WTF! Turn your NES into a Theramin

[rbudrick]

Hey folks,

You seen this?:

http://mypage.direct.ca/c/ccovell/

Its by Chris Covell, NES extraordinaire. I don't know the guy, but I've been a fan of his work since around 97 or so.

I'm sure it's been out for a while probably, but what the hell?

In case you didn't know, a theramin is a really odd instrument that you play by moving your hand closer and farther away from an antenna of some sort in order to change its pitch. You likely would recognize it from the theme of the original Star Trek series.

This is creative NES programming at its finest..or something.

-Rob

[slownerveaction]

That is... really cool. :)

I was expecting this to be a theremin built in the case of an NES (which I'm pretty sure would be possible). I was really amazed to see he took advantage of the quirkiness of the NES hardware to make this work. It doesn't really sound like a theremin though -- it jumps from pitch to pitch instead of sliding smoothly between them. A real theremin is much tougher to play since it's such a bitch to stay in tune. :)

Just about every 50s sci-fi movie used a theremin, and quite a few musicians still use them. They're rockin' instruments

[sisko]

Maybe an easier reference:

The theramin is that weird instrument that plays the melody in "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys

[o2william]

Wow! Neato. You could become an 8-bit Nathan Van Cleave, or something.