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Frederic Font, who studied for the Diploma in Sound and Image at UPC’s Terrassa campus, created for his final thesis an innovative piece of software that analyses the sound produced by a theremin and is capable of converting it into MIDI (the digital protocol for communication between electronic instruments). The software created by this engineer, who studied at the College of Industrial Engineering of Terrassa (EUETIT) at the Terrassa Campus, converts the theremin into a MIDI controller that is able to communicate with a whole range of musical instruments.

On 23 June 1923, the Russian scientist Lev Sergeivitch Termen, known as Leon Theremin, patented an unusual musical instrument that would herald the beginning of the era of electronic music: the theremin, a wooden box with two antennas (one vertical and the other circular) connected to an electric current. The music is produced when the musician moves his or her hands close to, but without touching, the antennas, by modifying the state of the electronic waves that they emit. With one hand over one of the antennas the musician controls the tone, and with the other hand over the other antenna he or she controls the intensity. The musician can change the tone by three or four octaves by moving a hand over the corresponding antenna. This instrument became very popular in the 1920s and, since then, has been used by numerous artists and composers, such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Alice Cooper, The Rolling Stones and the Spanish group La Oreja de Van Gogh.

Exactly 85 years after Leon Theremin's invention, Frederic Font, who studied for the Diploma in Sound and Image directed by EUETIT lecturer Germán Ruiz, has created a system capable of integrating the suggestive melodies emitted, as if by magic, by this unique instrument into the world of digital music and thereby opening up new possibilities for its use.

According to Font, “the performance of existing systems on the market based on similar ideas is more limited. This new software is highly versatile because it is capable of taking advantage of the qualities of the theremin in diverse ways. It makes it possible to control the functioning of other electronic devices used by musicians, namely synthesizers, and blend their functions, timbres, tones and melodies with this instrument, simply by moving one's hands over the antenna.”

The system has another added value: it makes it possible to control any parameter that the musician wishes to take into account for any of the instruments he or she is using. It achieves this through MIDI, a communication protocol that allows information to be exchanged between musical devices. MIDI has come to be the equivalent of a musical score in the digital environment.

To create this system, which has received the award for best academic achievement from the Official College of Telecommunications Engineers of Spain and from the EUETIT, Frederic Font divided the project into two parts. Firstly, he built his own theremin from the electronic circuits of already existing theremins, and then he developed a piece of software to analyse, in real time, the sound that it emitted and convert it into MIDI messages; this information can be sent to any musical device and even saved and edited digitally.

Frederic Font, who apart from being an engineer is also a musician (he plays with the group Planeta Imaginario, who performed recently in Barcelona's Luz de Gas venue), is planning to market his system in the future. “New musical interfaces are in fashion right now and any device that gives you new and original ways of making music is interesting,” he said.