Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you hey there, Text Stuff listeners, This
Speaker 1: is Jonathan Strickland and I have got a request for
Speaker 1: all of you. Now, Chris and I have decided that
Speaker 1: we're going to try and experiment. We're doing our first
Speaker 1: crowd sourced episode of tech Stuff and we want to
Speaker 1: know what your pick is for the worst video game
Speaker 1: of all time. Now, nominations you can. You can make
Speaker 1: one nomination. You nominate one game, and you need to
Speaker 1: tell us the name of the game and the platform
Speaker 1: it was on. And it could be any platform. It
Speaker 1: could be an arcade game, it could be a PC, Mac, Xbox,
Speaker 1: PS three, Nintendo handheld console. It can be web based
Speaker 1: if you like. But just you let us know what
Speaker 1: the platform is so we can make sure we count
Speaker 1: that as the votes. So you can nominate your game
Speaker 1: either through email, which is tech Stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, or you can nominate through Twitter or Facebook.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna put a cut off date on this.
Speaker 1: I want to have the episode go up by the
Speaker 1: end of September of eleven. So let's say you need
Speaker 1: to get your nominations in by September eleven, So if
Speaker 1: you get those nominations into us, we will make sure
Speaker 1: we include those in the process, and we will have
Speaker 1: an episode where we give you the worst video games
Speaker 1: of all time based upon the votes of our listeners.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot. Can't wait to hear from you. Get
Speaker 1: in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hello, everyone, Welcome to tech Stuff. My
Speaker 1: name is Chris Poet, and I am an editor at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Sitting across from me, as always,
Speaker 1: is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. How about the power to
Speaker 1: kill a yak from two hundred yards away with mind bullets?
Speaker 1: That's telekinesis Kyle. That is a first. We have never
Speaker 1: quoted them before. I probably shouldn't have just then, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it anyway. And there's a reason why
Speaker 1: I quoted that, but we'll get into that first. Let's
Speaker 1: get into why we're going to do this episode. This
Speaker 1: comes to us courtesy of a Google Plus suggestion. This
Speaker 1: suggestion comes to us from Mary who, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: truncate her message a bit because she actually had quite
Speaker 1: a long with lots of different suggestions, but starts off
Speaker 1: with you may be interested to know. I, for one,
Speaker 1: I'm not tech savvy, at least compared to the crowd
Speaker 1: of early adopter types here on Google Plus. I'm a
Speaker 1: rhetoric major. Should have graduated when I was twenty, but
Speaker 1: in one class short of might be a for financial
Speaker 1: slash academic red tape reasons with miners in French and
Speaker 1: German guten tag. Mary. Aside from being a pro vocalist,
Speaker 1: my real job is teaching English to disadvantaged and academically
Speaker 1: struggling eighth graders, which is amazing. I also t aid
Speaker 1: college level rhet comp to and have private students tutoring clients,
Speaker 1: mostly college students, some high school, a few middle school
Speaker 1: primarily seeing me for writing instruction or literary interpretation analysis
Speaker 1: and historical analysis with embusses on reading comprehension. Apparently I
Speaker 1: need to take that at any rate. Mary then goes
Speaker 1: on to give several suggestions, the last of which is finally,
Speaker 1: more music stuff for those of us who missed the
Speaker 1: B side. R I P programs like able to end
Speaker 1: pro tools, HD electronics like dB Thereman, and the very
Speaker 1: awesome react table you can see on YouTube worthy of
Speaker 1: its own podcast. While all of that is true. We
Speaker 1: are going to do a Theoreman podcast, and I know
Speaker 1: that stuff from the Beast. I did one as well,
Speaker 1: but we're really gonna dive down and talk about with Thereman.
Speaker 1: It's history, how it works, uh, and you know the
Speaker 1: what's the basis behind It's pretty interesting stuff. And as
Speaker 1: I said, the song I quoted at the beginning actually
Speaker 1: does feature a thereman. Oh so and and uh, just
Speaker 1: to help people who want to learn more about some
Speaker 1: of the stuff we're talking about today on how stuff works.
