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Lord of The RingMod - 2009
Lord of The RingMod - 2009
Lord of The RingMod - 2009
If I had to choose just one Moogerfooger pedal to compliment the Voyager1, the choice would be easy; Id pick the
MF-102 Ring Modulator. Why? Its because the Ring Modulator is the only Moogerfooger pedal designed to produce sound instead of simply filtering sound or adding effects2. In fact, the Ring Modulator (RM) extends the Voyagers sonic palette to an entirely new class of sounds that cant easily be duplicated by other means. This feature alone makes the RM the ideal desert island pedal companion for the Voyager, but, as you will soon learn, its capable of much, much more. What kind of sounds does RM produce? All manner of bells, chimes, gongs, tubular bells and electro-metallic timbres, collectively referred to as clangorous sounds. These sounds are distinctive because they contain inharmonic frequencies, meaning that their harmonic spectrums arent based on integer multiples of a fundamental frequency like those that appear in sawtooth or square waves. Whereas a sawtooth or square wave has an orderly series of decreasing harmonics, the overtones of clangorous sounds can be spread far and wide across the frequency spectrum, with varying amplitudes and phases. By itself, the Voyager can produce only a limited range of clangorous timbres with its built-in modulation capabilities. The MF-102 Ring Modulator greatly extends this range by generating a wealth of inharmonic textures, making it an excellent accompaniment to the Voyager. So how can you make the most of it, with or without a Voyager? Read on and find out!
Concepts
A Ring Modulator performs a simple arithmetic function: it takes two input frequencies, and generates the sum (F1 + F2) and difference (F1 F2) signals while suppressing the original frequencies. For example, if two sine waves of equal amplitude are applied to the input, say one at 200Hz and one at 300Hz, the ring modulator will output two sine waves of equal amplitude: one at 500Hz (the sum) and one at 100Hz (the difference). The use of sine waves here provides a simple example to illustrate what a Ring Modulators does, but what happens if two complex waves are used instead of simple sine waves? The answer is that you get a complex result. The individual harmonics of each wave interact with each other, producing a complex product of sum and difference frequencies. Such is the case with two square waves, as shown in Figure 1.
1. Lord of the Ring (Modulation) (aka LOTRM) was written a few years before Moog Music introduced the Little Phatty (LP) synthesizer. While the Ring Modulator works equally well with the LP or Voyager, the LPs lack of CV expansion jacks limits the interface possibilities of the Ring Modulator when compared to what can be done with a Voyager and VX-351 CV Expander. 2. Technically, this is no longer true. Long after LORTM was originally published online (in 2006), Moog Music released the MF-107 FreqBox, which can also produce sounds through its internal oscillator. The FreqBox can be used as a stand-alone sound source, much like the Ring Modulators Carrier oscillator.
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Figure 1. Two ring-modulated square waves Figure 1 shows the result of ring modulating two square waves together; one at 350Hz, and one about 100Hz. The view on the left shows an oscilloscope display of the result, while the view on the right shows the corresponding frequency spectrum. Taking a closer look at the frequency spectrum, we see that ring modulation has produced two large frequency spikes at about 250Hz and 450Hz (the respective sum and difference frequencies of the fundamentals) along with a complex series of inharmonic overtones (there are actually more low-level overtones than the ones shown, but these appear below the displayed 30mV level). The resulting sound can best be described as bell-like, owing to the complex nature of the overtones that were produced.
Component Parts
The Moogerfooger MF-102 Ring Modulator is actually made up of three separate modular components, all neatly combined into a flexible modulation package. The three components are a Low Frequency Oscillator (LFO), a Voltage Controlled Carrier Oscillator (VCO), and a Ring Modulator. Each circuit can be used separately with the Voyager or other CV gear. The Ring Modulator diagram on page 5 shows how these three components interconnect and interact with each other, with shaded areas used to indicate each component. Now lets take a closer look at each of these components.
