Claravox really unstable pitch?

Hello again

over the weekend I tried my best to get familiar with my newly arrived Clarivox.

The theremin is a new instrument for me, but I thought I have done my homework and would get at least some stable pitch out of it.
I'm mainly interested in the traditional mode and the theremin as an instrument, since I come from the eurorack synth world...
(and I read enough to fear Thierry, so I didn't touch Modern Mode ;-))

I position myself, calibrate it, hold my hands still and I'm not able to get a stable pitch.
This is a short recording what I'm doing with my hands and an example of what happens when I connect the output to the tuner:

I really hold still, try not to breath and the pitch jumps around 40 Hz up and down.

Is there anything I'm doing wrong?

No special settings, register 0, no delay, no filter, wave/brightness 12 o'clock, traditional mode.
No big difference in the stability result if I try to tune the pitch antenna with the knob or keep it at 12 o'clock.

These are the other things I tried:

1) Updated firmware (which was already at 1.0.2)
2) Reset to factory defaults via software
3) Pitch null calibration according to the FAQ/manual
4) Other position in the room
5) Tried different power sockets
6) Tried three different rooms
7) Disconnected any electronic device in 3 different rooms
8) Disconnected wifi/turned of phone and removing anything which looks like it could interfere
9) Reattached the antenna multiple times
10) Turned it on/off multiple times, waited minutes/hours for it to warm up
11) Tried headphones only
12) Tried headphones only with multiple headphones

I'm out of ideas and feeling a little bit stupid and wonder if I really got a faulty unit?

I saw the other multi-page thread with the claravox problems, but this is nearly 1600 units later and there where no new postings in the last year.
I also checked http://aetherwellen-musik.de/Theremin-Instrumente-Instruments/Claravox-Centennial-CV-C-Theremin-Review-Improvement for any pitch related problems...

Any help is appreciated...

Welcome simon! 

What's your serial number? 

I'd check the antenna electrical connections, take some acetone to the threads and the post going into the hole in the cabinet.

Also maybe try explicitly grounding it, or explicitly not grounding it, ground loops can cause problems too.

The pitch field on analog Theremins is quite tight, for stability testing you should probably move away from the unit as much as possible, the variation I'm seeing in your video is fairly consistent with just being in the zone.   Most players end up sitting in one way or another due to the tightness of the field.

40 Hz of detuning is not much (less than 1% of A 440), it's totally within the normality of acoustic instruments with no fixed tuning, like bows or brasses. Though of course it would not be acceptable for a concert performance, I think it's not bad for being your first try

To me that seems like a fairly standard oscillation due to body movement. If you look at the video, you're not really still: your arms and hands maybe are, but your whole body is rocking back and forth.

Look at some videos of Carolina Eyck and focus on her body: it's astonishing how irrespectively of how much her arms are moving, her shoulders and torso remain totally still, like a statue.

This was something that was driving me mad when I was starting with theremin: it really made me realize how little I was aware of my posture, how little control I had over my body, and how weak my core muscles were. 

I then switched to sitting, to minimize movement of my upper body. After a few months I realized how much more controlled my movements were: playing theremin is a gentle but constant exercise for your abs and back muscle.
Look at it that way: if you start practicing theremin seriously, you won't need to do pilates or tai chi!

Thank you so much

It might be necessary to introduce PEBCAT.
If PEBCAK ist "problem exists between chair and keyboard", this is a case of "problem exists between chair and theremin".

You both were exactly right. If I step way more back so that I nearly have ot bend forward I'm able to keep the pitch nearly at the exact note...
I'm pretty tall and couldn't find a good position for sitting in front of it, so I started with standing.
I've watched the introductions/performances from Carolina (and others), most of the time she is sitting.
 
So my reference was mostly the tuning/pitching/calibration video from Moog with Dorit Chrysler:

I recognize now that most of the time she is explaining and not playing...

If I compare it with a picture form an actual performance:

Makes so much more sense.
Thank you so much

your whole body is rocking back and forth

In my defense: The video is a little bit zoomed in, I'm really just breathing ;-) But yeah, recognizing that the body was in the field it makes perfect sense. Slowly increase/decrease around 40 Mhz (edit: of course I meant 40 Hz) might just be the result of me breathing

If it was really 40 MHz swing, it would be far out of human hearing range transmitting somewhere in VHF radio frequencies range
The oscilators themselves are not even in the MHz range.