Speaker 1: We don't have how Thereman's work yet, although I do
Speaker 1: believe it's actually gone out as an assignment. We do
Speaker 1: have how amplifiers work, and that's going to be a
Speaker 1: very important part of our conversation at some point. We
Speaker 1: do have an article on the Thereman however, Yes, we
Speaker 1: do have articles on the Thereman, just not one that
Speaker 1: specifically breaks down how it works. Yet. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I think by the time this podcast goes live, we
Speaker 1: me that may have changed. But I know that there
Speaker 1: is an assignment out there somewhere, floating out in the ether.
Speaker 1: It's not me. I'm not the one writing it so
Speaker 1: or at least it hasn't been assigned to me. Let's
Speaker 1: let's start talking about the history here. You wanted to,
Speaker 1: uh talk about our buddy Leo Leon Thereman actually Lev Sergeyevitch,
Speaker 1: who was a scientist and inventor. UM. I got a
Speaker 1: little information about Mr Thereman from Britannica, always a good
Speaker 1: source for the biographical on these inventors. Um. He lived
Speaker 1: in uh in St. Petersburg and uh Florida, Russia. He
Speaker 1: was well, he was born there in and died in
Speaker 1: in Moscow, Florida, No, North Dakota, uh in nineteen I
Speaker 1: wonder if there is a Moscow anyway. UM. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny that you would say out of the ether
Speaker 1: because the original name for this device was the ether
Speaker 1: a phone, but it was later renamed to be the Thereman,
Speaker 1: and uh, basically it's it's known for the way you
Speaker 1: play it. Unlike pretty much every other kind of instrument
Speaker 1: I can think of where you actually need to touch
Speaker 1: it to do this, the Thereman you specifically do not touch. UM.
Speaker 1: I knew a lot of people who have that same policy.
Speaker 1: But yes, no, you're you're that's absolutely correct. Therriman has
Speaker 1: played without touching it, yep, and he actually played it
Speaker 1: for for Lenin in nineteen twenty two and and for
Speaker 1: Albert Einstein in and UM patented the instrument in in
Speaker 1: New York. UM and then he went into a lot
Speaker 1: of other stuff. He uh tried to work on other
Speaker 1: musical instruments and UH worked on an electronic security system
Speaker 1: for prisons. UM ended up in a Siberian labor camp
Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union. Certainly not yeah, Uh he was.
Speaker 1: He did work did some work for a in a
Speaker 1: military lab during World War Two where he was working
Speaker 1: on UH naval tracking systems and remote controls UM and
Speaker 1: even on spy technology and eavesdropping device for the KGB. Uh.
Speaker 1: He he got the Stalin Prize for that. UM. Smart
Speaker 1: guy is what we're talking about here. Yeah. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: became a professor of acoustics at the Moscow Conservatory. UM
Speaker 1: and UH, you know, had done a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of different kinds of electronics work. So certainly, UH
Speaker 1: a very interesting person. But you know, I think he's
Speaker 1: probably best known. I don't think anyone argue that he's
Speaker 1: best known for the ether phone, I mean the Thereman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: since it does, since it does actually bear his name,
Speaker 1: or at least the Western version of his name, and
Speaker 1: before we go any further, I think it might might
Speaker 1: behoove us to to have a little a little listen
Speaker 1: to to what a thereman sounds like. So this is
Speaker 1: the sound of the theoreman. Now, listeners may have recognized
Speaker 1: that from various songs, and really, I think, I think
Speaker 1: what that always reminds me of is all all those
Speaker 1: like nineteen fifties science fiction films and TV series that
Speaker 1: either used a thereman or use some sort of other
Speaker 1: effect to create a thereman like sound as part of
Speaker 1: the soundtrack. Because not everything that that sounds like a
Speaker 1: thereman is in fact a thereman. In fact, one of
Speaker 1: the most famous songs that people tend to say had
Speaker 1: a thereman and it did not is Good Vibrations by
Speaker 1: the Beach Boys. Almost said Beastie Boys. This is that's
Speaker 1: I haven't had enough coffee. Good Vibrations by the Beastie Boys,
Speaker 1: And that would have been hilarious and wrong. But anyway, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not that's not a theoreman used in that song.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a totally different instrument. Actually, it's called
Speaker 1: tannerin although I mean it does it does have a
Speaker 1: similar sound to it, but you actually do play that
Speaker 1: by touching you slide your finger on it, and depending
Speaker 1: on where you're touching it, it it you know, produces a
Speaker 1: different sound. And if you were to look at a
Speaker 1: theorem and you would immediately see that the I guess
Speaker 1: the most notable feature is that it's you know, depending
Speaker 1: upon the design of it, it's gonna look like some
Speaker 1: sort of a box. But from that box, you're going
Speaker 1: to see a pair of antenna and one Traditionally, one
Speaker 1: antenna is vertical aligned to the box, so it's it's
Speaker 1: up and down, and then a second antenna seems to
Speaker 1: is to come out the side of the box. It's
Speaker 1: horizontal and it's in a loop. And using your hands
Speaker 1: moving them close to and further away those antenna that's
Speaker 1: what controls the sound that comes out of the theoreman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you uh, you know, it's always good to adjust it
Speaker 1: a little bit to the left, you know, get the
Speaker 1: get the picture just right right. Oh wait, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I was thinking of a different kind of antenna. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's not a rabbit ears um. Yeah. In fact,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. We should mention that this is
Speaker 1: these antenna are not designed to pick up any sort
Speaker 1: of radio frequency. That's not the purpose of the antenna.
