Newbie here in need of help

Hello everyone, My name is Jesse and I play Jimmy Page in a Led Zeppelin tribute band, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered the Moog eitherwave theremin, now, I hope it isnt sac-religious around here, but I need to know..........

Can I plug my Moog Etherwave theremin into my marshall superlead guitar amp?

I'm not looking for "the classic theremin tone", I plan on plugging the theremin into a delay pedal, into the cleanest input on the amp, and "noodling" for a couple minutes!

But I am inexpereience with all things theremin, they dont put out any sort of weird signal voltage or anything that a guitar wouldnt put out? Im sure its a stupid question, but thanks for any advice you can give!

regaurds,
Jesse Costa
Thezeps.com

Hi Jesse and welcome to Theremin World,

Theremins put out a much louder signal than guitars, so unless your amp expects it you could well get a very distorted signal. If you like that then fine - I don't *think* anything will explode as a result, but I make no promises.

If you want a purer theremin sound then there's a couple of ways to temper the signal to guitar levels. If you're handy with a soldering iron you can change one of the resistors in the theremin circuit and it'll work just fine.

See page 9 of the hot-rodding manual for details.

http://www.moogmusic.com/manuals/HotRodEtherwav.pdf

If you're a bit clever with electronics you could use a potentiometer so you can set the output as you like for different amps. (I had that done by Thierry Frenkel (http://theremin.tfrenkel.com/) who is more than a bit clever with theremin electronics.)

Or if you have a low impedance inline volume pedal lying around, just put that in your effects chain and adjust it until you're happy then leave it alone.

(I'm not sure what a low impedance is - I think it's a sort of dance that the magic imps that make electronics work do. There's a high impedance as well, and different effects pedals and amps (the natural habitat of the amp-imp) use different sorts.)

I know my lovely Marshall Echohead EH1 delay pedal works best with the volume turned down a bit (at full blast the echoes are very faint, I don't know why) - either via a volume pedal or a potentiometer as described above - and my SR Technologies Jam 150+ combi (amp) sounds best when I plug it into the high impedance input.

Also you might find that the volume varies unevenly from low to high notes with a guitar amp, so you'll want to play about with the bass, mid and treble knobs on your amp to go some way to correcting that.

Not a stupid question.

YES you can plug your Etherwave theremin into your Marshall amp although the input level may be higher than your guitar and you may have to turn your amp down.

If you want to be able to move easily from one instrument to the other in performance, without having to adjust levels, it might be a good idea to use a little stage mixer and plug your mixer into the Marshall.

If you want to use the inputs on the Marshall without a mixer and without having to readjust levels every time you switch instruments, you could reduce the output of your Etherwave by putting it through a filter direct box like the LEEM FDR 60.

Stay away from Boleskine House.

I was over at a Radio Shack store yesterday (... more and more becoming "cell shack" ... but I digress) and noticed that they are selling things they call "attenuating cables". While it is not that hard to build an attenuator network inside the housing of a phone plug, it is certainly quick-and-easy to buy one these cables and try it out on your theremin.

The "technical details" regarding theremin outputs and guitar amp inputs:
1. Most theremins have low-impedance, line-level outputs. Meaning the output impedance is possibly 100 Ohms to 1k Ohms (typical values for the resistor between the output opamp and the output jack.

2. Most guitar amps have 1MOhm input impedance and are expecting 60mVrms sort of voltage levels, unless you are purposely overdriving them to get distortion. This is not the case for the usual sort desired for theremin tone.

If you do want to string a bunch of effects pedals after the theremin, start with the attenuating cable. Connect that to the input of the first pedal.

Thanks for the welcome and the replies, my guitar amps have 4 inputs for 2 channels, allowing me to set independant volumes for each instrament-getting a balenced volume for both instruments won't be a problem, the moog is actually my first "real" theremin, I bought a cheapie on eBay and the only way to have a break in the notes was to turn it off, or grab the antenna with my hand!

I wasn't to excited about spending 500bucks on an instrument that I would only use on 2 songs, but that is how it goes!

I hope you all enjoyed your long weekend, thanks again!


-Jesse

So there you go, Jesse. Three people with three different answers. Are you sufficiently confused yet?

You know, you could get a lot more return for your money. The etherwave is a quality instrument, and good for both classical and experimental music as well as Led Zeppery.

If only I where a rockstar in the 60s........

I woudnt know about limitations on my gear, and If I blew something up or smashed it @ the end of a set, I could just go buy another one!

It appears the consensus is that my theremin may overdrive my amp, so I need to be volume conscious and I may need a volume pedal.... I guess that round loop that controls volume is more of a selling point then a useful tool, but then again I know just as much about lunar-marine-underwater-radioactive-biology as theremins!



(sarcasm)

Haha.

Now we sit back and wait for your etherwave to arrive and for you to ask "so what's the volume knob for?"

;-)

Those 60's rock stars that smashed their expensive Stratocasters in a wild frenzy at the end of their shows weren't quite as wild and uncontrolled as they seemed. They used smoke machines, staged explosions and strobe lighting to cover up The Big Switch. That's the moment the artist carefully handed his expensive guitar to a stage hand and was given an identical worthless prop to smash for the hysterical audience screaming for more.

Apart from making the artist look really cool and out of control, it also meant the show was over because you can't play an instrument you just smashed to smithereens.

Back in the mid 1960's I lived in the same hotel as George Harrison in Bombay, India. At the time, we were both studying Indian music with sitarist Ravi Shankar. I had had a custom surbahar made for me by the "Stradivarius" of Indian instrument builders, the late Kanai Lal. Harrison wanted to borrow my surbahar for an afternoon but I told him I didn't want to lend it to him because I was afraid it might get broken.

With a thick Liverpool accent he said, "Don't worry. If I break it I'll buy you a hoondred!"

60s rockers and broken instruments ...

I think the guitar necks driven into speakers were real. Story goes that, Pete Townsend, I think, was pissed at the tone he was getting and ran the neck of his guitar through the speaker to force the roadies to change out the offending gear. But the audience loved it so much that the smashing of amps and guitars became a regular feature. Made all of us budding guitar players very angry! We would have been happy to have even the "junk" instruments to use!