I know this has been posted and talked about already. But, I finally got a chance to use the Ring Mod as a second Oscillator. Thanks to Greg, Erik Ka dn others for info on how to do that.
It is a bit strange without an envelope, but it fits in good right along side the FreqBox! My first thought… why haven’t I done this before? I don’t know if I can go back to not using it like this.
Here is how I set it up:
I split my CV source into separate attenuators (on my CP-251) with a mono “Y” cable. I used the “Freq in” on each to control the pitch.
I used my gate source to make an envelope out of the CP-251’s Lag processor for the audio input of the Freq Box. I ran the Freq Box to my Lowpass Filter to smooth it out a bit.
I ran both audio out of the Lowpass and the Oscillator out of the Ring Mod to the CV mixer where I could adjust the levels before I sent the mix out to my computer.
After reading “Lord of the Ring Mod” recently, I also wanted to try to take the Oscillator out (from the Ring Mod) and feed it back into the audio input on the Ring Mod. This allows you to use the Ring Mod as an effect still.
The Mooger Modular sounded way thicker and much more beasty than with just the Freq Box as a VCO.
And did you notice when you put the Osc out on the Freq back into its audio in that the envelope knob acts like a fine tune knob and the freq acts as a coarse?
Did you have the same results as me, that the Freq is harder to scale than the ringmod?
My usage of this technique was to get them both to track my micro and I find consistantly that the Freqbox is about twice as hard to scale than the Ring Mod and the 102 tracks perfectly over the range of the micro or the Voyager. (If it only had more waveforms!) THe ring mod just takes me a few seconds. Im having difficulties at first trying to discern if my attenuation is off, or if its the freq posibion on the Freqbox, or if the Micro needs some fine tuning or if it is drifting slightly. I also find that it takes about 10 cables lol.
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When you have them both set up, try using something like a square wave or S&H from the cp251 to modulate the mix amount on the Ringmod (when the osc out to audio in makes that knob like a “doubler”) and it will sort of articulate your ringmod for you when you hit a note.
I have never tried that! I will have to check that out for sure. I always run a gate or envelope into the audio in on the Freq Box.
I wasn’t necessarily attempting to get both oscillators to scale. I was going by ear until I liked the sound combination.
It was 10 cables in fact!
It would be cool to have another CP-251 to continue the mad science.
That also looks like fun to try! Thanks for all of the ideas.
I am thinking I should buy or build an envelope or VCA circuit to keep the Ring Mod Oscillator from running free all of the time. That would be nice for the Freq Box too. I am not entirely sold on envelope followers yet, but they are fun to play with.
you would probably need both. Pigtronix (sorry for talking about the competion, moog.) Makes a pedal called “attack sustain” which is basically a vca with some more bells and whistles. And is you take one of the osc outs run into the audio in on the attack sustain and then it has a trigger in for your gated signal
Freqbox
THe Fine tuning and Coarse effect I think contributes to the difficulty in getting it scaled properly.
Envelope Followers
This is a very very cool circuit, but it takes some real thought in its aplication.
Lets say that you have a very very slow sample and hold on your picth. THen you have a slow attack on the VCA. So once every 2 seconds a random pitch slowly fades in to a fast decay/release.
You can take the volume output and run it to an envelope follower.
Envelope Follower out to a gate input on the cp251s S&H with a fast rate. S&H output to the Freq ox freq in.
When the audio slowly fades up…it will reach its peak and set off the gate. THe gate will create a fast S&H that will quit after the pitch dies down and closes the gate.
I will upload an example of this but it might be later. Its really cool.
Also, before the pitch/cv modification on a theremin, you coudl use an envelope follower on the volume output to bring up the mix amount of another fooger.
I think envelope followers are essential and will really go a long way towards freeing up other CV sources in your system or reducing the need for expression pedals for every little thing.
I just bought this today! I love it. I was using my SH-101 to send CV to the Ring Mod, then the Osc out to the audio in on the ring mod. Then I ran that to the Attack Sustain, which was triggered by the audio from the SH-101.
I seems to have an S-Trigger, or you can use audio to trigger it. This helped to tame down my Ring Mod, so I can use it better as a VCO source. Very good suggestion. I happened to see one appear on Craigslist today and snapped it up.