Speaker 1: We'll get into that when we start getting into the actual,
Speaker 1: uh ways that the the theoreman works. So do you
Speaker 1: said you wanted to talk a little bit at one
Speaker 1: point about songs that you may have heard or perhaps
Speaker 1: even other ways that you may have heard a thereman. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I was an early subscriber to XM Radio,
Speaker 1: the satellite radio service here in the United States, and
Speaker 1: they used to have a channel called Special X where
Speaker 1: they would play all kinds of strange and unusual things.
Speaker 1: And they actually had, believe it or not, a whole
Speaker 1: show devoted to music from the Theoreman. And so they
Speaker 1: were all these and again you're right, period records from
Speaker 1: like the fifties and stuff where there were uh, you know,
Speaker 1: thereman songs that they were playing entire pieces on the theorem.
Speaker 1: And and actually you could find a lot of the
Speaker 1: stuff on on YouTube. I've seen people, I've seen theremin orchestras, wow,
Speaker 1: where there are different people playing songs and they have
Speaker 1: different parts. So everybody's got a different purpose of doing it,
Speaker 1: and it's it sounds kind of random when you just
Speaker 1: hear these sections and segments and other songs and pop
Speaker 1: songs and things like that. But you you know, people
Speaker 1: you can actually play this as a musical instrument. And
Speaker 1: so I've I've heard a lot of that kind of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of something specific. You have a
Speaker 1: favorite thereman song other than the one that you quoted before,
Speaker 1: other than the one I quoted before, and not really um,
Speaker 1: but there are other songs that have used it. They
Speaker 1: are actually uh, like I said, it's for me. The
Speaker 1: thing that I think about are all those those like
Speaker 1: The Day the Earth Stood Still, That would be a
Speaker 1: famous film that used a thereman as a sound effect. Uh.
Speaker 1: There there was a theremin used at least in some
Speaker 1: versions of the theme to Star Trek, although most of
Speaker 1: the time that was actually a vocalist who did that effect.
