Experiments with the Ring Modulator

The Moog Forum Moogerfooger Forum
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Over the last few days I have been throwing many different sounds at it.

Test 1 - Helicopter

The first idea I got from Apocalypse now but is part of a larger work I am working on. I took a helicopter sound (Apache and the Korg M3s helicopter sample) and ran it thought the Ring Modulator. Attempting to sync the LFO to it yeilded some intersting results. My using different levels of mix setting and even modulating the mix I was able to get at least a first attempt at what I was looking for. Something in between a synthesizer and a machine, a sort of sonic blurring of the sound world around us us and the world of electronics.

Test 2 - Frieght Train

By varying the freuquency, I has able to change the clack of the sound of the train on the tracks into something train like but foreign as well. This is the type of thing that like Stockhausen’s “Mixtur”, I would love to have a whole group of people with potentiometers changing the mix of ring modulation and train for perhaps many different types of trains.

Using the low pass filter was also effective here as a 2nd effect softening the effect.

Test 3 - Rain

I wanted to hear what the processing of something bordering on pure noise sounded like. As one might expect, pure noise in tends to produce pure noise out. But something like a train, because of the change in harmonic content, produced a range of sounds.

Test 4 - Electronic Rain

I then tried running a number of rain like sounds (but this more harmonic content) from Native Instrument Reaktor. Results were very interesting. A wide range of textures was possible and having the Ring Modulator greatly enhanced these sounds

Test 5 - Birds

This was a great one to change the mix on. It transformed birds into bleeps and bloops and a curious kind of sound in between the two.

I want to try birds on my freqbox tonight and see what I get with that.

Electro Acoustic Music

If you have any interest in electro-acoustic music, foogers can open up new sonic words far beyond using them to make strange guitar sounds

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Some clips maybe…?
It sounds really interesting !! :slight_smile:

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wow i just took a guitar into a fuzz and then into the ring mod, after the ring mod it goes into the 103 phaser with one output into a speaker (i use the audio out) and the other (AUX Out) into the carrier in on the ring mod so its a bit of an octavia effect because it’s carrying itself or put the ring mod first in the chain (after the fuzz) then into the phaser which ends up with a bit of a delay in the carrying it’s amazing!!! :smiley:

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Ring modulation has a long history of use in experimental music. Lately, with the fooger, it has found its way back into use as a guitar effect but it has been used long before it ever made its way to a fooger.

Thing about me is that I have been a guitarist for a long time but I prefer a fiarly clean signal or a warm tube overdrive, light chorus or speaker rotation and perhaps delay somewhere in the chain. I think what is great about a guitar is that is can be very expressive without effects.

But in addition to playing guitars, I also play keyboards. One is not better than the other but keyboards opened me up to the worlld of syntheis.

At first, I tried my hand at software synthesis. I learned to program one, learned something about the hstory of synthesizers and recently bought a Korg M3, a solid workstation effects with a list of effects that would roll your eyes back, all can be controlled in multiple ways.

So why did I buy a collection of foogers? Because I realize the advantages of control voltages and analogue electronics especially in relation to using in experimental music.

I am always looking for new ways to create and process sound. So yes, I am a long way from guitar stomp box effects chains.

I probably will put my foogers on a rack and add some modular electronics as well.

5

I did a bit more experimntation with the ring modulator last night.

This time I tested several sounds in “Plectrum”, by Vital Arts:

http://www.vitalartsmedia.com/plectrum.html

What is intersting about Plectrum is that it countains a large number of instruments rich in harmonic (and inharmonic) contents. Several of these are prepared instruments. Plectrum contains various prepared pianos. Two ring modulated perpared pianos were used by Karlheintz Stockhausen in “Mantra”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantra_(Stockhausen)

Plectrum also contains a number of ambient environments such as the sound of birds, rivers, thunder, ect. I have found ring modulating birds to be very interesting especially by changing mix and frequency to create a morphology from what is natural to what is electronic. My fascination with this comes from Oscar Sala’s work in film music in Hitchcocks, “The Birds”:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Sala

I also found that my ring modulating some of the less harmonic instruments in plectrum, and using various MIDI sequences built into Ableton Live, I was able to get some sample and hold type sequences similar to those used in Morton Subotnick’s work, such as “Sidewinder”. While not exactly buchlaesque, they reflect a interesting percussive type fo sound.

It is also possible to create rhythms from these. I will have to see if I can create some polyrhthms reminiscent of African drumming.

What struck me most about the Moogerfooger ring modulator was that it took a collection of interesting samples and changed them into something even more interesting and flexible by changing the mix and frequency. Sidechaining my low pass envelope also interests me. It would seem that the harmonic trasformation of a ring modulator is most effective for sound that are already somewhat inharmonic. At least my ear does not percieve this as taking away from the harmonic nature of something (wuch as a guitar) but enhancing the inharmonic nature and opening up a new sonic environment.

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i hooked it into my computer speakers and played the preprogramed sound effects in garage band and found a couple of really cool sounds

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Another experiment to try. Take a sin wave from your computer. Now distort it either with an analogue effect or using an effect on your computer. The distortion is also what is called wave shaping. Now if you have a sin wave, ring modulating with another sine wave will get you the sun and the different of the sin waves (two sin waves). But as you distort the sin wave you bring in two sets of harmonics, sum and difference for each of the harmonics in the wave shaped spectra.

