This is a new preview of the Therenect – a virtual Theremin for the Kinect controller.

The Therenect defines two virtual antenna points, which allow controlling the pitch and volume of a simple oscillator. The distance to these points can be controlled by freely moving the hand in three dimensions or by reshaping the hand, which allows gestures that should be quite similar to playing an actual Theremin.

The Therenect is a work in progress, developed by Martin Kaltenbrunner at the Interface Culture Lab at the University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz, Austria.

This updated version synthesizes the original Theremin waveform as well as alternative sine, saw and square waves. In addition to an improved pitch scaling, this version introduces discrete musical scales such as the chromatic, major and pentatonic scale, which automatically tune the instrument.

This application still needs several enhancements before it will be released to the public. The overall stability of the hand tracking and the modeling of the subtle hand and finger gestures still need some major improvements in order to simulate the behavior of an original Theremin more satisfactory.