Speaker 1: But I believe in in one or two versions of
Speaker 1: that you can hear a theremin being used. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I mean there are bands that experiment and they'll throw
Speaker 1: that in the mix, and it may even be that
Speaker 1: it's it's a minor part of the song where you know,
Speaker 1: it's not meant to take the forefront of the melody
Speaker 1: or anything like that. It's just another another layer of
Speaker 1: complexity within a song itself. Uh So I guess we
Speaker 1: can now talk about what a theoreman does, like how
Speaker 1: does it make that sound? Like why is it that
Speaker 1: when you put your hand closer to or further away
Speaker 1: from one intend it changes the pitch and the other
Speaker 1: one controls the volume. That's by the way, the vertical
Speaker 1: one is the pitch antenna and the horizontal one is
Speaker 1: the volume antenna. Awesome, Actually it's uh it's funny because uh,
Speaker 1: typically you think of making music with an instrument as
Speaker 1: you wanted to sound as clear as possible. Um, But
Speaker 1: in the opportunity to play a thereman, you'll realize that, uh,
Speaker 1: it's actually all about creating interference because these uh, these
Speaker 1: antennae um actually have an electromagnetic field that and you're
Speaker 1: interfering with that by coming closer and moving farther away
Speaker 1: to different degrees. So really what's what you're hearing is
Speaker 1: the sound of the interference with the machine. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: actually to to dive down into this. The way this
Speaker 1: works is that you've got coils of wire inside the
Speaker 1: theorem and that are generating electromagnetic field and that is
Speaker 1: propagated along the antenna and so with the case of
Speaker 1: the pitch antenna, you have two different um UH like
Speaker 1: two different oscillators creating this electromagnetic field. One of them
Speaker 1: is a steady frequency, the other one's variable frequency, and
Speaker 1: the variable frequency all depends upon your hand coming into
Speaker 1: contact with or not contact but coming closer or or
Speaker 1: moving further away from the pitch antenna. UH. What will
Speaker 1: happen then is that the frequencies from these two different
Speaker 1: UH oscillators will mix. And this is a process that
Speaker 1: we call heterodyning. And heterodyning is you you process these
Speaker 1: these signals and you take UH. Typically you can get
Speaker 1: lots of different um um results from combining signals, but
Speaker 1: typically you look at the sum and the difference and
Speaker 1: UH you choose, you filter one out and you focus
Speaker 1: on the other. And in this case, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the difference because the the frequencies that are generated by
Speaker 1: these oscillators are too high for human here. But the
Speaker 1: difference is not um. So if you are creating a
Speaker 1: variation in one frequency and the other frequency is remaining
Speaker 1: constant UH, when you take the difference of that and
Speaker 1: you take that signal, that signal is then within the
Speaker 1: range of human hearing, and because you've got that one
Speaker 1: variable frequency, you can change the pitch. So and it
Speaker 1: all has to do with, of course, the capacitance that
Speaker 1: we have. You know, human beings, we have a capacitance,
Speaker 1: and uh it's really most mostly based on body mass.
Speaker 1: So um, there's another interesting point is that if you
Speaker 1: have two different people playing the same theraman, they're going
Speaker 1: to quickly find out like to let's say, take one
Speaker 1: tiny little person and one huge person. So you've got
Speaker 1: ham hands and you've got little dainty fingers. Little dainty
Speaker 1: fingers comes up there and starts playing with theraman and
Speaker 1: realizes that when they when their dainty fingers get within
Speaker 1: a certain distance of the antenna, a particular pitch is played.
Speaker 1: Then ham hands comes up and starts to play, and
Speaker 1: then realizes very quickly that it's a different distance for
Speaker 1: ham hands to get to that intended to make that
Speaker 1: same pitch. And it has to do with the mass
Speaker 1: of the of of ham hands. So uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's two people playing the same thereman are going to
Speaker 1: find out that they can't mimic one another's motions and
Speaker 1: get the exact same sound. It's going to be different
Speaker 1: based upon the actual size of the musician and all.
Speaker 1: Like I said, that all has to do with the
Speaker 1: capacitance that we as humans actually have ourselves. So we
Speaker 1: interfere with that electromagnetic field. The frequencies combine in the
Speaker 1: heterodyning process as I've said, as I mentioned, we filter
Speaker 1: out the sum. We take the difference of those two frequencies, UH,
Speaker 1: and that signal is what creates the pitch. Now, even
Speaker 1: though it's within the range of human hearing, UH, you
Speaker 1: can't really hear it very well unless you put it
Speaker 1: through an amplification process, which we'll have to talk about
Speaker 1: in a second. And the second antenna, the volume antenna,
Speaker 1: really just has the one oscillator and then there's a
Speaker 1: steady UH voltage being applied further in. And what happens
Speaker 1: is when you move your hand closer to that antenna,
Speaker 1: you are interrupting the first the signal from the first oscillator,
Speaker 1: that electromagnetic field. And as you interrupt that electromanetic magnetic field,
Speaker 1: the signal becomes weaker, which ends up being a control
Speaker 1: on the volume. So, in other words, the closer your
Speaker 1: hand gets to that second antenna, the quieter the sound
Speaker 1: will be. You might think that you know, you would
Speaker 1: want to get your hand closer to make the sound
Speaker 1: go up, but it's exactly the opposite. So if you
Speaker 1: put your hand close to the antenna, the sound is
Speaker 1: going to be very low. And as you take your
Speaker 1: hand away from that antenna, the horizontal antenna, the volume increases,
Speaker 1: so the pitch will remain the same, assuming that your
Speaker 1: other hand is is steady. And and also I should
Speaker 1: mention when you watch people play the theremin, especially people
Speaker 1: who have just started to play, you might notice them
Speaker 1: moving their hands up and down the the length of
Speaker 1: the vertical antenna. That really doesn't have much of an effect.
