14 DAY TRIAL // Developer Zero Crossing is selling a non-expensive musical app in the Mac App Store allowing owners of a Magic Trackpad, or a MacBook laptop to experience the Theremin, a musical instrument invented in the 1920s and used heavily by pioneers of the new-age genre, such as Jean Michel Jarre.
The Theremin was originally brought into existence by a Russian inventor with a not-so Russian name – Léon Theremin – and is widely regarded as the predecessor of RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology. Even though the Theremin can be many things, its primary application has always been music.
iThereal puts a virtual theremin on your Mac
Don’t get your hopes up for an app that lets you wave your hands in the air and play music. It doesn’t work quite like a real Theremin, but it does let you reproduce the experience in a very similar manner. It replicates a loop antenna on the left (which manipulates the volume) and an upright antenna on the right (for pitch control).
“The proximity of the musicians [sic] hands effect [sic] the quality of the sound the Theremin emits. iThereal mimics these controls with touches on a trackpad,” the developer explains.
Zero Crossing sells the app for $4.99 / €4,49, which may sound a bit steep for such a simple tool, but it’s probably worth every cent if you really know how to use an app like this. Not only does it pack the original theremin sound (which is something of a long beep basically), but it also allows you to theremify other sounds and instruments and give them those same swingy properties. Couple that with effects like reverb, distort, and vibrato (aka tremolo), and you’ve got yourself one capable musical tool in your hands.
Use with Garage Band, amaze your public
If you really know your stuff, then you’ll be even happier to hear that Zero Crossing has designed iThereal to be integrated with other music-creation programs, including Apple’s own Garage Band. The video demo below explains it all. The interface is also highly customizable.
Updated to version 1.1 recently, it somehow caught the eye of the media and we’re now conveying its existence over to our own readers. The new version adds a “security feature” (whatever that means), and an updated Help menu for newcomers.
To download iThereal, all you need is an Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.7 Lion or later and a 64-bit processor.
