JohnnyG Posted March 1, 2004 Report Share Posted March 1, 2004 basically after looking at matt bellamy's guitars and seeing that he has all the crazy ZVex pedals inside i went to the ZVex website. the guy who makes all the pedals is a seriouslly intelligent guy and has some very cool ideas. my favorites are probablly the three "Probe" pedals he's made basic idea is to have a big copper plate on the front that is a theremin style aerial (theremins are instruments that are played by moving your hand closer to an aerial, you dont actually have to touch it) and to use this copper pad instead of, say, the foot pedal on a wah. what i was wondering is if anybody (im looking to ansil here lol) has an easilly designable circuit that could be used as a theremin style volume control like i said its not strictlly guitar related (unless you godown the mat bellamy route of having the ZVex Wah Probe built into one of your guitars (check the black manson, the copper plate around the lower horn is what im talking about) many thanks anybody who can help JG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted March 2, 2004 Report Share Posted March 2, 2004 Don't theremins work by heterodyning two radio frequencies? I don't think I want a RF transmitter anywhere near my pickups. How about an optical controller, like that KAOS thingy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted March 2, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2004 yes thats basically it tho its not setup as a transmitter, just as two oscilators, one of which can be controlled by the aerial. just so long as it was properlly shielded, maybe with the theremin part in a small metal case, then there shouldnt be any touble with it havnt heard of the KAOs thing tho i will now have a look on google i just like the idea of having a wah pedal, either on guitar or not) that you can controll without touching it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted March 2, 2004 Report Share Posted March 2, 2004 Interesting idea, but how would you adjust the volume? And how would you keep that volume once it is set so you dont have to keep your hand (or other body part) at the same place the whole time. Try Everyday with Practical Electronics Simple Theremin Project on http://www.thereminworld.com/schematics.asp. That might get ya the volume circuit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ansil Posted March 3, 2004 Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 actually me and a friend of mine are wokring on this over at diystompboxes.com after seeing the zvex stuff. but right now i am finishing up my tube head. cool little thing 10 watts tube power 300V powersupply all in a hammond C box. also basic eq. three high gain stages irf820 source follower to drive eq and a single 12ax7 to drive the powersection. all out of three tubes.. may change it too. three 6dx8's and use one of the pentodes to drive the powersection. crank up the wattage up. slightly. sorry didtn' mean to rant.. thoguh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted March 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 Primal, if i were using the theremin idea to control volume then i would build some sort of tremelo circuit where you could tap your foot on the aerial pad and get a trem effect along ot the beat etc (ZVex has akready done this btw lol) what im planning to do is to use the aerial to control the wah effect. since al the normal pedal in a wah does is to move a notch filter depending on the resistance of the potentiometer that you turn with the pedal it wouldnt be that hard to mod the theremin to do the same thing since it gives an sine wave output of varying voltage you just rectify it using a couple of diodes, then use a largish capacitor to flatten it out. put it into the gate of a JFET and hey presto, the drain to source resistance changes dependant on the voltage comingout of the theremin circuit. you could then have a potentiometer in series with the JFET to use as a trim to set where you wanted the notch to be when your hand wasnt near it ansil man, if you feel like sending any info my way about how you guys are planning on doing the theremin circuit then thatd be really cool. and that tiny head amp sounds damn cool, damn impressive as well for the size Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ansil Posted March 3, 2004 Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 since it gives an sine wave output of varying voltage you just rectify it using a couple of diodes, then use a largish capacitor to flatten it out. put it into the gate of a JFET and hey presto, the drain to source resistance changes dependant on the voltage comingout of the theremin circuit. you could then have a potentiometer in series with the JFET to use as a trim to set where you wanted the notch to be when your hand wasnt near it ansil man, if you feel like sending any info my way about how you guys are planning on doing the theremin circuit then thatd be really cool. and that tiny head amp sounds damn cool, damn impressive as well for the size you can also use it to control a transistor in a similar fashion.. personally i like the transistor better to me as it seems to respond better to my ears.. as soon as we get all the bugs worked out. i will send you what we got. right now its me and munky just hammering at it in chat and in IM i forgot to mention its seperate from the rest o the forum.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted March 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 since it gives an sine wave output of varying voltage you just rectify it using a couple of diodes, then use a largish capacitor to flatten it out. put it into the gate of a JFET and hey presto, the drain to source resistance changes dependant on the voltage comingout of the theremin circuit. you could then have a potentiometer in series with the JFET to use as a trim to set where you wanted the notch to be when your hand wasnt near it ansil man, if you feel like sending any info my way about how you guys are planning on doing the theremin circuit then thatd be really cool. and that tiny head amp sounds damn cool, damn impressive as well for the size you can also use it to control a transistor in a similar fashion.. personally i like the transistor better to me as it seems to respond better to my ears.. as soon as we get all the bugs worked out. i will send you what we got. right now its me and munky just hammering at it in chat and in IM i forgot to mention its seperate from the rest o the forum.. ah fair enough. ive not actually had any practise with JFet or transistor switching i just know that many schematics have used JFets for it like i said any info on this that you could chuck my way would be most apreciated. part of the problem ive had is trying to find an article that easilly explains how the two mixed waveforms can change amplitude.... at the moment of writing i may have just figured it out lol. must go make some calculations cheers JG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biblical Posted March 3, 2004 Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 zach is incready kind and always replies to posts imediatly, hes one cool guy. look about of the internet. zvex did a volume probe but discontinued it, but it might be on ebay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biblical Posted March 3, 2004 Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 basically after looking at matt bellamy's guitars and seeing that he has all the crazy ZVex pedals inside i went to the ZVex website. the guy who makes all the pedals is a seriouslly intelligent guy and has some very cool ideas. my favorites are probablly the three "Probe" pedals he's made basic idea is to have a big copper plate on the front that is a theremin style aerial (theremins are instruments that are played by moving your hand closer to an aerial, you dont actually have to touch it) and to use this copper pad instead of, say, the foot pedal on a wah. what i was wondering is if anybody (im looking to ansil here lol) has an easilly designable circuit that could be used as a theremin style volume control like i said its not strictlly guitar related (unless you godown the mat bellamy route of having the ZVex Wah Probe built into one of your guitars (check the black manson, the copper plate around the lower horn is what im talking about) many thanks anybody who can help JG Inside Matt Bellamy's guitars are unbeleivable, have you tried the fuzz factory yet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted March 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 lol i havnt been able to try any ZVex effects. i would love to get my hands on a fuzz factory as well as a number of other fun toys that he makes. problem is that with high quality comes a high price and i havnt got the cash for any of it inside matt's guitars would be a tad silly. most of it would be ok since the effects are all just in series after the guitar controls however the midi strip controler for the digitech would be a helluvalot of work to sort out and understand i reckon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ansil Posted March 3, 2004 Report Share Posted March 3, 2004 volume probe was done a little differently accoding to zach Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted March 4, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2004 ok ive managed to figure out how to make this thing work however actually designing the circuit is a right b*tch lol looks like im gonna be spending an hour or two on this instead of my real electronics coursework lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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