Ring (and/or Balanced) Modulation for the modulator masses

by **MrNovember** » Wed Feb 21, 2018 3:38 pm

Rearranged my pedalboard last night for the Outer Rings:

NSFW: show

Afterwards, I patched a bunch of pedals through the Patchulator, but my clean signal sounded like it was going through a ring mod even with all the pedals turned off. I thought there was something wrong with the Outer Rings, so I unplugged everything systematically until I was down to guitar > mixer > amp. Still had the weird ring mod effect. Turns out my mixer wasn't fully plugged in because Behringer uses the worst possible connectors on the planet and a light wind will knock them loose.

Long story, short: I want to circuit bend my mixer.

As far as the Outer Rings goes, this is pretty much exactly my experience with it as well:

baremountain wrote:Feeling the same way so far, Retinal! There have been plenty of settings where Tilt is towards the ring mod side, but it sounds like a messed up fuzz or something, and less like a dialup modem. I think the Outer Rings is going to be mainly about finding sweet spots. I could also probably benefit from re-watching a tutorial or reading the manual now that I've got it in front of me, but it's pretty easy to work your way around it. The Strange control is definitely the key to unlocking this thing's potential I think, as turning that is typically what brings me quickly from 'weird fuzz' to oscillations from hell. That said, still not getting clanginess the way that my roommates EHX Frequency Analyzer does.

by **Dandolin** » Wed Feb 21, 2018 4:33 pm

MrNovember wrote:Long story, short: I want to circuit bend my mixer.

do eet

Also:

that board :love:

dat a tetanus boost?

Also, also: as I think about what attracted me to the Outer Rings in the initial demo, it was definitely all about the fuqqed up fuzzery and none about the bell clang. But having a few klangmeisters already, I'm not surprised at my shallowness. I'm really thinking about the OR as Gonkulator in Excelsis moreso than the One Ring.... :idk:

by **MrNovember** » Wed Feb 21, 2018 4:41 pm

Dandolin wrote:Also: that board dat a tetanus boost?

Yeah it is! I love how it sounds. I basically use it as an always on OD, not really like a boost

by **Dandolin** » Wed Feb 21, 2018 4:45 pm

lordgalvar wrote:I have the xr-1 oscillators that are also built in ring mods with fsk...they are nice and I use them a lot in eurorack (one of the few modules I'm keeping). They are built on an all in one chip with the ring mod and osc built in to the chip (I think it's also called xr something)

Kinda nice to have percussion and or modulation oscs with some built in dirty vca like action (and an attentuverter).

Dayumm--those XR22 VCO FT modules look pretty awesome. I've been trying to ignore my modular's incessant demands to "feed me" :erm:

but those do look like they might be a more interesting thing to play with than yet another ring mod, however nice....

Oof--one of these just sold on Reverb for $90? That's like 1/3 of list...hope it was you lg

by **lordgalvar** » Wed Feb 21, 2018 5:42 pm

They are ok...kind of different than usual oscillators. They are kinda a pain to tune of you are really needing something perfect (you have to unlatch the fsk and switch between the two sides)...but you can use the fsk as like a cool little arp, octave jump or other stuff with outside triggers. I have the ft and the og...I usually use one as a modulator and one as a wacky osc into a folder. Kinda nice though that I can run and envelope into the am in and kinda just use the one module. The normalization is awesome too. It just takes a lot of digging to get used to a different style of workflow...but the dude that makes cg is a percussionist and it totally makes sense for that kinda jazz. Kinda had expensive new though.

Wasn't me though...they were like my first euro non diy buys (2016 maybe?). Both were used though and not too much more.

by **Dandolin** » Wed Feb 21, 2018 10:27 pm

Thanks lg--I'm gonna keep an eye out - - it's nice to have something to wrangle with sometimes instead of fully baked sounds.

Also, maybe I'm easy, but I *really* like the tones in the demos of the XR1-E (the tabletop RM) on their website. Doubt I find one of those floating around for $100 though :lol:

MrNovember wrote:
Dandolin wrote:Also: that board dat a tetanus boost?

Yeah it is! I love how it sounds. I basically use it as an always on OD, not really like a boost

Noice--I'd like to try stacking one with a Champion Leccy Divvy....

by **affectperdals** » Wed Feb 21, 2018 11:26 pm

I made a blank template for the Outer Rings settings. Maybe someone else can use it.

https://imgur.com/a/EX2JO

by **Dandolin** » Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:56 am

by **Dandolin** » Thu Mar 01, 2018 8:15 pm

Some ring mod action from the Japanese company Noah's Ark (or Noah'sark?) First effect demo'ed.

I used to have their Purple Fuzz--a nice Si fuzz face; very well built....

I like the expression pedal control of carrier freq and that they put a gate in there...crazy high prices though, from what I can see....