About d-lec

  The theremin, an electronic musical instrument invented over one hundred years ago, played an important role in the history of modern music.

  It uses technology from the early radio era to sense the hand movements of a performer - without any physical contact - and convert them into sound.

  Modern theremins are delicately expressive, rewarding, and unique creative tools. But because of their high cost and learning curve, few musicians consider them to be serious instruments of study, and only a tiny variety of high-quality, volume-produced options are available.

  For over a decade, an electrical engineer in New Jersey has been working independently on a modern digital theremin suitable for practice or performance. Using a digital system allows the designer to avoid much of the cost and risk associated with traditional circuit designs from the discrete transistor era. This theremin is built around FPGA technology, which is used to create a responsive, high resolution hand sensing circuit, a flexible sound synthesis engine, and a highly optimized, custom computer architecture to connect the two.

  The design has zero dependencies on any prior art: code, circuits, or specific electronic components with supply-chain risk. It offers many features unavailable anywhere else, including ones that make the instrument more accessible to learners and easier to incorporate into a studio recording workflow. Even in prototype volumes it is price-competitive with the most affordable mass-market options, and performance-competitive with the most expensive. It is perhaps the instrument's biggest evolutionary advance in the past half-century.

  Eric Wallin, the inventor, has hand-built a small number of units and offered them to theremin enthusiasts and professionals. Rather than patenting his years of meticulous research or trying to sell the technology as a business, he open-sourced his work hoping to empower interested parties to build their own.

  We believe that the project has broad appeal, and if brought to a new audience might revitalize a historic instrument and unlock a new form of expression for many people.

  This website is the future home of the D-Lev Engineering Codex: a knowledge base and support community for musicians, engineers, and other creative individuals interested in advancing this remarkable project.