Speaker 1: It can change the pitch a little bit, but the
Speaker 1: real change and pitch has to do with the distance
Speaker 1: from the antenna. So you can keep your hands steady
Speaker 1: at the same level respective to the vertical antenna and
Speaker 1: just change the the distance your hand is from that antenna,
Speaker 1: and that would change the pitch. You don't have to
Speaker 1: move your hand up and down the length of the
Speaker 1: antenna in order to change it, because you really need
Speaker 1: both hands to operate them. Well, yeah, because you have to,
Speaker 1: I mean, because otherwise you would just have a steady
Speaker 1: volume time, right, So you need you need to be
Speaker 1: able to uh, you know, have both hands free to
Speaker 1: operate the Theoreman's you know, both the pitch and the volume. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think it can also depend not
Speaker 1: only on the person, but on the instrument itself. So sure,
Speaker 1: yeah you can. You can actually tune a thereman as well.
Speaker 1: And that that all has to do with the electronics
Speaker 1: that are inside the thereman, because depending upon the electronic
Speaker 1: components you've put in there and the the frequency difference
Speaker 1: between the variable frequency and the steady frequency, uh, you
Speaker 1: you will have a certain octave range that that thereman
Speaker 1: is capable of playing and uh and sometimes that octave
Speaker 1: range can be quite uh large, very large range. But
Speaker 1: that means that you have to have even more control
Speaker 1: when you're playing it. Uh, that that tiny changes in
Speaker 1: the distance between your hand and the antenna will result
Speaker 1: in fairly significant changes in pitch. Which is why the
Speaker 1: thereman is one of those instruments that's you know, you
Speaker 1: can step right up and start playing it uh and
Speaker 1: have fun making weird noises, but if you want to
Speaker 1: be able to actually play a tune with with regularity,
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of practice. It's one of those
Speaker 1: really difficult to masterpieces. And uh actually have a list
Speaker 1: of some of the components that are in a typical thereman,
Speaker 1: if you would like to hear. Sure. Okay, so we've
Speaker 1: got the two antenna. As I mentioned before, the the
Speaker 1: volume antenna is actually a loop. It looks like a
Speaker 1: semicircle that's attached to the horizontal side, one of the
Speaker 1: horizontal sides of the theraman itself. There. The reason for
Speaker 1: that design is that the old thermans were all based
Speaker 1: on vacuum tube technology, is before solid state technology was
Speaker 1: really a thing at all. The first Theraman and so um.
Speaker 1: In order to be able to make this antenna and
Speaker 1: have it fit with the old system, you actually had
Speaker 1: to create this loop so that you had the right
Speaker 1: antenna length without interfering with the other electronic components of
Speaker 1: the device. So even though we've reached a point now
Speaker 1: where most modern theramans still use vacuum tubes at least
Speaker 1: in some capacity, and we'll talk about that a little bit, hey,
Speaker 1: But Chris, I'm sure we'll have something to say about
Speaker 1: using vacuum tubes as opposed to solid state. Being the musician,
Speaker 1: you would you would know more about this than I do.
Speaker 1: But in general has to do with sound quality. So
Speaker 1: there are still vacuum tubes used in most modern theramins,
Speaker 1: but they also involve some solid state electronic components now,
Speaker 1: which means that you no longer would have to do
Speaker 1: that loop UH to achieve the same effect. But I
Speaker 1: think a lot of a lot of theramin designers like
Speaker 1: to use it anyway, just kind of as a throwback
Speaker 1: to the original theoreman So it's almost like it's almost
Speaker 1: like a traditional thing at this point. UM. So inside
Speaker 1: the theremin, you're going to find typically a pair of chassis.
