question about ring modulator fooger

filtersweeperVCO · Post by **filtersweeperVCO** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 12:06 pm

I tune the frequency dial on the fooger so that it is tuned to the frequency of the signal coming in. This works if the note stays the same, but when I play different notes/or pitch bend then it sstarts to sound "bad" is there a way of making the moogerfooger "follow" the frequency that's coming in? I know there are different inputs on the back but am not familliar with them although I have read the manuel. there's not really any good demo's on youtube either. Any help/ tips would be appreciated.

narrowcaster · Post by **narrowcaster** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 12:36 pm

Hi filter...

A lot of people (maybe most) use ring modulators with a fixed carrier frequency. That's because this allows you to get a very wide range of different modulation effects by putting different pitches into it. Now of course that won't produce well-defined notes according to any typical musical scale, which I assume is what you mean by 'sounds bad' -- but ring modulators are usually employed to create textual/soundscape effects that intentionally deviate from those scales.

But it seems as if your preferred application would be different from that -- to have the carrier frequency change with the input frequency so that more or less the same texture persists no matter what you put into it. Unfortunately, that's harder to achieve. Basically what you would need would be a control voltage that tracks the input pitch, and feed that into the carrier frequency CV on the ring mod. You could do this if you have a synth that outputs pitch CV, or if you have a MIDI-CV converter. However, if you are using a guitar or some other non-synth instrument, or if you don't have any way of creating pitch CV, it isn't possible to have precise tracking.

Another thing you can do is to use an expression pedal to control the carrier frequency. That won't be quite as precise, but will still allow you to tweak the response in different pitch regions.

Another option would be to always keep the Mix knob (or is it called Amount?) adjusted so that your input note is considerably louder than the other sounds. That way there would still be a dominant sense of input pitch, with variable degrees of inharmonicity sitting in the background as a kind of halo.

But if I could make a suggestion -- you'll probably be happiest with the ring mod if you think of it as a way to make radical soundscapes and textures with indeterminate pitch, since that's what the effect is best at. If you are looking for more subtle effects that keep your input note intact, you can do that to some degree with a ring mod but that isn't its strong suit (IMO).

filtersweeperVCO · Post by **filtersweeperVCO** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 1:06 pm

those were all very useful tips/info. I totally understand what you mean with the textured soundscape thing, that are not necessarily in tune. I have had medium results with manually turning the frequency knob in time with the pitch-changes that fed into the ring mod. What i'm doing is feeding a signal from the voyager with the filtercutoff at about 30%, and the res knob turned up slightly past 50%. Then the signal is fed into (and over driven slightly) a sherman filterbank where it's phattened up and distorted to taste. I'm using the ring mod to add just a little extra "metallic sound". So while I'm not looking to have a pitch perfect, and completely harmonic tone throughout, it still needs to "sound intact" without too much frequency clashes.
I have examples of both a "non-pitch" soundcape sound, and the other thing which I happened to be successful at in this recording.
You can hear what I'm going for:http://soundcloud.com/filtersweeper
both tunes have an example of that which I'm trying to continue replicating.
thanks for your detailed response

narrowcaster · Post by **narrowcaster** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 2:00 pm

No problem. I didn't notice at first that you have a Voyager. So the best way to make a tracking ring mod would be to get the CV expander for that, and you could use the Pitch CV out. I'm hoping to do something similar with my Little Phatty, if I ever hear back from the Canadian service centre about having the mod done...

Bryan T · Post by **Bryan T** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 2:28 pm

narrowcaster wrote:No problem. I didn't notice at first that you have a Voyager. So the best way to make a tracking ring mod would be to get the CV expander for that, and you could use the Pitch CV out. I'm hoping to do something similar with my Little Phatty,

Same here.

