Ring-mod what’s it good for?

[Eine Alte Oma]

keep in mind inharmonic tones are not always otherworldly or artificial. a lot of glassy textures are also wildly inharmonic. so just run ringmods on stuff to make it inharmonic, then sample some of it and play melodies with it or something

[Ah_Dziz]

Adrian Belew's guitar solo in The Becoming: @3:25

That's pretty much my favorite guitar solo. I talked to Adrian Belew about it at a show and we nerded out about effects for a while.

[zerocrossing]

Adrian Belew's guitar solo in The Becoming: @3:25

That's pretty much my favorite guitar solo. I talked to Adrian Belew about it at a show and we nerded out about effects for a while.

He's a great guy. Many moons ago I worked for a producer where he was the guitarist on the project and we just hung out and talked about the Beatles and guitar gear.

[isuckatproducing]

Does it have anything to do with sounds like this lead in the track below?
Always wondered how did he program it.

[cron]

Does it have anything to do with sounds like this lead in the track below?
Always wondered how did he program it.

My guess would be pink noise used as a modulator, hooked up to (probably) pitch. Possibly some other places. Very, very small amounts. So small you'll almost certainly need your keyboard's shift key to dial it in. Really useful technique for adding various flavours of subtle dirt to synth sounds.

If you want a definitive explanation, try to attract forum member CHOOS' attention. He's scary good at nailing synth tones from scratch. Seek and CHOOS will find etc.

[TechHaus]

Stumbled onto a good thread over here.

I actually haven't used ringmod in like 20 years, getting back into it.

[pekbro]

Another nice component modeled RM here (no linux sadly):

*Very good actually.”

https://niviem.net/products/rm01/

[TechHaus]

Appreciate your recommendations and knowledge of the plugin landscape, pekbro.

My playground right now is the synth MOK Miniraze.

Oscillators 2 and 3 go into the Ring Math section, and there are 21 different functions. And there is a convenient button to turn the tuning of Oscillator 3 on or off to make it static to check how that affects the sound.

Some results are just organy. Some are nasty like Mars Volta guitar parts. Some are sick for bass and leads.

I'm using some of the different sine waves (not pure sines) and tuning Oscillator 3 up 4 or 5 or 7 steps.

I've been neglecting this section on the synth - having fun.

Still want to learn what modulation destinations, if any, can contribute to some coolness here.

Very basic explorations for now.

At the bottom of the Mixer Section is the Ring Math module, which offers a selection of
oscillator intermodulation opportunities selectable via the menu. Oscillators 2 and 3 feed the
Ring Math input and are available to the module even when they are turned down, or off, in the mixer.

The available Ring Math types are:

None - Disables the intermodulation signal.
Ring Mod - Multiplies the signals from oscillator 2 and oscillator 3. This is
traditional ring modulation.
Amp Mod - Multiplies the absolute value of oscillator 3 with the bipolar oscillator 2 signal. The result always maintains the same polarity as oscillator 2, since
there will never be two negative values creating polarity changes.
MagMax 1 - Whichever signal has the greatest absolute value, between oscillator 2 and oscillator 3, will be selected as the resulting output signal. In this case, the Ring Math Amount parameter will scale the level of oscillator 3.
MagMax 2 - A variation of mag max where only the positive values of each signal are used for comparison. The Ring Math Amount parameter is used to blend the original oscillator 2 signal back into the output.
Diff Modes (Diff 1, Diff 2, Diff 3, Diff DYN, Diff AM1, Diff AM2) - These modes use the polarity of the oscillator 2 signal to create addition and subtraction combinations of oscillator 2 and oscillator 3.
Sum Modes (Sum DYN, Sum ADD, Sum OR, SumBOOL) - These modes use the polarity of the oscillator 2 signal to create addition based intermodulations of oscillator 2 and oscillator 3.
Ring Modes (RingEXC, RingDYN, RingAND, RingBL1, RingBL2) - These modes use the polarity of the oscillator 2 signal to create multiplication combinations of oscillator 2 and oscillator 3.
Gate BL1 - Uses oscillator 3 to gate the oscillator 2 signal. The processed output is derived solely from the gated oscillator 2 signal.
Gate BL2 - Uses oscillator 2 to gate the oscillator 3 signal. The processed output is derived solely from the gated oscillator 3 signal.


Amount - A special control that tailors the amount of signal applied in each Ring Math mode. Typically this parameter scales the amount of oscillator 3 math applied to the oscillator 2 signal, but it behaves differently for the MagMax modes (see the MagMax
descriptions above).

Level - Sets the output level of the module from 0% to 100%.

[zerocrossing]

Ring modulator is good for Tony Iommi’s guitar solo on Paranoid, and Ozzy declaring he is Iron Man.

I remember really wanting a ring modulator pedal for my rig in the 90s, and I couldn't find one. No one seemed to be making one, so I bought a Craig Anderton's Electronic Projects for Musicians kit and built one. It was noisy as hell.

[zerocrossing]

Adrian Belew's guitar solo in The Becoming: @3:25

That's pretty much my favorite guitar solo. I talked to Adrian Belew about it at a show and we nerded out about effects for a while.

That was my job for a year. Best year ever.

[d3tuned]

Ring mod is a timbral change, so usually the weirdness you hear gets mostly filtered out until you're left with something more usable.

That being said I had loads of fun finding harsh sounds, possible bass patches etc using square and saw waves with ringmod. If your synth has distortion, ring mod can help create some really satisfying basses.