling the Voyagers pitch via cv. I noticed that when approaching the zero beat on the pitch antenna, there was a distinct zippering effect from the Voyager's Oscillators. (This test was done on a Select Model (digital brain) so the OS would probably respond differently.) I tried attenuating the Pitch CV signal to see if I could get the Voyager to track an interval and this proved to be very difficult. Im sure with more time I could perfect this. I also connected the gate output to the S&H Gate input of the Cp251 and ran that S&H back to the Voyager's Pitch. It was very interesting.

I also ran the Theremin's Audio through the delay and Controlled the Feedback and the Time with the Volume CV and it was very nice and interesting to have that sort of control over the effects.

Overall I was very nicely satisfied with the job that they did and Im sure that these new controls will take awhile for me to grow accostomed to using.


Id like to see someone from Moog really chime in with some types of patches to familiarize us with the interface with the Voyager.

My only real question that ill try to answer is this:

What is the relationship between the Pitch and Volume pots to the Cv's versus how the Theremin responds to changes in the settings of those?

I think knowing this versus being really familliar with the interfacing possibillities will make this instruments new abillities second nature.

Eric

I am mid-way through my field upgrade - it basically involves boring three holes in the cabinet (for the CV outputs) and soldering 11 wires into pads on two circuit boards.

i would say that, with respect to eric's question of how the pitch knob affects the pitch CV output - it should affect the pitch CV the same way it affects the audio that comes out of the theremin, since the pitch CV is calculated by counting audio cycles... so if you always "tune" the pitch antenna so that two particular hand positions always produce the same interval, then the pitch CV output will also respond the same way...

hopefully i'll have a chance to complete everything tonight and give more thoughts!

glug - i think i must have fried something or made a poor solder connection - the volume CV and gate seem to work fine, but the pitch CV devolves into serious some sample and hold business (e.g., sounds like you have a random oscillator generating the CV out voltage) unless you are playing fairly high in the theremin's range... (i'm assuming that the pitch CV out on a "normal" working etherwave plus doesn't do this right??)

strangely, EVERYTHING else on the theremin works fine - the headphone out, all the knobs. shrug!

EDIT - so last night i found that adjusting the tone/brightness knobs in a manner that makes it "less sine-wavey" and "more loud" subdues the chirping random CV output problems and allows me to play lower ranges before the tracking errors arise - it must mean that somehow or another i managed to mangle to signal going to the cycle-counter.... i'm going to take a serious whack at it this weekend and hopefully get something working together!

OK now I finally have a working etherwave plus - the pitch to CV converter actually works quite well, quickly and accurately. unfortunately, you won't be able to just hook it directly up to, say, your moogerfooger ring mod and get the ring mod oscillator to track the etherwave perfectly - i think the reason is because the ring mod does not perfectly translate its pitch CV response to the 1 V/octave... after some research apparently some mooogerfooger pedals are more like .75 V / octave...? this can be solved using a CV attenuator or perhaps adjusting the CV response on the inside of the moogerfooger(?) but i just wanted to give people a heads up that adding a separate new musical oscillator to the etherwave plus was not an "instant" sort of thing... anyhow the addition of the CV outputs is pretty exciting!



-h

The Moog Ring Modulator does need attenuation in order to get it to properly scale to w 1vpo CV signal.

THere is a document entitled Lord of the Ring Modulator on the yahoo users group called Knob Tweak.
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/KnobTweak/


THe Freqbox would probably do much better to track, although I haven't tried this yet.

Eric
Rhythmicons

I wish I hadn't read this thread. I may have to get mine modded.

Has anybody hooked one up to a MiniMoog Model D yet?

Well, i finally got around to building an attenuator (a tea box with two 1/4" jacks and a 50K pot from my old etherwave standard faceplate). so now i have the CV-pitch out from the etherwave plus going into the attenuator and then into the ring mod carrier freq. in:
picture of setup (http://www.flickr.com/photos/37398052@N07/3443114723/)

the result, if you can excuse my sloppy intonation is the following video. -- i haven't had much time to mess around with the various sounds the ring mod can make, but the video demonstrates that it is possible to have the ring mod carrier oscillator track the theremin musically. also, i have gotten it to track musically pretty far down into the bass region without problem.
youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgeINkZycg0)

make sure the volume is down so my horrible playing doesn't shatter your ears!!!

I just tried the etherwave plus with the freqbox - it is great! tracks fairly accurately without any attenuation. i think that for etherwave plus owners, the freqbox is more versatile than the ring mod. the freqbox allows you to choose from saw, square, etc. with a wide range of pitch adjustment (for example, you can set the freqbox's internal oscillator to 2 octaves up, and set the mix to 100% freqbox to play a much higher range than usual without having to mess with the tuning or note spacing with the etherwave's pitch knob).

unfortunately, most of the wave forms on the freqbox are way 'too bright' and they really need the use of a low-pass filter. (which i can't quite afford at the moment, sigh!)

the ring mod doesn't quite give you the same variation in possible sound (although i like it much better on other instruments)...


anyhow, if any of you are wondering about whether the cv pitch outs will be of any use to you, you should try using it with a freqbox!

Ill have to try the Freqbox with the CV's.

THe THing about the Ring Mod is that its one of the most versatile Foogers Moog offers. Its tracking is superior than the Freqbox, though very limited waveshaping (you can distort it) and you can use it as a VCA. THen it offers the LFO and Ring Mod.

If you try the theremin with the Freq just with the audio signal then you CAN get ring modulation as you approach the volume antenna.

I did a hi fi demo of this here:
"Theremin + Freqbox (With CP251"
reverbnation.com/rhythmicondemos

You can hear the ring modulation at 1:28 but listen to the effect as it approaches the threshhold.
It is noisy though so beware!



I also did a crazy demo of a Theremin and the Talkbox here

Ill post it seperately too.

"Loving you"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbFEbEq8jfQ

that talkbox demo is great!

i do like the ringmod, although i think the freqbox is a more instant way to get a wide variety of timbres out of the etherwave plus (especially given that it already tracks at 1V/oct...)

does anybody know of a link to a simple circuit that takes a CV input and outputs, say, multiple CV's at the same voltage? i am trying to circumvent the need to shell out hundreds of dollars for the CV multiplier in the moog CP-251!