though the original Cybermen effect was a voice box, which is a completely different tone and quite hard to voice-act with. If you don't have the real deal, a Mu-Tron gives a reasonable approximation.
@@tuftyindigo Just to clarify, my observation was more of the recent Cybermen, but I have no idea how that was done, i just heard the twang when Alex cranked up the frequency
Hilariously, some of the early Dalek voices were done by Roy Skelton, who amazingly also did Zippy from Rainbow. Adding a little bit of Zippy to a Dalek performance seems to give it the right amount of unhinged megalomania. :)
I was reminded of the Zippy-like "aliens" in the old 'For mash, get Smash' adverts. What I'd completely forgotten was that Smash was made by Cadbury. Those robotic voices were quite different to the silky tones in the adverts for Flake and Caramel.
Missed opportunity to tebrand as "Daleks Ball"...! (And life in metal looking like a kettle line had me on the floor. God I needed that laugh. Thank you.)
Wobbulator was a variable test tone generator. Totally different thing. There's lots of ring modulation devices that were in use at the time. VCS3 had one for instance. There's whatever Sabbath used for Paranoid.
Thanks for the video. The Doctor Who TV was where I learnt the words Exterminate, Annihilate when I was a child. The Darlek voice was where I learnt how to use ring modulation. Both are important landmarks. Kind of.
Oh come now, you cannot tease like that! You HAVE to record a cover of Dalek Girl now. Life is metal, looking like a kettle? DO IT. OR YOU WILL BE EXFOLATED. EXFOLIATE! EXFOLIATE!
@@oscar_charlie I assumed they did, because I recognized the sound. Just found this Ben Burtt interview. They did use a shortwave radio. ruclips.net/video/So0nmciiFJg/видео.html @ 36 : 58
@@oscar_charlie Same! I suppose a ring modulator on a voice has a similar effect. My little Tecsun shortwave receiver has SSB filters with both LSB and USB.
Great fun! I love the ring modulator on the Yamaha CS-80 (and the 50 and 60). I had a CS-50 back in the day and spent hours getting Vangelis-like swoops and whistles playing with the ring mod. More recently. the YC range have incorporated a ring modulator that gives some surprisingly great effects - I managed a Vangelis "Beaubourg" tribute (on my channel) using just this.
Ah Beaubourg - contractual obligation album or not? It does have a certain charm all of itself even if my landlady threatened me with eviction if I ever played it within her earshot!😂
Oh man , I am in bed with an absys in my tooth feeling sorry for my self ( kind of ). But that made me laugh so much I think it got the blood circulation going again giving a bit of relief. Great video , oh man that was funny.
The voice variable, famously, being provided (in the early days) by (among others) Captain Pugwash, Brains from Thunderbirds and Zippy from Rainbow. This is actually true.
I can do it with an epiglottis frig or whatever it is called. My 10-year-old son was impressed with my impression of Davros and you can get as technical as you like, but those fundamentals don't engage with a kid in grade 5. Otherwise ... very entertaining. On the Ball as always. $0.02
Does this effect go in before the mic pre-amp I'm guessing? I'm thinking about making a pedal that does this and getting my mate to sing part of a song as a dalek at our next gig.
I was thinking about the MS50's VCA and ring modulator the other day, because of comments we exchanged recently: *if* they both work all the way down to DC, and *if* they are accurately linear, I reckon you will be able to use them to scale and multiply the pitch CVs out of an SQ10 and a keyboard. The output would give you correct pitch transposition of the sequence.