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The LFO
The RMs LFO is a basic Low Frequency Oscillator with a minimum of features. The RMs LFO sports Rate and Amount controls, a two-position waveform selection switch on the front panel, and Rate CV Input and LFO Output jacks on the back. The AMOUNT control adjusts how much of the LFO signal is fed to the Carrier Oscillator, but does not regulate the signal at the LFO Output jack. This means you have to use an attenuator to adjust the LFO signal level if you are using it for external CV applications. The LFOs RATE control has a range of 0.1 Hz to 25 Hz. The manual says applying a CV to the Rate CV Input jack has the same effect as turning the knob, but what actually happens is that knob and the CV input combine to affect the rate. This means that you can adjust the RATE knob to maximum (25Hz), and then increase the rate further by applying a positive CV, or reduce it by applying a negative CV. Plugging an expression pedal into the Rate CV jack and setting the RATE knob to maximum, you can increase the LFO rate to well over 1Khz (!) with the pedal pressed all the way down. Conversely, by setting the RATE knob to 0.1 Hz and applying a negative CV, the LFO can go well below the displayed 0.1 Hz rate. The LFO s panel switch selects between the two available waveforms. Selecting Square produces a square LFO wave as expected, but switching to the Sine position actually produces a triangle wave, not a sine wave as depicted on the panel.
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Figure 2. The Carrier Oscillator waveform Although the Carrier VCO has a linear frequency response, the actual response isnt specified in the manual. Testing reveals that its not the typical 1V/oct response its more like 0.7V/oct. The fact that it is linear, however, means that the Carrier VCO will track a linear control voltage. This is an important consideration that will be used to great advantage as we shall soon see.
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Back Panel
Voyager owners know that all control voltage inputs are identified by colored jack nuts on the instruments back panel. Red nuts are used to indicate control voltage inputs, while blue nuts indicate gate inputs. Unfortunately, none of the Moogerfoogers hold to that convention; all panel jacks are secured with the same black nuts. Instead of using colored nuts, Moogerfoogers use panel labeling to distinguish between control voltage inputs and other I/O, with black-on-white labeling identifying the four CV inputs (Rate, Amount, Mix and Freq.), and white-on-black labeling used for all others as shown:
Footswitch
Theres not much to say about the footswitch that isnt already covered in the manual. Activating the switch toggles the pedal state between On (green) and Bypass (red). As pointed out in the manual, the pedal itself doesnt have true bypass. The signal applied to the Audio Input jack always runs through the Drive gain circuit, whether or not the pedal is in Bypass mode. Of course, this also means that if no power is applied to the pedal, no output will result.
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KBD PITCH
ATTEN
IN
VOYAGER
OUT
FREQ
CARRIER OUT
EXTERNAL IN
Now perform the following steps to scale the MF-102 Carrier VCO3: 1. Turn off all Voyager oscillators, leaving Oscillator 1 ON. Adjust the Oscillator 1 wave to triangle, and set the other controls to provide a sustained, unfiltered sound. This will make it easy for tuning purposes. 2. On the VX-351, set the attenuator to about 7 on the dial (i.e., the 2 oclock position). 3. On the Ring Modulator, set the LFO Amount control to 0, switch the Oscillator control to HI, and adjust the Frequency control to about mid-range (the settings of the other controls do not matter). 4. Switch the Voyagers External Input On and increase the External Input level so that you can hear the RM Carrier Oscillator. Adjust the level to equal volume with Oscillator 1. 5. Hit and hold the low F on the Voyager keyboard and adjust the RMs Frequency control for unison tuning with the Voyager oscillator. 6. Hit and hold the high C on the Voyager keyboard and adjust the VX Attenuator for unison tuning between the carrier and Voyager oscillator. 7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 until the RMs oscillator is scaled and tracks the Voyager oscillator across the keyboard. With the Carrier Oscillator scaled for keyboard control, it can now be used just like any other Voyager oscillator. The Carrier VCO can be tuned as a sub-oscillator to provide extra girth to a patch, a super-oscillator to provide top to a patch, or a blending oscillator for interval tuning. Spend a bit of time exploring the possibilities this fourth oscillator provides, but be aware that you may need to adjust the CV scaling a bit as things warm up and tuning drifts. Repeat steps 5 and 6 of the above procedure if you need to retune.
No Glide Here
The VX-351 Key Pitch CV Output does not include the Voyager glide function. This means that when Glide is turned ON with the above configuration, only the Voyager oscillators will glide between notes; the Carrier VCO will be unaffected.
