Literally Analyzing Frequencies with the EHX Frequency Analyzer
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- Опубликовано: 27 июл 2024
- This one is for us nerds. If you've ever played with a Ring Modulator, you've probably squeezed some interesting sounds out of it, but maybe you wondered just what's going on in there. Well, wonder no more.
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Chapters:
0:00 - Demo Jam
1:48 - Carrier Signal Basics
3:10 - Meet the Sidebands
6:02 - Bell Tones
6:54 - Waveforms
10:43 - Uses
11:48 - Filter Switch
14:38 - Vintage Vidya Games
15:37 - Two More Experiments
16:21 - What's In The Box?!?!
17:29 - In Conclusion 
Видеоклипы
The difference went down
And the sum has gone up
And long ago somebody left with the cup
Ddddaaaaaammmmnnnnnn
This is why I started playing guitar: lots of math
This is far and away the finest explanation of a ring modulator on RUclips, DARE I SAY THE ENTIRE INTERNET. ✌️😃🎸
That was my goal. Thank you!
“Hm, very interesting” had me dying. Love watching these videos.
Sometimes a blank expression is all that needs to be said
Best video I've seen about ring modulators. Great job. I've been toying with ring mods on & off since the late 70's. Such an underrated effect imho. Liked and subscribed.
Now that is a thorough breakdown - even goes through the box contents. Well done, mate! Check out the Ring Thing which is a cousin of this device.
Guy in Crom shirt attempts the solo in "Cortez the Killer" whilst using a ring modulator.
Film at 11
Wow! Bravo man, this was a great video! Thank you!
My pleasure!
Wayne Krantz is probably one of the most artful guitar users of ring modulators out there. Very restrained use, that allows him to play melody lines, but retain some boing.
One of the things to keep in mind, when it comes to ring modulators, is that they were developed in the synth universe, and anticipated carrier signals that were MUCH simpler and cleaner than what guitars provide, and typically anticipated use of sine wave oscillators for carrier or modulator, or both. Feeding them carriers with lots of harmonic content results in a LOT of sums and differences that one probably does not want. Consequently, the most pleasing sounds, that will begin to approximate what RMs were designed to anticipate is to a) provide some compression of the signal, so that it is relatively steady in level, and b) shave off as much of the top end as you can. The Frequency Analyzer includes a filter control, intended to accomplish 'b', but there's no reasons why one can't provide additional help.
Because the sums and differences are arithmetical and constant (i.e., +/-100hz happens whether playing an open low E or the highest note on your high E), the lower the modulation frequency, the more "pitched" the result sounds as you go up the fretboard (do the math and you'll quickly see why). So if you intend on playing something that *sounds* like a melody, think about the range of notes to be played, and adjust the modulation frequency accordingly, so that the RM just adds a bit of hair/boingeyness to the sound, rather than anything wildly unpredictable. Generally, lower modulation frequencies yield "saner" outcomes. Ideally, it would be nice if all RMs had a range switch for modulation frequency, such that lowest and highest possible frequencies wouldn't be jammed into the one pot. Sometimes, you want to be more precise dialing in the modulation freq.
Virtually all analog octave-up fuzzes will produce results that can sound vaguely RM-ish. The Dan Armstrong Green Ringer was likely named as such largely because it would produce surprising sideband products if one played bent double stops. The string being bent *should* have gone up in pitch but the heard note went *down*...HUH? They ALL do that. I've built easily 8 different octave-up fuzzes and that's what they do.
You're correct that some effects can be made to sound close to an RM, but aren't strictly ring modulation. In fact pretty much any modulation effect, be it tremolo, flanger, chorus, phaser, etc., can sound perilously close to a RM if one increases the LFO rate up into the audio range. Since many such LFO ranges are dictated by a single capacitor, and tend not to sweep much faster than maybe 12hz, reducing the value of that capacitor to about 1/3 or 1/4 of the original value will get you audio-frequency sweep rates that serve up some fairly authentic-sounding RM. My old MXR rackmount M-113 digital delay had a pull switch that multiplied the modulation rate by 100x, (100 x 10 = 1000hz!). But again, bear in mind that very few, if any, such pedals will shave off the top end as a true RM is expecting, so the results will be more raucous than the Frequency Analyzer shown here.
Finally, if ANY category of effects ever called out for a momentary engage-switch, it is ring modulators. They are rarely the sort of thing one leaves on for an entire song, so being able to insert the effect for a coupla bars here and there, on demand, would be a good thing.
Whoa, that's a lot to digest. I really appreciate the insight. Yeah, being able to kind of set a policy for the two sidebands independently would be pretty interesting. I haven't dug into it much, but the EHX Single Sideband Modulator seems to allow for that sort of thing. I also think the simple vs complex harmonics thing showed up with the Miku vs Fart Pedal experiment at the end.
As for other effects as ring modulators, I may need to do a deeper dive into what happens as LFOs approach audible or near-audible frequencies, and I suspect that the "A ring modulator is just a fast tremolo" schoolyard rumor got started from someone saying that their whatever's LFO goes up to "ring modulation speeds".