@@AlexBallMusic I've had a look at an online manual for the MS50 now, and I need to point out that this won't work if you use the VCA that's got a low cut filter, because that won't pass DC voltages - use the one with no knobs. I sold my MS series kit fifteen years ago when I left the UK, and I'd forgotten there were two separate VCAs on the unit. I think it's going to be necessary to use the VCA to scale down the keyboard CV, because otherwise it might get large enough to drive the ring mod into clipping. First thing, connect the mod wheel of the MS20 or the voltage source of the MS50 to the control input of the VCA and the keyboard CV to the other, and patch the output to the meter. If you set the mod wheel / voltage source about half way up and play a key, does the meter show a steady output voltage or does it drift towards zero? Check this for both the VCA and the ring mod, and if both of them show a steady reading, things might work. It shouldn't matter which way round you plug them into the A and B inputs of the ring mod Second thing would be to check if the VCA is decently linear. Patch the mod wheel of the MS20 or the voltage source of the MS50 to the control input of the VCA and the keyboard to the other, and route the output to the oscillator pitch CV input. You should find that if you hold a key and adjust the mod wheel / voltage source, it will transpose the pitch. If you play octave jumps on the keyboard, does the oscillator jump octaves, or does it go out of tune? If it stays in tune, we're good: try the same thing with the ring mod. If both of them stay in tune, I would set up the patch as: Mod wheel or voltage source to the control input of the VCA, keyboard CV to the signal input of the VCA, output of the VCA to one input of the ring mod, pitch CV from the SQ10 to the other, output of the ring mod to the pitch CV of your oscillators. If you don't have the SQ10 at the moment, but do have a second MS series keyboard to hand, you can do a proof of concept by connecting the second keyboard in place of the sequencer. What I'm expecting is that both keyboards should track octaves correctly, and you should be able to use the control input of the VCA to adjust the overall tuning. So if you play a C on both keyboards, there will be a setting of the VCA that makes the oscillators play C. I hope this is reasonably clear. We can take this to email if you prefer.
@@AlexBallMusic It could go wrong at any point, but it's the best approach I can think of. This is why we ended up with linear 1v per octave as the de facto standard, not Korg's exponential tracking: you don't need to go through contortions like that in order to do something as simple as transposing from a keyboard. Let us know how it works out?
Wow... it's like 3 tutorials in one... Dr. Who, Star Wars, and how a Ring Modulator works... and one critique... you missed an opportunity with your Dalek voice: YOU WILL LIKE AND SUB-SCRIBE!
@@AlexBallMusic Yes! And You do that voice so well... It's so perfect! I couldn't tell that apart from the TV Series, you might have a new line of work voicing the Daleks!
Yup! Although I'd seen Daleks in _Dr. Who_ earlier in life, my first real awareness of ring modulation was in the original _Star Wars._ It was used for the radio chatter from the x-wing fighters during the final battle around the Death Star. Although I did not know what the process was called at the time, even at 10 years of age, it I immediately was pulled in by the authenticity it added.
Alex, I really enjoy your music content! But post it without using science fiction graphics. Please make it music related graphics content.. (just asking...)
I have no known fears... I'm not scared of heights, tight spaces, crowds, bugs, etc... Other than Daleks. They scare the living bejebus out of me. As a kid growing up in the 1980s, Dr. Who would come on after Sesame Street or other kids shows and proceed to scare the crap out of me. To this day Daleks creep me the eff out!
I was wondering when you'd do some Dr Who content. I've been watching the old Who (the true Who, I'd say) now that it's all on iPlayer. Most of the early '70s series with Jon Pertwee are scored entirely with synths of the era and it's a veritable bleep and shreak fest. When you get to Tom Baker they'd gone for more orchestral sounds (though not a full orchestra - got to think of the BBC budgets!).
@@AlexBallMusicEvery season 8 (Jon Pertwee's second season) score was done electronically. After that it varied a bit but The Sea Devils has an extremely experimental electronic score by Malcolm Clarke. As mentioned, the small orchestra playing music composed by Dudley Simpson became the norm in the Tom Baker era. This changed in season 18 when John Nathan-Turner became producer and decided that the music should be done electronically by the Radiophonic Workshop. The early 80s scores mainly featured the CS-80, the mid 80s had A LOT of DX7 and occasionally the Elka Synthex and the late 80s stuff is more varied but generally features lots of samplers, the D-50, some DX7 and the M1. Keff McCulloch's work is about as 80s as you can get (the amount of orchestra hits is INSANE at times).
I'm getting over a bout of the lurgy and that made me laugh out loud. Apart from coughing my internals externally that's a brilliant demonstration and description. :)
A late turn of the century windows app was an early text to speech converter, with careful misspelling and pitch options I had it say the most often heard order, advance... I have a copy of it around the program has long vanished. It sounds very good. The Outer Limits used the ring often starting with the first show early 60's.
Learning how to create the signal chains needed for the sound you’re looking for can be challenging, but having examples I know & love used as reference points really helps. Thanks!