3. This procedure can also be used to scale the internal oscillator of the MF-107 FreqBox try it!
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2. Squaring things up
Since the Carrier Oscillator is strictly a triangle wave, its usefulness can be limiting when combined with the Voyager oscillators. You can easily turn that triangle wave into something more interesting using a distortion pedal or similar device to clip the signal, turning that soft triangle wave into a crunchy square wave when the distortion device is adjusted to a high gain setting. Simply plug the Carrier Output into your effect device, and then route the device output to the Voyager External Input. Ive gotten very good results using a cheap ($15) Dan Electro FAB Metal pedal, although that any distortion or overdrive pedal would probably work as well to force the signal to flattop. When setting this up, though, remember to keep the effect devices output level down as you make adjustments, then turn it up to match the level of the Voyager oscillators. This waveform conversion trick works because a single, sustained wave is being processed through the distortion pedal instead of several waves, i.e. chords. Also, because the triangle wave is a line-level signal, the distortion device is easily overdriven; helping to minimize the noise usually associated with high gain settings. Given the number of possible effect devices that could be used here, your experience will certainly vary. If you have several such devices available, try them all to see what works the best.
3. Octave Doubling
This well-known trick only works with simple waveforms, like sine or triangle, but can be used to good effect in many patches. The basic idea is to apply the same signal (x) into both ring modulator inputs. Since a ring modulator produces the sum and difference frequencies of the two inputs, the difference frequency for identical inputs is zero: xx=0 while the summed frequency is twice the original (in other words, an octave): x + x = 2x This principle is easily demonstrated using the RMs Carrier Oscillator. Keeping the scaled oscillator frequency connections in place, use a patch cord to connect the RM Carrier Output to the Audio Input. Connect the RM Audio Output to the Voyagers External Input. Engage the pedal (Bypass LED will be Green) and, while playing, adjust the RMs Mix control to hear the octave doubling effect. With this configuration in place, you now have five oscillator signals available: two from the RM, plus three from the Voyager. By themselves, the signals from the RM resemble an organ-like sound, owing to their precise octave relationship and pure tone. You can vary this sound by applying a control voltage to the RMs Mix CV Input, allowing you to you dynamically adjust the balance of the two sounds.
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4. Tracking Modulation
So far weve focused on the Carrier Oscillator, mainly using it to augment the Voyagers three oscillators. Its time to take the rest of the Ring Modulators electronics for a spin and show what they can do. Keep the Carrier Oscillator configured to track the Voyagers Key Pitch, and connect the RM in the Voyagers Mix/Out loop using an Insert Cable as shown below.
VX-351
KBD PITCH
ATTEN
MF-102 RING MODULATOR INSERT CABLE
IN FREQ
AUDIO OUT
VOYAGER
OUT
AUDIO IN
TIP
With this new configuration in place, select a Voyager preset (any one will do), and switch off all but one of the Voyager oscillators. Set the RM Drive knob to a comfortable level (about 9 oclock on the dial should do it), set the Mix control to 100% and engage the pedal (the Bypass LED will be Green). Play a few notes on the Voyager while you adjust the RMs Frequency knob. Find a setting you like, and then play it up and down the keyboard. Youll notice that the sound tracks your playing, because the relationship between the Voyager oscillator and Carrier oscillator is constant. This setup allows you to play electronic bells, chimes, metal bars any clangorous sound chromatically. In this configuration, the RMs Mix control can be used to balance the modulated and unaffected sounds.
VX-351
VOYAGER
KBD PITCH
ATTEN
ENVS FILTER
ATTEN
IN
IN
OUT
OUT
FREQ
AUDIO OUT
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With these signal routings in place, make the following settings: 1. On the VX-351, set the Attenuator for the Filter Envelope to about the 11 oclock position. 2. Set the RM Drive to 0, the Mix control to 100% and engage the pedal (the Bypass LED will be Green). 3. Select a Voyager patch (any one will do), and make the following adjustments: a. Turn OFF all oscillators b. Turn Ext Audio ON, and set the External Mix knob to about 9 oclock c. Open the filter (Cutoff fully clockwise), set resonance to 0, LP/LP mode d. Set the Filter Envelope Amount to 0 (mid position) e. Set the Filter Envelope Attack, Sustain and Release to 0, and set the Decay to 12 oclock f. Set the Volume Envelope Sustain to max. Play a few notes on the Voyager. You should now be hearing the filter envelope controlling the volume of the Carrier VCO, similar to a VCA. There will probably be a small amount of bleed-through, but it demonstrates the basic idea. To work with this new capability, try shortening the Filter Envelope Decay while you turn on one or more of the Voyager oscillators (you may have to adjust the oscillator level and also the wave to best match the sounds). This tonal combination will give you a percussive attack coupled with a sustaining sound, creating a unique effect unlike any other Voyager patch. Also, try adjusting the Filter Envelope Attack and Decay controls for additional variation. Note: Since the Voyager only has two envelope generators (Filter and Volume), the possibilities using this technique are somewhat limited. Nevertheless, much can be explored using this method. Other CV sources, like an LFO, can be employed to achieve different results. Regardless of the CV being used, however, remember to attenuate the level before applying it to the Carrier Input.
