Tuning and adjusting a theremin

Tips for best results

Use a plastic driver to turn adjustment coils --a metal screwdriver could influence the magnetic field resulting in inaccurate callibration.
Ground the theremin with a phono cord (guitar cable). the easiest way is to connect the theremin's audio out (or headphones jack) to a grounded PA or amplifier (there will be 3 prongs on the power cable). The amp must be plugged into an outlet with a reliable ground (don't use one of those ground-lift adaptors that allows you to plug a 3-prong plug into a 2-prong recepticle --obviously)!
For greatest accuracy, and to stabilize analog oscillators, allow instrument to warm up for at least 15 to 20 minutes.

Adjusting volume sensitivity and threshold:

Set volume @ 12 o'clock
Hold non-dominant hand 2.5" to 3" from volume antenna.
Hold dominant elbow near the pitch antenna to maintain a steady pitch, while very gently turning volume inductor coil clockwise with your dominant hand (you can stablize your hand by resting on your pinky as you turn).
Setting the volume antenna so that it starts to make sound when your hand is 2.5" to 3" away, allows the player to easily play quick, staccatto notes. This way, the player will have a wide range of adjustment possible simply by using the volume control on the face of the instrument (from rapid staccatto to legato crescendos).

adjusting volume circuit:

Place positive probe of volt meter on pin 12 of IC U3, and negative probe on ground (alluminum foil shield attatched to volume antenna --via screwed-on green wire).
Turn L11 a bit counterclockwise, then gently clockwise until voltage rises from -12V to 0. Stop!

adjusting pitch circuit:

Aquire a spectrum analyzer
Tune any Etherwave theremin made before 2004 at around 3000 Hz while holding the pitch antenna. you can recognize an older, pre-2004 theremin by it's Made-in-Japan tuning inductors that can be turned with a standard plastic, flat-head screwdriver. turning clockwise increases inductance (which increases the pitch).
Post-2004 models have Made-in-China tuning coils that are turned with a plastic hex screw(?). inductance is increased by turning counter clockwise (which increases the pitch). tune to 3800 Hz
due to hidden metal screws in the wooden cover, the zero beat area should be at about 60cm from the pitch antenna with the cover on, and 10cm with the cover off.
adjust L5? near the pitch antenna controls the highest pitch (while touching antenna) and L6 controls the range (how far the zero beat area is from the pitch antenna) on older theremins, this is set further away by turning clockwise. by connecting the leads of C28 together with a metal clip, you get the highest volume level. grab pitch antenna and adjust L5 so that the spectrum analyzer shows a peak at 3000 Hz (for older theremins). with cover off, adjust L6 so that zero beat occurs 10cm from pitch antenna. L5 and L6 interact, so there will be a few back and forth adjustments. finally, grasp pitch antenna and remove hand from plastic tool. pitch will be different when the hand is not on the plastic adjustment tool. re-adjust. fine tuning is achived by bending the wire that connects to the pitch antenna closer or further from the alluminum foil below it. from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AllJZSuB-uc

tips for getting the most out of your theremini: despite (thereminworld.com user) Dewster's critique of the possibility of ESD from touching the pitch antenna... use chromatic mode and keep the Pitch correction knob between all the way to the left to about 10-12 O'clock. set your range to 3-4 octaves. Do not try and set it to the full range - especially if you are just starting. If you want to play melodically then I suggest something like C3 to C7 or C2 to C5. But I change it all the time depending on the key I'm in to optimize the range. Usually (for a piece with a decent range) I set it a few notes below and a note above the full range of the melody I want to play. I know that way that my top note is just about near the antenna and I can easily scale my distances accordingly. One of the interesting things about being able to set a specific range on the thing. You can also set the CV for pitch and then put a voltmeter on the CV output to see how the range is playing. If you set it 0-10V and you do not see things going from 0 to 10V in a rather linear fashion, this again may be a hardware issue. Call Moog in that case. And make sure you have a 4-5 foot clear space around it when you calibrate. There is a 1/10 sec (100ms!) latency that can make you overshoot the notes.

with Firmware 1.1: My method (to tune for the aerial fingering technique as used by Carolina Eyck): - Turn theremin mode on - During calibration I do a few things a little differently than the prompts suggest to maximize the size of the pitch/volume fields (so I can trim them back "manually" using the knobs) - step 1: stand away - really stand away - step 2: near pitch - hand about 5cm from pitch antenna - step 3: far pitch - really stand away again - step 4: near volume - hand about 3-5cm from volume antenna - step 5: far volume - really stand away again.Then in advanced settings: - Response: I leave at MED - Calibration wait time: Dropped to 1 sec for speed of setupTwo last items: - in the main setup screen, set the note range to max (low note as low as possible, high note as high as possible). - and on the new adjustment screen, I set the scale for a full 7 octaves.Now using the pitch knob I tune for best linearity as was outlined in a prior post about the E-Standard (tune a high octave first, then drop down to the lower octaves).During play I toggle over and back between the adjustment and quantizer screen: the adhustment screen has the really handy transposer which functions just like on the etherwave Pro. And as I move along the presets to try different sounds I toggle back to the quantizer screen to dial down to off the pitch correction.I'm looking forward to exploring what this machine can do now that it is transformed from a novelty to a legitimate and highly functional musical instrument!