Oh, and heck yeah, momentary switch... especially one that can fade in and out gradually. That'd be great.
@@StompboxBreakdown Thanks for nudging me to look at the Ring Thing in more depth. I knew of its basic existence, but had never dug into it, naively assuming it was simply a better Frequency Analyzer with presets. But, being digital, it's clearly a different beast than the typical analog RM. Somehow, the ability to select upper OR lower sideband products escaped me. It can transform into a pitch shifter by selecting a given sideband, and panning to 100% wet, such that only that sideband product is heard. Of course, where it differs from an actual pitch shifter is that the sideband product is determined as a fixed sum or difference, and not a proportional difference. So, you could tune it to a fifth above , but that doesn't mean the result would *remain* a fifth above, no matter where you pick. I might be wrong, though, and it's a smarter product than I give it credit for here.
All that technical goodness is making my brain ring. So pleased you're into ring mod, it's so cool. Your opening jam was killer!
Glad you liked it! I thought it was pretty spacey when I was putting it together, wasn't so much a fan when I listened back the next day, but it's a tricky effect to wield in the moment, so good enough for the time being! Thanks for watching
Love the nerdy videos!
Thank you! I had a fun time going down the rabbit hole on this one
Science! Or maybe not. I don’t know. I’m no engineer or mathematician, but wow, that was fun to watch! Well done, sir. I dig how EHX and others push the limits releasing unorthodox guitar gear, forcing guitar players to be more experimental and open-minded. Almost like developing a new “language.” Hey, are you sure this isn’t leftover technology from the Krell??
Thank you so much. The funny thing about this pedal is that it's probably the simplest implementation of a rudimentary effect that EHX puts out. It's literally just the ring modulation circuit plus a filter stage... but it's such a bonkers effect that it just *works* for EHX.
What a wonderful video! Thanks a lot.
Every thing about this video. Just wow. Thank you.
Glad we’re on the same wavelength:)
I can't believe you put this video out the day after I missed an auction for one! Great minds! 😄 At least now I don't need to demo this thing, so you've saved me some cash! Haha!
Also, *40v???* What the hell?! With that kind of power requirement, I wouldn't have been able to even turn it on in the first place, let alone film a demo with it. 😂
Great video, Jeff...as always! 👍🏻
The timing was certainly right for a Ring Modulation video, glad I could save you some bucks. Yeah, I'm not sure what it's doing with 40 volts. Thankfully the adapter is included, and it's center-positive... so in theory if it were plugged into the wrong pedal, it would blow a diode before taking out the rest of the pedal, but still.
@StompboxBreakdown If you ever get chance to buy a Ring Thing...do it! It's easily the best, and most useable ring mod effect I've ever tried. At least until the Red Panda Radius comes out.
Oh man I never got any dvd's with my EHX purchases.
Great vid! I've been interested in the EHX F.A. for such a long time but that damn 40 volt wall wartis what always shy'd me away.
The frequency analyzer is a powerful tool both for bass and guitar if used properly. Try blend full cw, fine full ccw, shift just before full cw, filter off. Add an analogue suboctave before it[ boss oc2] and any bit crusher after it[ using sample rate reducing, not bit crushing]. Also works great with fuzz and/ or low pass filters after it.
Great video, really useful. I'm always on the lookout for busted wah pedals because I'd like to do interesting things with them like make a ring mod which can be tuned by foot.
On ‘why are there no new kinds of effects, I heard Robert Keeley say there are only so many mathematical functions that produce musical, commercially viable results. And ring mod is one of them; I shudder to think of the others!
The Wet Fart setting really brought it home.
I built a couple passive ring mod pedals, that will allow you plug in two guitars as carrier/mod. Gets pretty fun with friends or a synth sequence. Gotta love the frequency analyzer. That’s cool they put a fuzz circuit into the filter section
Ooh a two-player ring mod!!
I thi k Ring Mods are one of those thing that are great for challenging you on a creative level. It's all too ways to give up on it and just call it "useless". It's an opportunity to make something unconventional, all while keeping mind you have to play to the pedal, and that limiting favor can make you think of all sort of things. I Can get my EHX Ring to self occilate, which goes down really well at live shows when people ask me, "What the hell was that sound? I've never heard that before!". You just gotta use your noggin a bit more.
This pedal BEGS for an expression jack mod. Also, it’s an incredible sound by itself. Have you shat it out with other ringmods like the gonkulator?
I think a pedal this size would likely get hung up in my small intestine. :)
For sheer nastiness, I think I prefer the Gonkulator. It's a little easier to get a semi-musical sound out of it, but the Mainframe takes its to a whole 'other level. You can have it self-calibrate the carrier frequency to the note you're playing which is just *amazing*, plus it has the expression pedal input. I haven't looked too deeply, but I suspect that the Ring Thing Single Sideband Modulator (also by EHX) allows that sort of flexibility.