Speaker 1: One chassis is gonna be for your electromagnetic components, and
Speaker 1: this is where this is what generates that electromagnetic field
Speaker 1: for both of the antenna UM. You would normally find
Speaker 1: three oscillators in there. You would find two oscillators for
Speaker 1: the pitch, one oscillator for the volume UH. The this
Speaker 1: chassis often called an upper chassis, and a lot of
Speaker 1: the theramans I've looked at UH is has to be
Speaker 1: separated from the other chassis which has the amplification and
Speaker 1: power UH elements to it, because otherwise the electromagnetic field
Speaker 1: would interfere with the operation of those elements. All right,
Speaker 1: So the lower chassis where you get the power coming
Speaker 1: into the device. Uh, and you have the amplification oscillators
Speaker 1: and usually we use triodes and that you probably have
Speaker 1: heard of diodes. Diodes, of course, are those electronic components
Speaker 1: that allow electrons to pass through one way but not
Speaker 1: back yet. It's a one way lane. It allows electron
Speaker 1: uh flow in one direction only. Triads are a little different.
Speaker 1: Triads are well, it's a kind of vacuum tube and
Speaker 1: and from a superficial level, they resemble a light bulb.
Speaker 1: And the way a triode works is that there are
Speaker 1: typically three elements within a triode, which makes sense when
Speaker 1: you hear the name. You've got the cathode, which is
Speaker 1: the part of the triad that that will shed electrons.
Speaker 1: You've got a grid of some sort that will control
Speaker 1: the flow of electrons. It kind of acts as like
Speaker 1: a gate in a way. Then you have the anode,
Speaker 1: which is where the electrons want to get too, because
Speaker 1: it has a positive charge. Now remember electrons have a
Speaker 1: negative charge, so negative wants to be attracted. It is
Speaker 1: attracted to positive. So you have a positive element on
Speaker 1: one side, a negative element on another side, and a
Speaker 1: gate in the middle to control the flow. And that's
Speaker 1: the basis behind um the triode. Now, in order to
Speaker 1: control the flow of electrons, what you have to do
Speaker 1: is you hook up that gate to a source of electricity.
Speaker 1: All right. Now, if you're generating electricity and you're you're
Speaker 1: putting a current through that gate, that means you're putting
Speaker 1: negative electrons through the gate. Now that's gonna repel the
Speaker 1: electrons coming out of the cathode. All right, So you've
Speaker 1: got the cathode. Let's imagine that the cathodes on the
Speaker 1: left hand side, and in the middle is this gate
Speaker 1: that has electrons running through it, and on the right
Speaker 1: you have the anode. Now, the the current that you're
Speaker 1: putting through that gate is going to vary because that's
Speaker 1: your input. That's that's the signal that's going into like
Speaker 1: when you're making a sound electronically speaking into a microphone
Speaker 1: or playing a musical instrument that's plugged into this amplifier.
Speaker 1: So it's a variable frequency again, a variable current and
Speaker 1: uh and so sometimes the current is going to be
Speaker 1: is going to allow a certain number of electrons through
Speaker 1: because there's you know, as you build up the uh,
Speaker 1: the charge on the cathode side. Some electrons are going
Speaker 1: to pass through that gate is going to be strong
Speaker 1: enough energy for it to go through the gate. Other
Speaker 1: times the the signal is going to be lower. It's
Speaker 1: gonna allow more electrons through. That's the whole basis of
Speaker 1: the amplifier. So the cathode looks like a filament. You
Speaker 1: have to in order to make electrons shed, you have
Speaker 1: to add energy into this system. So and this is
Speaker 1: a rather than the variable source which is what we
Speaker 1: see in the gate, this is a steady power source
Speaker 1: that's going into the cathode. So it heats up this filament,
Speaker 1: which gives off light. Depending upon what kind of vacuum
Speaker 1: tube it is, it may be a different color, like
Speaker 1: a lot of them are kind of an orange ish color.
Speaker 1: If you're talking about a vacuum tube for like a
Speaker 1: big power system, it tends to burn white hot. But
Speaker 1: that's when it starts to shed thousands and thousands of electrons.