There have been a few comments about how (ignoring non-linearity) a ring modulator outputs the product of the carrier and modulator. To see this, we dig out the old high-school trig to get: sin(a)sin(b) = (cos(a-b)-cos(a+b))/2. I.e. ignoring phase, the sum of sine waves at the sum and difference of frequencies a and b. The effect is basically that for a wave with overtones, the resulting sine waves are no longer spaced harmonically. I got to play with some of this stuff when I contributed to an opensource software synth years ago.
I think that is from the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica in the late 1970's. The technique used there was the Vocoder, where the human voice is used to modulate a synth carrier, such as a sawtooth wave.
It was the EMS Vocoder 1000 using an ARP 2500 synth for the carrier, plus other analog gear adding color to the sound, such as EQ, compressor, tape machine and more. A RUclipsr called Supajc talked to someone who actually did the analog audio processing for the Cylon voice. He produced an excellent set of 7 videos detailing his research and demonstrating the sounds.
Hahaha nice once ! Memories of my childhood watching Dr. Who.. I only watched the first 4 seasons and I was told they were the best ones. There's something else in this tutorial, it only works with a British accent xD
Great to see you cover one of my very favourite devices. Every analogue synth should have one of these! It's the thing I most wish they'd included on the MatrixBrute. I also think it's important to tell people that what it's actually doing is multiplying the two waveforms together. I reckon that's just as important as talking about sums and differences, because it makes it easier to imagine what's actually going on. The link between the two is a bit trickier to explain, but anyone who's curious and not scared of a bit of maths can look it up: it's to do with trigonometric identities for sin(ax).sin(bx) making an expression that involves both sin((a+b)x) and sin((a-b)x). I think. It's been a while since I studied it!
Thank you! I've got about a dozen explanations all saying sum and difference. Would you mind explaining "product" as I've not seen that anywhere. Would be good to know.
@@AlexBallMusic a ring modulator multiplies one input by the amplitude of the other. The frequencies produced are indeed at the sum and difference of the frequencies of the two inputs but the process to get there is multiplicative
@@hpoz222 Thank you. OK, so my explanation was correct, I just didn't get into the multiplication part, although I did show the MS-50 legend with 'A x B' written on it and thought about going into that but it felt like too much info. Perhaps I should have clarified. Edit - Just realised that that is what 'product' is referring to in the original comment - mathematical product meaning the result of multiplication. Ok, so we're all talking about the same thing. In hindsight it would have been better to have explained that rather than jumping to the result. I live and learn. Thanks for the comments.
The terminology around this can be quite confusing - in the RF world, a ring modulator circuit (and other kinds of multipliers) would be called a "mixer", in reference to its behaviour in the frequency domain. An entirely different concept to "mixer" in an audio context, where we're talking about summing signals, rather than multiplying them.
@@MePeterNicholls there is a BBC Radiophonic Workshop video someplace on YT or used to be..showing how they did the theme remake with a CS80 and ARP Odyssey. It was good.
I remember years ago, my Dad howling with laughter at the new Moog MF-102 pedal I'd wasted my money on. For the next few days I was subjected to a constant barrage of 'ring' based Dad jokes.
At brief moment at 2:48 you sound like Max Headroom who hacked Chicago TV in 87. Ironically they were airing a Dr Who episode exactly in that time. Same ring mode technique was also likely also used when voicing Helper robot from Venture Bros, but with different wave than pure sine.
As you increase the frequency beyond the Dalek tone, you get the Cybermen twangy tone.
though the original Cybermen effect was a voice box, which is a completely different tone and quite hard to voice-act with. If you don't have the real deal, a Mu-Tron gives a reasonable approximation.
@@tuftyindigo Just to clarify, my observation was more of the recent Cybermen, but I have no idea how that was done, i just heard the twang when Alex cranked up the frequency
"life in metal, looking like a kettle"
☕
lyrics for the ages
Sick !
A dalek laughing at its own joke would be the ultimate galactic rarity.
Hilariously, some of the early Dalek voices were done by Roy Skelton, who amazingly also did Zippy from Rainbow. Adding a little bit of Zippy to a Dalek performance seems to give it the right amount of unhinged megalomania. :)
This of course gave rise to this gem:
ruclips.net/video/lmL-ilEBf8c/видео.html
Also, please please please do a full version of "Dalek Girl"!