Still sound boring. OK, now use that aux in that no one is using. First a sin wave (substituting the foogers) but now start to wave shape the signal. Now you have all sorts of sum and difference frequencies in a slow tranformation by turning up the distortion and now, a simple distortion, becomes something very different. I harmonic maginifying glass that trasitions the boring sin wave interaction into a plethora of harmonics.

I have my Korg M3 at another location but when I reach it on Monday I am going to try this. I can sent out another oscillator on a separate autio out and also do anything I want to it. The M3 has a storehouse of nice effects that would make any guitar hero go bezerk. It has amp/distortion emulation to which I can apply at different setting to two sin waves from the radius inside of it.

One signal goes to the audio in the other to the aux in and there you have it, sonic mahem.

Just a thought. I know its not as interesting as using the fooger as tremolo but its still interesting. Sorry, no CCR for me.

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I did some more fooger experiments last night:

I was running my a very basic Absynth patch through my ring modulator. I did add a bit of distortion and an impulse response but the sound was amazing. I tune the ring modulator to middle C and then used octaves and fifths and a long attack to create these nice evolving textures.

I also used a very ambient patch in Absynth, adding Ablteon resonator and an impulse response. The attack was slow so I waited for the attack to read its max and then started to slowly ramp up the mix from zero. It created this great ambient tail.

In my experiments, I have noticed that changing the mix can be very effective. If you are in the decay part of a note, it can create this wonderful trasition as if the note enters a different sonic space as it dies out. Chaning the frequency slightly is also very effective. If you think a bit about harmonics its possible to take advantage of the nature of frequency in ring modulation.

I was reading about the work of Tristan Murial, a strudent of Olivier Messian (one of my favorite 20th century classical composers). Murial used a ring modulator . He had not delay so he used a trick of Alvin Lucier (“I am standing in a room”). Both Lucier and Murial, lacking the tools that we have today, used the same technique of recording something (in Lucier’s case his own voice saying “I am sitting in a room…” and then playing that recording back and recording it again. In much like the same way that one might turn feeback up on modern electronics, the sound begins to take on the resonant characteristics of the room and the stronger formant qualities of his voice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfssj80oNuM&feature=related

the variation that Murial addes is that he noticed that when he used instruments and recorded them, that much like ring modulation, the pitch would shift slightly, say by a half or whole tone or near that. This could be done predictably. Murial liked working with sounds with only a few harmonics so the interaction between them became predictable.

With some thought, and tuning, using a ring modulator to create predicted harmonic variations and transpositions is relatively easy.

Of course, using a fooger delay, it is possible to do what Muriel and Lucier did but using say a ring modulator tuned slightly off from one note. With a short delay and only slighly detuned ring modulator, it is possible to create a reverb like tail dropping in pitch (much like Doppler).

Lot’s of posiblities here. The giants of the past I believe provide some really good ideas on how to use foogers more creatively.

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That is probably my favorite way to use the ring mod and analog delay together. Really interesting timbres can be created.

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Why would you assume no one else is using it? :smiley:

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I use that unused aux input about 25% of the time. Mostly to process other instuments through the Moog filters. And also to feedback the Moog signal through my effects chain.
The thing I don’t use is the send/return loop. (Except I use the send to feed channel 1 of my O-scope. Channel 2 gets fed from the 351 or right output.)

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OK, thats nice but this is what I am speaking about.

Let’s say I ring modulate a sin wave at frequency a and then send an auxillary signal in at frequency b. Then I will get two sin waves, one at frequency a + b and one at a - b. Now lets say I add the first harmonic much like an organ stop to a and b. Now I have frequencies a - b, a - 2b, 2a - b, 2a - 2b, a + b, a +2b, 2a + b and 2a + 2b. which is a complex waveform. Now if both a and b have complex spectra, the results can be iinteresting. I am not speaking of simply an send and return but what is called sidechaining. This is used to create what is called ducking in recording to create a pumping effects for bass and drums and is often seen on compressors. Another classic example of a side chain is a vocodor. A side chain is simply used to control another effect in the case of a vocoder a filter bank.

Think of a MURF with an auxillary imput for each band with an envelope follow for each of them. Thats a simple vocoder but if you sequence them such as each is a product of a sequenced CV and the envelope follower, you would have an incredible MURF although probably very expensive.

Side chaining is a powerful idea but underuitized.

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Never thought about sidechaing with the Moog.
I do use it on my C.L.E. to de-ess and for other notch eq uses.

But now you have me thinking of how to get the sine waves out of the tonewheels on a Hammond into the Moog. I wonder if I can feed the buss bars out ahead of the drawbars and matching transformers.

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Deep Purple thought of one way to abuse a Hammond with ring modulation (and then actually abuse it physically!) Watch the end of the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILDxii_1H-g

In Microphonie II, Stockhausen used a Hammond, a choir and 4 ring modulators.

I also just realized that I can try some stuff myself by using Absynth and panning one set of partials to the left and the other to the right. Absynth has rudimentary additive synthesis.

I can also do this on my M3 with up to 8 sets of partials by panning and using the built in Radius.

I will try this over the next few days and see what I get.

What I like about ring modulation, which I suspect is why the early composers of EM (i.e. Stockhausen) used it is that it creates spectra that one would not expect. If one’s ear is not partial to harmonic sounds, it can open up a whole new world.