Speaker 1: The energy from the electricity is is enough to break
Speaker 1: the electrons free from their shells and then they will
Speaker 1: go toward the positively charged anode. So that is the
Speaker 1: basis of you just got a it's like a podcast
Speaker 1: within a podcast that was a basic electronics of what
Speaker 1: a triode is and what it does, or really vacuum
Speaker 1: tubes in general, Although there are other kinds of vacuum
Speaker 1: tubes besides triots, they're not it's not a one to
Speaker 1: one you know. Tryout is just one type of vacuum tube,
Speaker 1: all right. So you've got several of those in their
Speaker 1: acting as amplifiers, UM. And then you've also got your
Speaker 1: your power source, you've got your capacitors, you've got resistors UM.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the antenna. I've already spoken about
Speaker 1: those as well. And the copper coils which generate the
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field. Those are your basic component that all together
Speaker 1: make up the guts of the thereman and there Actually,
Speaker 1: I've seen videos online that kind of give an overall
Speaker 1: view of how to build a thereman, and they're also
Speaker 1: a theremin kits out there if you want to try
Speaker 1: and make your own. Um, it's an interesting project, I understand.
Speaker 1: Like even the guy who was I was watching these videos,
Speaker 1: the guy who builds the theorem and actually said, um,
Speaker 1: I can build them, but I can't play them. So
Speaker 1: he said he loves he enjoys building them, and he
Speaker 1: tends to build them for other people like like bands
Speaker 1: and stuff that are interested in using the thereman. Well, Um,
Speaker 1: anyone interested in in playing the thereman should check out
Speaker 1: an article that Jane mcgrathrope for the website called how
Speaker 1: to play a theoreman Um and she actually quoted some
Speaker 1: of the people who are well known theoreminists dereminist derman players, deremanators.
Speaker 1: They come from the future. It's terrible, Sarah uh. Lydia
Speaker 1: cavina is one. Uh. She actually studied under Leon theoreman
Speaker 1: um and basically had suggested that it's good to keep
Speaker 1: your feet about a foot apart zero point three meters UM.
Speaker 1: But it really depends on the theoremin and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and how far you want to stand away from it,
Speaker 1: and of course, as you mentioned, the capacitance of the
Speaker 1: person playing it um. But generally depending on the number
Speaker 1: of octaves available um in that theoreman, I mean the
Speaker 1: the range of the theoremin. Uh. You might have to
Speaker 1: stand farther away if it has a greater range um,
Speaker 1: according to uh um Miss cavina Um. Also uh, apparently
Speaker 1: you can actually tune the device yourself by putting your
Speaker 1: right hand at your shoulder or I guess your left
Speaker 1: hand depending on how you're playing it, So you start
Speaker 1: with your hand at your shoulder regardless, um and then
Speaker 1: just uh she said the ideas you need to play
Speaker 1: the song slowly when you're getting started, because, UM, it
Speaker 1: takes a while to get used to uh controlling the
Speaker 1: pitch that you're trying to to make if you're actually
Speaker 1: trying to play a song and melody with it. Um
Speaker 1: and uh Clara Rockmore another person that um Jane quoted
Speaker 1: in her article and basically said that you have to
Speaker 1: be very conscious of what you're doing with your body. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, as a percussionist, I tend to uh groove
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, start getting into it and
Speaker 1: bobbing and getting into the motion. Uh. That can affect
Speaker 1: the way you're playing because the theramin is uh going
Speaker 1: by your body movement and how close you are to it.
Speaker 1: So anything any other stray movement is going to affect
Speaker 1: the sound coming out of the theramin. So you have
Speaker 1: to be very careful, um, and you have to be
Speaker 1: very conscious of what you're doing when you're when you're
Speaker 1: trying to play that you know, posture and and uh
Speaker 1: stray movements and affect it. It's a lot different from
Speaker 1: saying a guitar where you have a string that, assuming
Speaker 1: it's properly tuned, when you play that string while pressing
Speaker 1: down at a certain fret, it's always going to produce
Speaker 1: the same note, right. Uh, there's there's no variation there.