@@StompboxBreakdown interesting!! Ok, I got me some pedals to explore. I welcome any demos you may have on the as well!
@@erifkind I think you missed the joke in his answer, he was making fun of your typo: you said "have you SHAT it out" instead of "shot it out"
@@um3899 you’re right, I passed the joke too quickly 😂
It's funny timing, this - I've been considering putting my catalinbread heliotrope on my board where the EarthQuaker dirt transmitter lives- I love the gate of the DT but have had a hankering lately for ring mod fuzz. I tend to get ring mod sounds from my boss dd20 in reverse delay mode, super fast BPMs.. but I have been considering stacking different pitches of ring mod to make ring-chords or some kind.
Your video inspired me to move up this experiment to..now.
the reverse delay ring mod hack is worth knowing
I get from this video that the reverse delay thing, like a fast Tremolo, might not be the same as true carrier style ring mod, but it sure sounds dope.
All i really know about these things is they are used to create the voices for the daleks.
Yup! They have a pretty rich history in science fiction. Kinda makes sense, sweeping the frequencies and landing at odd intervals.
Might be because the tremolo don't go to negative value, where the carrier go. Yet i continue to think that a fast tremolo is a sort of ring modulator but more softer for this.
Now seeing with desmos, the reverse behavior depend also of the frequency. For example if the carrier is 4X the frequency of the signal, it reverse, but not when it's 3.
The analog ancester of the fart pedal...
Strangely appealing though. With an expression pedal for the carrier there might be some potential.
Most definitely
I have the Pigtonix Ring Master, does similar crazy stuff.
Nice, that thing looks dope
I miss having a ring modulator..... I got my first one when I was a teenager back in the late 1970's. I'm no expert on electronics, but I know what I like. Looking at the current available ring mods there's the one in this video, another by EHX called the Ring Thing for about $40 more, and then there's the fairfield circuitry"s Randy's Revenge which seems like a great option , but above my price point at this time. Is the Ring Thing really a ring modulator...? It seems to have a lot built into it to make it sound "more normal". Any recommendations or thoughts... suggestions? Thanks for your amazing videos!
I haven't had a chance to play around with the Ring Thing. It says it's a Single Sideband Modulator, so there's some ring modulator-esque stuff going on, but I can't really tell. I also haven't watched too many videos on it because I don't want to accidentally copy someone else. Looks interesting, whatever it is. There's also the EHX Mainframe, which is like an intelligent ring modulator with distortion. That one's also pretty expensive, but it can auto-calibrate the ring mod carrier frequency to a note you're playing, which I haven't seen anywhere else.
Looks like the reissue DOD Gonkulator is fairly affordable, and that's got a killer distortion built in as well. Might want to check into that one. I had a video up of it here at one point, but I took it down because I wasn't happy with the quality. Might redo it at some point, but it's a really fun pedal with some great (nasty) sounds. The reissue also lets you set the carrier frequency, the OG one was fixed.
@@StompboxBreakdown
Thanks for getting back to me. I'll have to check out the Mainframe, I'm not familiar with it. For $200(Canadian) I can get the last EHX Frequency Analyzer in stock at a shop fairly close to where I live. Since they're out of production and not often found in my neck of the woods. From what I've seen of the Ring Thing it seems to cater to the harmonizer side of things (+ I also misquoted the price; they're about$375). It's between the one you reviewed here or wait until I can afford a Randy's Revenge....well built quality piece of gear. Not without checking the Mainframe first! Thanks again, SO much. Really appreciate your knowledge.
Favorite part: labeling the 40 volt power. Science lab nerdery a close second.
I've got so many barrel connectors around my desk right now, and I've already fried one pedal by plugging an 18v adapter into it... not looking to make that same mistake again.
Love ring modulaters and frequency shifters I do wish they would make an intelligent ring modulater in pedal form one that automatically shifts to musical intervals but maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.i do know red panda is putting out a ring modulater soon
Pigtronix ringmaster and Subdecay Vitruvian mod both have pitch tracking
Oh neat. I'm seeing some interesting stuff about that Ringmaster. I may have no choice but to make 2024 the Year of the Ringmod
I need that necklace.. C'mon..
store.ourladyofstatic.com/product/chain
We are DEVO!
How did I miss DEVO?!?!
I do love hearing a well deployed ring modulator, but every time I try to use one myself - it just makes my brain hurt. I now understand them a bit better though!
I found that finding those safe intervals for the upper sideband and playing off of those gave me some better success than trying to match them, or even put them in the same arena. I think the best use is those who embrace the chaos and let it sweep around, at least on guitar.
PHISH LOGOS on your scope!!!! Ha!
The sound at 10:56 made me think of this:
Hello?
How are you?
Have you been alright?
Through all those lonely lonely lonely nights?
That two-pulse ring tone isn’t what US phone users heard when calling someone. That’s a very Euro sound.
Edit: of course you have a Miku. Why would I ever doubt that?
Good job, as always
Thank you so much
Trent Reznor threw a Ring Mod guitar solo into the song "The Becoming" and it sounds hard