Stand ...

OK, just build my SC/Jaycar Theremin pic at www.myspace.com/synthplayer ), now I want to design a stand. Just a few questions ...

Does it have to be plastic? I read somewhere that the Theremin should be a certain height above metal items. I was thinking of a microphone stand (metal) or camera tripod, both of which i could screw into the bottom of the plastic case.

Any advice, thoughts etc would be apperciated.

Matt

What a stand is made of doesn't matter too much as long as any parts of it that come near the theremin are entirely below the cabinet of the theremin, away from the antennas. For example, my Etherwave mounts on a mic stand. That's made of metal, but the slim metal pole is directly below the center of the cabinet, well away from the antennas. While the stand has legs at the bottom that stick out to the sides, they're a good three or four feet below the antennas at all times.

Think of the field of the pitch antenna as being a donut with its center on the antenna, and the volume antenna as being linear going through the antenna's loop. If you've got a plate antenna, it's a bit less specific but it's vaguely linear, vaguely perpendicular to the antenna's plate, but including some space around the plate as well. Anyway, you want to keep stuff out of the antennas' fields. So, directly below the middle of the instrument is generally safe.

Cheers Tom (again!)

Matt

I say to experiment with different heights too.
I originally planned on making a wood stand at one hight,
I didn’t want to wait anymore to find the supplies to make the wood stand so I bought a normal mic stand.
And then I discovered that I’m much more comfortable with the theremin being a lot higher that what I expected it to be.