Speaker 1: But with a thereman, it's all about the distance between
Speaker 1: you and the antenna and uh, and and not and
Speaker 1: and again your your body mass. So while two different
Speaker 1: people can pick up the same guitar and play the
Speaker 1: same series of notes just following the same threats, that
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily be the same story if they were trying
Speaker 1: to play a thereman and standing at the same distance
Speaker 1: from the device. Just pretty interesting to me. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I had mentioned also about the amplifiers using vacuum tubes
Speaker 1: and that that tends to be a preference. Would you
Speaker 1: like to to weigh in a little bit as a
Speaker 1: musician about that, Well, you know it, it kind of
Speaker 1: depends on the sound you're getting, you know. Um, most
Speaker 1: of the musicians and I rarely talk to people about
Speaker 1: using a theraman in a band, but I mean vacuum
Speaker 1: tubes and amplifiers in general, vacuum tubes. Most of what
Speaker 1: I've heard people say is that they feel that vacuum
Speaker 1: tubes produce a warmer sound, which is the yeah, and
Speaker 1: again it's it's really in the ear of the listener.
Speaker 1: To be honest, you might say that solid state produces
Speaker 1: a flatter sound. And these are all terms that don't
Speaker 1: really have a way of it's hard to it's hard
Speaker 1: to put it in a measurable sense, but it is.
Speaker 1: It is one of those things that when you start
Speaker 1: listening to it, you say, you know what that does?
Speaker 1: It just sounds better? Yeah, you know. And uh. And
Speaker 1: even today, a lot of apps out there for various
Speaker 1: musical instruments, not just the one, not just the amplifiers
Speaker 1: that you'll find in Theraman, still use vacuum tubes, even
Speaker 1: though the technology otherwise has almost disappeared. Solid state era. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well solid state too. I mean, you turn on a
Speaker 1: solid state device, amplifier whatever, um, it's going to be
Speaker 1: on a lot quicker up. Yeah, and a vacuum tube
Speaker 1: device will um and you can and you could see
Speaker 1: it too, if you have, if you could see through
Speaker 1: like I have. For example, I have a vacuum tube
Speaker 1: amplifier and a solid state amplifier. Um, you turn it
Speaker 1: on and at first the vacuum tubes, you know, look
Speaker 1: as though they are you know, they would win the
Speaker 1: devices off, and then they start to glow and you
Speaker 1: could see that things are coming on and you could
Speaker 1: turn on a source of sound, say, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: turntable or a tune or radio tuner, and at first
Speaker 1: you won't hear anything, and as the vacuum tubes warm up,
Speaker 1: you know, the amplifier will begin to play the music
Speaker 1: because they're actually coming online, but it takes them a while.
Speaker 1: Um makes me think of the the beginning of the
Speaker 1: documentary Back to the Future. Yeah, turning on all the apps, Yeah, documentary,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, but uh yeah, I mean it's it's funny though, because, um,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like vinyl for a lot of musicians too,
Speaker 1: because for you know, the vacuum tube manufacturers almost became
Speaker 1: extinct and as time is worn on and people have said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I really like the way that that works.
Speaker 1: I like the sound that I get from vacuum tube amps,
Speaker 1: or you know, I had this other thing that uses
Speaker 1: vacuum tubes and I really like it. I actually have
Speaker 1: a Hammond organ that uses um vacuum tubes too, and
Speaker 1: you know, without some manufacturer, you know, so these things
Speaker 1: have have stayed in production, even though solid state for
Speaker 1: a while, it looked like it was going to you know,
Speaker 1: knock it out. But yeah, and just like uh, just
Speaker 1: like an incandescent light bulb, vacuum tubes will eventually burn out. Yes,
Speaker 1: they will it. Uh. I mean it's it's not going
Speaker 1: to be super fast or anything. But that's why it's
Speaker 1: important that these industries still exist because otherwise we would
Speaker 1: have a finite number that and once we got to
Speaker 1: the end of it, that would be it. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I guess we should be thankful for devices like the
Speaker 1: theremin and guitar amplifiers for keeping a a what what
Speaker 1: otherwise people might say, an absolute technology alive and kicking. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that that pretty much wraps up this discussion on the
Speaker 1: thereman and what it is and how it does what
Speaker 1: it does. If you guys are interested in more, there
Speaker 1: are tons of videos online. We also have that article
Speaker 1: that Chris was mentioning about how to play with thereman
Speaker 1: in at how stuff works dot com and the guys
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions, you can let us know
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Facebook are handled. There is text stuff
Speaker 1: h s W or you can email us that addresses
Speaker 1: tech stuff at how stuff works dot com. Chris and
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon. Be sure
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