Ring mods 101

[ck3]

All ring mod (balanced mod, frequency shift, etc) requires two oscillators (the guitar or whatever instrument is one). You can ring mod a single oscillator for an octave up effect, but it is essentially still to oscillators being multiplied.

What it sounds like you might be experiencing is an imbalance between levels. You could either be multiplying line noise or just have an oscillator that is louder than your signal. Try releveling everything (gain and stuff), changing the position relative to buffers, compression, or a noise gate. It could also be that the frequency of the carrier and the side bands it creates are just overtaking the modulator's signal when heard by your ear.

Ring modulation will do nothing unless there are two oscillators present. IC based pedals (like the gonkulator and mf102) make something happen with a wider range of signals than a pure diode ring so sometimes one oscillator can be slightly more dominant at output (opposed to a diode ring that will probably do nothing).

Personally, I've never had that problem with the gonkulator RI. I can say that the SPK2, CA Ring Mod, and several others are far less balanced. I find the EHX FA, copilot Robotum/Planetoid, mood ef102, and to be easy to use/ sound good for the price...But there are a ton more too. The Carlin has no suppression at all.

Here recently though I use external carriers and prefer diode ring ones.

Thanks for taking the time to provide such detailed info. I may have to isolate the pedal in further tests before sending it back. Either way, PGS seems to agree this isn't a common problem and is offering a replacement unit. I'm hoping they are correct given how awesome the RI Gonk is apart from the noise issue. I actually found a well-produced YouTube demo video in which someone experienced the same problem and alleged it was common with various Gonkulator incarnations.