I recently picked up a MF-102 Ring Modulator - it’s great fun.
One small thing I’ve noticed though is that after turning it on and playing a note through it (Little Phatty line-level signal), I can hear the pitch of the internal carrier oscillator bleed through afterwards, which sustains for a second or two before quickly fading out (the tone responds to movement of the Frequency knob as expected). This does not happen if the Mix knob is set to only allow my dry signal (also as expected).
Has anyone else with an MF-102 noticed this? If so, I can accept it as an analog quirk - I just want to make sure my unit is working as intended.
Nature of the balanced modulator. Any mismatch or drift of the ring components will allow bleed as it doesn’t completely phase cancle then. Some designs have an envelope follower and VCA (noise gate) to mute this. You are hearing the time it takes for the gate to close.
Sweet, that makes sense - no real problem for me anyways. I’ve also read somewhere since, that putting a hotter signal through (i.e. more drive) should decrease how noticeable the bleed is - I assume by increasing the ratio of desired signal volume to bleed volume. So I’ll investigate using some hotter drive settings when I get a chance to mess around..
