(Moog Music, 2011)

ASHEVILLE, NC — APRIL 1, 2011: Introduced in 1928, the theremin is one of the earliest and most widely known electronic instruments. Played by artists manipulating the pitch and volume of invisible sound waves radiated from a single antenna with their hands, theremin music has distinguished hit records from such diverse artists as The Beach Boys, Devo, Yes and Alicia Keys.

Today (April 1st), Moog Music designers carrying on the legacy of visionary founder, Robert Moog, have announced the first major technical Theremin design advance in over 40 years. The PolyTheremin™ incorporates bleeding-edge IsoDirectional Inductive Oscillator Technology, to isolate space around five individual pitch antennas thus enabling each to be played simultaneously (finger by finger) without interference from its companion antennas. This revolutionary concept breaks the long-held belief that the theremin could only be a monophonic instrument.

The PolyTheremin ships with Dorit Chrysler’s instructional video “Playing the PolyTheremin Is Even Easier Than Playing a Monophonic Theremin.”

Features:

• POWER Rocker Switch — On and Off AC power control
• AUDIO OUT — Standard 1/4-inch phone jack delivers line level output to any compatible amplifier
• PITCH — Rotary controls (5) independently adjust pitch of each antenna
• VOLUME — Rotary control independently adjusts volume of each antenna (Note: reference to volume level not quantity)
• WAVEFORM — Rotary control adjusts audio output waveform
• BRIGHTNESS — Rotary control adjusts audio output brightness (audio not luminescence)
• ANTENNA CONNECTORS — (5) Threaded for easy disassembly, washing and shipping

Power supply included: Order 110-volt for use in U.S. or Canada or 220-volt for use in Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. Libya TBD. Also available in retro steam or (clean) coal engine power source models.

Moog strikes a perfect balance of the believable and impossible with this polyphonic theremin – a device that like Antares’s Direct Mind Access technology and Busoni’s “marvelous invention”  was a clever April Fools’ joke. Other April Fools’ concepts from Moog include “Auto De-Tune” (2010), which restores an auto-tuned track to its original pitch; “Analog Time Compressor” (2009), which compresses time so as to play sounds up to a second before they’ve been performed; and the “MF-433″ (2005), a foot-switch-actived device that silences its audio output for four minutes and thirty-three seconds (a reference to John Cage’s famous piece, 4’33”).
Thanks to Jonathan Sterne for bringing Moog’s April Fool’s instruments to our attention.