Ciat-LonbardeDeerhorn Organ Analog Antennae-Controlled Synthesizer

Ciat-Lonbarde Deerhorn Organ

Ciat-Lonbarde's Deerhorn Organ is a unique take on the Theremin-like concept of antennae-controlled synthesizers, packing three multi-directional proximity sensors into one instrument. The Deerhorn is Peter Blasser's solution to the limited capabilities of the Theremin, which could only control the pitch and amplitude of a single note. Instead, a single Deerhorn can process different gestures and route them to two different oscillators.

Single Deerhorns have appeared on instruments like the Plumbutter for years, but the Deerhorn Organ itself contains three Deerhorns, and thus six tunable oscillators. A common way to set up a Deerhorn is for one note to be active as the hand approaches the instrument, and another as it moves away. But as with all CIat-Lonbarde instruments, unpredictability and experimentation are to be expected. Once the desired antenna response is tuned with the topmost knob on each Deerhorn, the base pitch is set with the bottom knob first and then each note may be fine-tuned with either knob above.

Each Deerhorn provides a number of patch points, allowing its simple nature to become infinitely more complex with connections. The orange banana jack outputs the resulting control voltage from the antenna, while the red jacks correspond to gate pulses that activate upon switching between the two tones. The audio signals of each voice are found both in the main minijack output on the back—hard-panned left and right—as well as on the white jacks for patching audio-rate modulations. One such destination for these modulations is the purple jacks—FM inputs for the oscillators.

By packing three Deerhorns into one fairly compact instrument, there are numerous implications for the interactions between the three antennae. Taking advantage of this are the two Intersections modules on the ends of the Organ, packed with sample and hold circuits activated on each Deerhorn's pulse generator, plus four grey jacks spitting out randomly triggered voltages.

If you're all about drama and gestural performances, Ciat-Lonbarde's Deerhorn Organ is unmatched in expressive, soothing tones.

Deerhorn Organ Features

• Triple antennae-controlled wooden synthesizer
• Trimmers are factory calibrated—no need to touch those!
• Two oscillators per Deerhorn—activated by movement towards and away from the instrument
• Orange CV output, Red pulse outputs
• White audio output per voice
• Base pitch tuning per Deerhorn and fine tuners for each voice
• Purple FM inputs
• Intersection modules produce sample-and-hold voltages based on the interactions of each Deerhorn
• Stereo mini-jack output
• Black ground jack for connecting multiple banana synths together