I used to own a Theremin from Big Briar (it is now Moog Music Inc. and their Etherwave Theremin products are here) - it was a kit that I put together and it was _very_ cool. If you don't know what a Theremin is - have you ever seen a monster or sci-fi flick where there was weird, warble-y, ethereal music playing? _That_ is a Theremin. It's the only music instrument you play without actually touching it. Sound strange? It is - and it's damn fun to play with.
I found a video on YouTube that has Leonid Theremin playing the instrument he invented:
I found a design for a theremin using a couple of HEX converters (CD4069UBE), but I was never able to get it to work. I'm using a HCF4069UBE instead of the CD4069UBE, so that may have something to do with it. You can find that project here.
Anyway - I've decided to gut the old electronics from the original project and replace it with new electronics based on the PIC12F1840. That PIC has A/Ds, a DAC, capacitive sensing, PWM, and other goodies that can be used to implement this design. This should be interesting, educational, --- and fun!
The original project. I like the box and antenna, but I'm going to
scrap the electronics and replace them with a PIC12F1840 based board.