6. Drive as Waveshaper
In cool tip #2 we used an effects pedal to create a square wave. We chose this method to generate a crunchy square wave from a triangle, but thats not the only way to get a similar effect. You can also use the RMs built-in Drive circuit. The RMs Drive control is used to adjust the gain of low-level signals, but at high drive settings can produce a soft clipping effect on the signal, changing the waveshape. To examine the effect of high Drive settings, we processed a single Voyager triangle wave through the RMs Drive circuit, and used an attenuator to keep the RMs output level in check. Viewing the result with oscilloscope software, we observed the triangle wave get larger as we advanced the Drive knob. When we reached the 3 oclock position, the wave began to flattop. As we continued to advance the knob, the signal became flatter. When the Drive control reached maximum, the triangle took on the appearance of a rounded square wave (shown in the second figure):
Figure 3. A triangle wave taken from the Voyager Mix/Out Loop, Oscillator 1 only, Mixer level = 10 (value = 255), processed through the Ring Modulator, Bypass ON, Drive = 0, Mix = 0
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Figure 4. The same Voyager signal, but with the RMs Drive control at maximum, and attenuated to an equivalent level The sound of the signal in Figure 2 is a bit like a filtered square wave a mellow sound, but still buzzy. Its not exactly the same result as we got from the distortion pedal (the distortion pedal output contained sharper edges and had a brighter tone), but its still very practical as a medium-bright sound source. Next, we returned the Drive knob to 0 and switched the Voyager wave to sawtooth, keeping everything else the same.
Figure 5. A sawtooth wave taken from the Voyager Mix/Out Loop, Oscillator 1 only, Mixer level = 10 (value = 255), processed through the Ring Modulator, Bypass ON, Drive = 0, Mix = 0
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Figure 6. The same Voyager signal, but with the RMs Drive control at maximum, and attenuated to an equivalent level As we observed with the triangle wave, as the Drive control is advanced the sawtooth wave increases in amplitude until Drive reaches about the 3 oclock position, where the waveform begins to change. With Drive fully clockwise, the wave becomes a smoothed sawtooth as shown in Figure 6 above. This sound is like a soft version of the sawtooth wave, but different from what you can get by adjusting the Voyagers Wave knob between sawtooth and triangle waves. Both the modified sawtooth and triangle waves can be used as new sound sources for the Voyager or LP, adding to the sonic palette.
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Regarding his basic approach to using the MF-102 Ring Modulator, Narrowcaster wrote: "I think of it in terms of four basic regions, and I like to call them: tremolo, growl, bells, and shimmer. Here's a quick explanation of how they come about. This is all explained in terms of what happens when you keep the input frequency constant and slowly increase the carrier frequency. Also, the description below assumes you have MIX set to 50% (so that you are always hearing three pitches: input, sum, and difference). For any given input frequency, when the carrier frequency is very low it will sound like tremolo. This happens because the sum and difference tones are so close in frequency to the input that they don't sound like distinct notes of their own. You only notice them because they cause interference patterns (which is the trem effect). As you increase the carrier frequency, the sum and difference tones get farther away from the input frequency. At a certain point, it starts to sound like a rough growling effect, because you are starting to hear it as three different notes, but they are very close together. As you keep raising the carrier frequency past that, the spread gets greater and greater, so it really sounds like three different pitches. That's the range I call "bell tones." As you keep increasing the carrier frequency even further, you reach a point where both the sum and difference tones will be *higher* than the input pitch. For a while this still sounds like bells, because the spacing of the three pitches is still relatively close. But as you keep increasing carrier frequency, the sum and difference tones begin to get so high that they sound like a very high shimmering sound completely disconnected from the input. A lot of people like to crank the carrier frequency and keep the MIX almost dry, so they get just a little of this shimmer for ambiance." Awesome advice, Narrowcaster! Thanks for allowing me to include your message here.
Finale
At this point, I hope youre sufficiently intrigued to try some of the above ideas and techniques to see what you can create with the MF-102 Ring Modulator. And if youre looking to add a Moogerfooger to your setup, but dont know which one to buy, look no further. Head straight to your local music store and audition an MF-102! Regardless of whether you play guitar, bass, keys, or some other electronic instrument, a world of new sound possibilities awaits you!
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