Pigtronix makes a guitar synth called the Mothership that has a tracking ring mod. That could be a non-Moog solution for those who don't have access to a pitch CV, such as guitarists.

filtersweeperVCO · Post by **filtersweeperVCO** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 3:40 pm

narrowcaster wrote:No problem. I didn't notice at first that you have a Voyager. So the best way to make a tracking ring mod would be to get the CV expander for that, and you could use the Pitch CV out. I'm hoping to do something similar with my Little Phatty, if I ever hear back from the Canadian service centre about having the mod done...

when you say "CV expander" do you mean that CP-251 thing? Or is it something totally separate?

patobrujo · Post by **patobrujo** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 4:24 pm

filtersweeperVCO wrote:
narrowcaster wrote:No problem. I didn't notice at first that you have a Voyager. So the best way to make a tracking ring mod would be to get the CV expander for that, and you could use the Pitch CV out. I'm hoping to do something similar with my Little Phatty, if I ever hear back from the Canadian service centre about having the mod done...
when you say "CV expander" do you mean that CP-251 thing? Or is it something totally separate?

I think he meant the VX-351 / 352 expanders for the Voyager. I think the 352 gives you cv output for pitch, in that way you could send the cv output to the frecuency input of the ringmod and have it track your pitch. There's a little trick tho, the ring mod oscilator responds in a different way than the Voyager's, so you need to attenuate the signal in order to get an accurate tracking of the pitch.

There's an article out there called The Lord of the Ringmod where this procedure is explain in detail, if you pm me i can send it to you

cheers

narrowcaster · Post by **narrowcaster** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 4:33 pm

That's right, I meant the VX-351. It taps into the Voyager and allows you to send CV outputs to other devices (so, for example, it has one jack which sends a CV corresponding to the pitch of the Voyager keyboard). The Voyager already has many CV inputs, so this expands on that by adding a range of outputs.

As far as I know, the 352 is for the Rack Mount Edition Voyager, and provides inputs rather than outputs.

The CP-251 can be used in conjunction with either of these, or by itself. It could be used to attenuate the pitch CV coming from the VX-351, at patobrujo describes, although by itself it won't generate pitch CV for you.

The Radium King · Post by **The Radium King** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 6:05 pm

the internal carrier frequency is adjusted by cv, but the ringmod has the ability to take an external carrier also. if you want tracking, just split your signal and send it in both the carrier in and the audio in. i presume some interesting effects could be had by processing the carrier frequency (delay, octave, pitch shift, distortion, chorus, etc.).

just got my ringmod a weeks ago, however, so i may be totally wrong here ...

Bryan T · Post by **Bryan T** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 6:37 pm

The Radium King wrote:the internal carrier frequency is adjusted by cv, but the ringmod has the ability to take an external carrier also. if you want tracking, just split your signal and send it in both the carrier in and the audio in. i presume some interesting effects could be had by processing the carrier frequency (delay, octave, pitch shift, distortion, chorus, etc.).

just got my ringmod a weeks ago, however, so i may be totally wrong here ...

The basic effect that you get when running the signal as both audio and carrier is an octave. The difference tones cancel out (x-x=0) and the sum tones generate the octave (x+x=2x).

I've done things like delaying the carrier frequency, but the effect isn't quite as cool as what I imagined in my mind.

I need to try pitch shifting the carrier frequency, as that could result in some interesting effects. Thanks for the idea!

narrowcaster · Post by **narrowcaster** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 7:33 pm

If you want to try splitting the signal and get something other than an octave, you could try pitch-shifting the side that goes to Carrier In using a HOG or something like that.

P.S. For clarity, notice that now we're talking about two different inputs (frequency CV versus Carrier In).

Just Me · Post by **Just Me** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 7:40 pm

Between the ring mod manual and the 'Lord of the Ring Mod' on Knobtweak, most of your questions are answered. (With diagrams.)
Really worth the read and experimentation.

filtersweeperVCO · Post by **filtersweeperVCO** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 8:17 pm

Just Me wrote:Between the ring mod manual and the 'Lord of the Ring Mod' on Knobtweak, most of your questions are answered. (With diagrams.)
Really worth the read and experimentation.

been reading/rereading this all day!
Apparently I'm getting the VX-351 soon!
Stay tuned!

Just Me · Post by **Just Me** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 8:29 pm

You might want to call MusicBrokers. They will make a great deal on the 351. (They have 351 and 352's in stock. As well as a ton of other Moog stuff new and old.)
Between them and eBay, most of my disposable income gets disposed!