Moog Music Forum

first off, hello to the board! just signed up, i've been looking into buying some moogerfooger stuff for a while now (about 2 years) and finally have got the money to sink into some new gear. i'm new to the whole idea of cv and modular synthesis so i had a question about it.

i had read on another site (blacet.com i think?) that the audio and cv signals run in the same frequency range, is this true? and if it is, does that mean that you can a random audio signal (like a recording of people talking) into one of the cv jacks on a moogerfooger? if this works then it would be neat because i could use stuff i already own with the different cv controls since i can't afford something like the control processor at this point. i think the ring mod has something like this with the "carrier in" jack, but this seems like its different from the other cv things.

i have one of the 104z's on hold at the local shop whenever they come in and am looking at possibly getting the low pass filter or the ring mod. i was kinda leaning towards the lpf, but the ring mod has the lfo out thing. but if i could control the cv things with another signal then i could get by without an extra lfo. so that's where i'm going with my question...

thanks for any help!

audio and cv signals run in the same frequency range

Well this is true and false, true because you could use any audio signal as a CV and false because most control CV's like LFO or Envelope Generators are in an audio register below the human hearing. That being said I would recommend you get the Ring Modulator so you could use the LFO, because if you use a regular audio signal (like a recording of people talking) to modulate, you will get extremely fast rates, which are not too musical.

The lower the range of the frequency, the slowest the modulation will be, and the higher the frequency, the modulation rate will be faster. So if you use regular audio to modulate you will get incredibly fast modulation rates which translate in to Ring Modish sounds. This type of sounds might be usable sometimes but not all the times, while if you use a regular LFO you will get more musical rates.

Welcome to MoogerWorld. The Ring Mod. is pretty neat. It can act like a tremelo at low frequencies, and then sound insane at the higher ones. Yeah, the LFO out is very handy. It can either be a square or saw wave. That would go very well with the 104. The low pass filter is neat too. It offers an envelope out which can be handy. What you get first all depends on what you need them to do. The Phazer also has an LFO.

And like Danny says, the frq. range of regular audio will only be applicable for certain situations. It will sound very harsh.

thanks for the clarification about the frequency range dannymon. that makes complete sense.

so what is the actual difference between the lfo out of the ring mod and the envelope out of the lpf? is it that the lfo is independent (to a certain degree) of whatever the pedal is doing while the envelope simply sends a spike when the incoming audio is at a certain frequency or do i have that wrong?

as far as what i need them to do, i don't really have anything specific in mind but am more looking to get some new stuff and experiment and see what happens.

The LFO is independent (unless modulated) and the envelope of the lpf is dependent on the dynamic level of the incoming signal. The amount of the envelope can be adjusted or modulated.

thanks for the info