Post processor/mixer/effects generator?

WAY back-in-the-day I built a South West Technical Products Theremin kit.  As I recall, it 'sorta' worked, but not like I expected.

So now I am again interested in building a Theremin, and was wondering about what kind of special effects/etc are used to alter the output of the Theremin.  I found this youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beyssCoxRFY and it appears that the player goes off camera to make some kind of processing.

So, what types (and maybe some exammples) of signal processores are commonly used?

Cheers,

Steve

Sounds like your basic echo pedal to me. You can get a lot of mileage out of an echo and a theremin. :-)

Not sure what sort of effects you're looking for, but check my yT channel. Most of the videos mention the effects used, or just ask if one doesn't and you're curious.

http://youtube.com/GordonCharlton 

Thanks Gordon, I was wondering if it was 'reverb' of some sort.  I have no knowledge of all the techniques and equipment used, for any instrument, so at this point, I don't even know what questions to ask! 

So, just another learning adventure ahead for me.

Cheers,

Steve

Oh, you're going to have fun! 

There are plenty of tutorial articles on the interwebs, but they are either theoretical, so have tons of equations and tell you nothing about what they actually sound like, or they are practical, but oriented primarily for guitars, which tells you nothing about how they sound with theremins, which are sonically very different beasts to electric guitars. 

The approach I used was to build up a layman's grasp of the theory and couple it with trying out pedals whenever I got the opportunity, and using effects emulators on my computer and iOS device (sorry if you have an Android phone - they currently have issues which make them impractical from processing audio in real time.)

Still every time I get a new pedal it is rather exciting to discover how they work out in practice and how that differs from what I imagined they would do!

Gordon,

To show just how much I do have to learn - what is meant by 'pedal'?

Would that be a generic term used to describe a new 'processing effect' (could be hardware or software) that is activated by an actual pedal?  And if you had multiple 'pedals' available for the instrument, would that mean the floor is cluttered up with mechanical pedals?  Or one physical (?) pedal, and some sort of selector switch/panel that determined which effect the pedal activated?  Or is everything controlled by some sort of 'mixer/control board'?

See, I told you I had a lot to learn.

I have way too many personal projects that will be taking precedence, but when the Theremin project comes up, it will be a completely hand-built 'EM Theremin', from the schematics provided in the 'Electronic Musician Feb 1996' article.

Usually having no control, I looked at building the Mark Keppinger tube Theremin.  I added up the costs of just acquiring the parts - ouch!  And that's not counting the cost of HAVING to make a wood cabinet to compliment the instrument.

Therefore, it will be the hand-built EM Theremin ...... (for now).

Cheers,

Steve

I mean something in a box that processes an audio signal. I tend to use guitar pedals because they're cheap and cheerful and generally quite simple to understand and use and physically robust. (Well, they're for rock guitarists. What more need I say.)

Yes, you can have a chain of several pedals lined up on the floor or on a strategically placed table. There are also multi-effect pedals which allow you to switch between a variety of different effects. These are an economical way of obtaining a lot of different effects, but they tend to limit you to using one effect at a time. (They are digital devices, inside is a specialised processor - a DSP - digital signal processor that runs different programs for different effects.) My personal preference is for analogue efects (ones made using discrete electronic components rather than digitising the audio signal) wherever possible, but that is just a matter of taste.