BTW, this channel is mostly dead but I still make hardcore pedal videos over here now: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ilB3VxDd_5c.html
it's not just a tremolo that goes very fast, it's a little more than this. a tremolo, no matter how fast it is, won't affect the phase of your incoming signal, a ring mod will mess with your input phase depending on the carrier. a ring modulator multiplies 2 signals, an input and a carrier. when the carrier is negative the output signal comes out of phase. that makes it a distortion circuit (the output signal contains frequencies that aren't in the input signal) while a tremolo only is a modulation circuit.
We use the MF-102 with our Minimoog Voyager and sometimes we run our Drums or even a Ukelele through it as well! It can turn an ordinary Drum-kit into a multitude of percussion almost without end. We even get some really nice Bells and Calypso sounds! Thanks for the superb Clarity of these Videos, I myself really needed a quick refresher course on the back panel ports and deeply appreciate the effort you put into this! Peace!
I've watched lots of gear explanations, you're the best, very clear and simple, but not oversimple to the point of omitting helpful technical insight! Thanks!
Another ring mod trick is duplicating your signal ( I used a stereo chorus pedal in front, but turned off) and sending the same signal to both the normal input and carrier input. It gets similar to the Hendrix Octavia effect.
Best demo I've seen for this, I found a cheap one on ebay and look forward to messing with it. ...I did keep expecting you to say 'This is K Billy's super sounds of the 70's' though.
SWEET FIX Yep, I took a picture. i.imgur.com/Ci3pBp0.jpg The LFO is a sine/square wave, but the carrier is a nice crisp triangle. Although to be fair, a triangle wave is very "sine-like."
It's pretty easy to look at waves without the need for a scope. Just record to a WAV file in some way, than use a free audio editor ( I use Sony's Sound Forge which was not free, but there's free versions.)
@@robertsyrett1992 True! Only very few old analog synthesizers or effect units offer a true sine wave (being it on the VCO or the LFO). The only oscillators outputting a true sine wave are formed involving inductors. Some day the age of widespread use of inductors in electronics was over due to economic reasons. But considering synthesizers do involve cascaded filters, a triangle just needs to be low pass filtered on the fundamental frequency to get a nearly sine type form.
I'm apparently 8 years late with this but Omar Rodriguez-Lopez used a MF-102 at times in The Mars Volta. Especially on the album The Bedlam in Goliath, you can hear it all over the place, that pitched carrier tremolo with the square LFO is really distinctive even in a big mix. Thanks for this video, I got one of these in 2008 and made some cool noise with it but never really knew wtf I was doing or why. Might have to break it out and mess around with the carrier input now
What a wonder-full demo the best i have come across i now no more than i ever did about the ring modulator,, the MF 102 all so dose a killer Dr who daleks sound from the early Dr who series and the film,, thanks for the demo man,,, top stuff..
The best way to explain it is this way: Using the Drive only is equivalent to using a boost pedal. It basically boosts the signal and this overdrives the front (pre-amp portion) of your amp. If you are using your clean channel of your amp (with little or no gain), it will work like a volume boost. If your amp is set to add gain (dirt), it will act as an overdrive pedal.
Another example of musical use of a Ring Modulator is the Don Ellis "Filmore" Album on his cover of Hey Jude. Yea, that's a trumpet going through a ring modulator. Probably echo or delay also. Recording was from mid 70"s.
Damn ... i want that ring mod so bad! Hope i can grab one in the next few months, i'm already buying too much gear right now ! But this one is special, no other ring mod sounds as good and also the LFO is what makes this one unique to my ears.
@@TheSweetFix the pigtronix one seems to be a great one for 199€, but still it does not have the same LFO function, the cheapest i've seen is the aural dream super ring on amazon, i gotta grab one just to try it out, seems to good to be true for 68€.
FINALLY. a video that explains how this works in a way i can actually understand. thank you. on a side note, do you think you could do a "tone replicating" video on how to get the ring modulator tones from the intro the truth by limp bizkit and the intro to blink of an eye by damageplan? wes borland and dimebag darrell did some cool stuff with the pedal on those songs
Lemme take a close listen to those songs and think about it. Also just FYI, this channel is dead, but I'm still making hardcore gear demos over here now, check it out: ru-vid.com
So if i wanna go really crazy i can modulate an audio track with an other different audio track by connecting the second one to the carrier in? Would an example be Ferneyhough's "Time and Motion Study", where he asks the cello sound to be modulated by the voice of the cellist towards the last third of the piece?
I don't know about that example specifically, but yes, you can go totally crazy by using outside audio as an input for the basis of the ring mod. It opens up a lot of worlds.
Do you disagree that a ring modulator circuit creates a form of amplitude modulation? This equivalence is what makes it the same as tremolo in my view.
Amplitude Modulation is unipolar modulation, and Ring Modulation is bipolar. upload.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/en/thumb/7/77/BipolarUnipolar.png/600px-BipolarUnipolar.png In AM you multiply you signal with first one, in RM - with second The difference between amplitude modulation and ring modulation is that in AM the carrier frequency is preserved and the sidebands generated are at half the amplitude of the carrier amplitude.
SWEET FIX that’s awesome! it always sounded dirty and gritty which I loved but after watching this video (as I’m waiting on my pedal to arrive so haven’t played yet) it sounds obvious! Nice video man, really well done! \m/
From the manual: "The DRIVE control is always active, even when the MF-102 is in BYPASS mode." so you were driving your amp already when the pedal was bypassed.
not too sure i understand the carrier in, it would be the same as having this pedal in a chain of different pedals, dba, ibanez, mrblack, ect...depending on what comes after the other in the chain....could you be useing the in/out and the carrier in, as having two rigs/two people jamin at the same time threw this while a sine wave is going out to another amp.....thats alot going on.
I don't understand how you was able to switch the drive knob to have a clean signal ? could explain again and tell us what to plug exactly ? and where in the pedal ? many thanks !!
Hey, I'm not sure I understand your question. Can you explain what you mean by swapping the ins? Also, sorry for the delayed response. This channel is mostly dead but I still make hardcore pedal videos over here now: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ilB3VxDd_5c.html
@@TheSweetFix Thanks for the response anyways :) My idea was to put a sine wave generator to the "Audio in" input and an instrument (say, an electric guitar) into the "Carrier input" and then see what happens, also in regards to differences to the "correct" way of doing it
@@sebastianzaczek OK I understand now. That's a really cool idea. Off the top of my head I'm not sure if it would sound different-you should try it and let me know!
My point is that the pitch stuff that happens is itself caused by amplitude modulation, which is just a fancy name for tremolo. If you took any tremolo effect and turned it up fast enough, you would hear wacky pitch stuff that sounds like ring modulation.
Ring Modulation is mathematically more complicated than my brainfolds will allow, but your input signal is NOT multiplied. Ring Modulation generates Sum and Difference frequencies based on the Frequency of the Carrier Wave and the Frequency of the input. This is why you hear steady increases and decreases in pitch when you apply a constantly ascending pitch.
Another great example is in the guitar solo in Under Cover of Darkness by Living Colour: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IRAc2pNl6Xg.html
Thanks, BTW this channel is mostly dead but I still make hardcore pedal videos over here now: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ilB3VxDd_5c.html