Youre noticing that a theremin is a proprioception/kinesthetic biofeedback device, and what you have bee noticing about the pitch wavering is completely normal.  I would propose that paracticig Tai Chi can be especially helpful, in my experience it ehances the proprioception, feeling/knowing how your body is positioned in space, and where your body parts are in relation to each other. The only playable part of the instrument in the context of a theremin is your own body after all, which completes 2 variable capacitors within the electronic circuit. A thereminist literally is one with the theremin, without the player the circuit is incomplete, and the body is the playing interface to this instrument. One hand does AM (volume/expression/evelope), the other FM (pitch control).

Learning how to stand (or sit) in a very still and stable way and when needed correcting the pitch hand position to compensate for body/breathing sway, coordinating your phrasing with your breathing, that happens while practicing/playing, and the needed neuron connections get established, trained and affirmed.  In the process you may notice that refining your intonation and pitch matching capabilities go hand in hand with refinement of hearing, the ability to hear smaller micro-intervals grows as well. 

When I was in the early stages of learning and practicing I noticed a few things. My mouth and throat would involuntarily move, trying to correct being off pitches. When speaking I was gesticulating more then usual. My hands would also go through movements and gestures/fingerings almost subconsciously driven, playing an imaginary theremin, like when watching a movie. These all seemed like signs that a bunch of nerve connections were routed and established, parts of the brain that originally control the vocal chords esablishing and growing connections with pitch arm and hand and developing the ear-hand coordination.  

"When I was in the early stages of learning and practicing I noticed a few things. My mouth and throat..." - DreadVox

Along with tremor (vibrato must go on!)  this is a great topic for creating parodies.

@DreadVox: Of course, it was +/- 40 Hz

I recognize how hard it is, but keeping a little bit more distance to the antenna helped a lot.

For example: Just for testing with a tuner I'm now able to hit a D4 (294 Hz) and keep it somewhere between 289 Hz and 299 Hz, even a little bit better.
Still hard but at least it seems in reach  (+/- 10 Hz)

With my initial position too close to the antenna I wasn't able to get anything near that (+/- 40 Hz) and in this range its a variation of nearly 4-5 semitones, which really seemed wrong to me.

Of course I get that starring on a tuner is not a form of practice but helped a little bit to find some kind of "baseline" and manage expectations.

"Of course I get that starring on a tuner is not a form of practice but helped a little bit to find some kind of "baseline" and manage expectations."  - simon

Au contraire!  My eyes are glued to my tuner when I play, and would be fairly lost without it.  I believe Randy George uses a tuner actively too.  You have to have a really responsive one though.

"Of course I get that starring on a tuner is not a form of practice but helped a little bit to find some kind of "baseline" and manage expectations."  - simonAu contraire!  My eyes are glued to my tuner when I play, and would be fairly lost without it.  I believe Randy George uses a tuner actively too.  You have to have a really responsive one though.

The same for me, I always have a tuner on the music stand, next to the music sheets (or more often, next to Carolina Eyck's book).

A tuner is indispensable for practicing on solo theremin, otherwise how could you find the right note unless you have absolute pitch?
Even when you practice with a reference note or backing track, it's VERY hard to notice when you're subtly out of tune, like 10-20 cents.

For that, being a piano or keyboard player (like me) is the worst possible background, because we're used to fixed notes that are always perfectly in tune.
String and wind players (and even more, choir singers) have much better ears, because they are trained to recognize subtle beatings and detunings, and not only whole tones and semitones!

A contrabass player friend of mine always jokes with me "How can you play such a stupid and limited instrument where G# and Ab are THE SAME NOTE?!?"
The problem is, she's absolutely right: keyboard instruments and equal temperament solved a lot of theoretical problems for orchestral music, but the fact is that to achieve that, they had to compromise on many things, like ...actually being in tune!

A contrabass player friend of mine always jokes with me "How can you play such a stupid and limited instrument where G# and Ab are THE SAME NOTE?!?"The problem is, she's absolutely right: keyboard instruments and equal temperament solved a lot of theoretical problems for orchestral music, but the fact is that to achieve that, they had to compromise on many things, like ...actually being in tune!

I'm afraid your tuner also thinks G# and Ab are the same note :-)

+1 about the tuner needs to be very responsive, like real time. Most audio tuners just aren't. Also I'd suggest it needs to represent notes graphically somehow where you can see intervals rather than just showing notes by letter designation, because the cognitive instant it takes to translate mentally (e.g. D-G oh that's a fourth) is too distracting. The D-Lev's integrated tuner is the only one that I've used that works well enough for me.