Theremax

Overview

Theremax™ is a simple synthesizer for the iPad, inspired by the Theremin and a number of other electronic and non-electronic instruments.

This project started with on a number of ideas: first of all, what if you could see the sounds around you, and play along. Theremax™ has a frequency graph in the background; you can whistle a tune, and by touching the peaks on the screen, play the same tune. The second founding idea was using the touch surface on the iPad as a musical instrument; hardly an original idea, but we've worked to use the iPad in the ways it works best, rather than trying to emulate existing instruments. Finally, we wanted to create a variable precision musical instrument; if you want to see the whole range of the instrument, you can zoom all the way out. If you want to play a melody precisely, you can zoom way in.

Version of Theremax (1.02) is available now!

How it works

Touch anywhere in the dark area of the screen to play a sound. Zoom in and out by tapping or dragging the light-bar at the bottom of the screen. "Freeze" notes on the screen by pressing the "Hold Notes" button while playing one or more tones. Turn the visualization of sound on or off using the "Plot Sound" control. Pick between instruments with the slider at the left-hand side of the control bar.

The Team

This project was inspired by a lot of different conversations, but the people who made this happen are:

• Idea, programming, general mischief: Andy Carra
• Visual Design: Stephanie Hornung
• Instruments: Rob Simutis

Special thanks to the AurioTouch demo code for helping unravel the mysteries of Fast Fourier transforms on the iPad, and all the help and feedback people have given me as I refined this idea.