The Quilcom SIM-RHYTHMICON: It's not a drum machine.

[Spogg]

Hello!

I indulged my fascination for this relic of electronic music history and wanted to have a go on one. So naturally I had to make my own virtual one.
Unfortunately only 3 were ever made. The first one was scrapped and the second one resides in the Smithsonian and doesn’t’ work. The first 2 were finished instruments in a nice cabinet .The third one was a lash-up that Theremin made for his own entertainment and can be seen working in a few YouTube videos.

The Rhythmicon is often referred to as the very first drum machine, but in my view that’s misleading. It created polyrhythms with each measure division having its own harmonically related pitched pulse (like a grain in modern terms I guess). Its sound was nothing like a drum kit!

I’ve seen many links to an online version you could actually play, but it’s been taken down due its reliance on Java for the web browser. So this seems to be the only way you can get to play one. Lucky you eh?

If you have any interest in this I’ve added my own research notes to the User Guide. I would say this is more of an interesting toy than a useful producer’s tool!

Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t0t5t5ryi4756 ... 0.zip?dl=0

Video:
https://youtu.be/UA6Pe2Xl99A

[R&R]

That is one strange choice of plugin to make. But nice one

Ordered chaos. Electro-mechnical systems are cool and art in themselves... like steampunk.

Not really my niche in plugs But curious as always, did you put in deviation of tolerances in the mechanical part? Like holes being slightly different or uneven spin of the wheel for example?
But differences might not even be perceived in the originals output? Like a perfect clockwork...

It's not a drum machine.

But I could hear the marching band snare when you turned to noise!

- You know I could make furious technomusic using this too, right?

[Spogg]

Thanks!

I know it’s a weird one but I enjoyed doing it and had some fun playing it, which is what motivates me. If only one other person has some fun too, that’s a bonus!

I listened carefully to the rhythm wheel on YouTube demos and I picked up some slight inconsistencies in some of the rhythms that got played. Also I zoomed in on the wheel photographs and you can see that Theremin probably used a hand-held Black and Decker to drill the holes!
Since the errors were tiny I thought I’d keep it strictly in time. Another thing is that the one you can hear on the demos was Theremin’s lash-up he made in 1960 for his own entertainment. He used smaller wheels than on the “proper” instruments and the rhythm wheel was driven by an electric gramophone motor. So we don’t actually know how well made the originals were or exactly how they sounded.

I must mention that I already came across the term “Steampunk” on my travels down this particular rabbit hole.

[deraudrl]

The start of your video reminded me a bit of the HGS Phase Shifter plugin:
https://hgsounds.com/product/phase-shifter-vsti-2/