We need to hear Zippy's voice through this effect😂
@@LFOVCF Yes! That would be the true test of how similar they really are..
Now, this is a great explanation of what ring modulation does. Simple and concise and, most of all, very fun. :D
THANK YOU HUMAN
2:39 Mild ring mod sounds like Davros. 2:44 A little more sounds more Daleky. 2:48 Go even higher and that's the Cyberman voice.
Yes! Variations of the same effect.
I was reminded of the Zippy-like "aliens" in the old 'For mash, get Smash' adverts. What I'd completely forgotten was that Smash was made by Cadbury. Those robotic voices were quite different to the silky tones in the adverts for Flake and Caramel.
Missed opportunity to tebrand as "Daleks Ball"...!
(And life in metal looking like a kettle line had me on the floor. God I needed that laugh. Thank you.)
Oh my god I need a full version of “Dalek Girl” asap!
It is well documented Ben Burt's main sound design tool is the 2600.
The Radiophonic dept used what Brian Hodgson referred to as 'the Wobbulator'
Wobbulator was a variable test tone generator. Totally different thing. There's lots of ring modulation devices that were in use at the time. VCS3 had one for instance. There's whatever Sabbath used for Paranoid.
@@MusicEnthuZone Unless they had a TARDIS of their own they wouldn't have had VCS3 in 1963 and Paranoid wasn't released until 1970
Thanks for the video.
The Doctor Who TV was where I learnt the words Exterminate, Annihilate when I was a child. The Darlek voice was where I learnt how to use ring modulation. Both are important landmarks. Kind of.
A Dalek once gave me some great skin care advice ... *EXFOLIATE*
Oh come now, you cannot tease like that! You HAVE to record a cover of Dalek Girl now. Life is metal, looking like a kettle? DO IT. OR YOU WILL BE EXFOLATED. EXFOLIATE! EXFOLIATE!
That Star Wars sound can be heard on a shortwave radio in single sideband mode (SSB) tuned slightly off center.
I thought they used a detuned SSB radio to generate all the radio chatter. Now I'm not that convinced anymore.
@@oscar_charlie I assumed they did, because I recognized the sound. Just found this Ben Burtt interview. They did use a shortwave radio. ruclips.net/video/So0nmciiFJg/видео.html @ 36 : 58
Yes I would say also USB or LSB they used for it
@@oscar_charlie Same! I suppose a ring modulator on a voice has a similar effect. My little Tecsun shortwave receiver has SSB filters with both LSB and USB.
I like having my ring modulated. Yesh.
Geert, how dare you sully the comments under Alex's video with your cheap innuendo! He is sure to be furious.
The blue on grey of the classic dalek is a dead ringer for the Boss DR-110 drum machine's colour scheme. A coincidence? I think not 😵💫
But if we push the workers any harder they will die. Dalek: Only the weak will die!
Ohh Alex. What a classic. Very useful information. Thanks for making my Friday morning in cloudy Sydney!
Cloudy with a chance of ring modulation.
Great fun! I love the ring modulator on the Yamaha CS-80 (and the 50 and 60). I had a CS-50 back in the day and spent hours getting Vangelis-like swoops and whistles playing with the ring mod. More recently. the YC range have incorporated a ring modulator that gives some surprisingly great effects - I managed a Vangelis "Beaubourg" tribute (on my channel) using just this.
Ah Beaubourg - contractual obligation album or not? It does have a certain charm all of itself even if my landlady threatened me with eviction if I ever played it within her earshot!😂
@@unclemick-synths Apparently, Vangelis was disdainful of the album in later years but I've always loved it 🙂
When i engaged my beloved Penelope, i bought her and engagement ring and in return, she bought me an mf102 "Engagement Ring modulator". True story. 😁
True love.
I am a Dalek & I love Garlic! 😂
Oh man , I am in bed with an absys in my tooth feeling sorry for my self ( kind of ).
But that made me laugh so much I think it got the blood circulation going again giving a bit of relief.
Great video , oh man that was funny.
Sounds like a visit from the Doctor was helpful. 😉
The voice variable, famously, being provided (in the early days) by (among others) Captain Pugwash, Brains from Thunderbirds and Zippy from Rainbow. This is actually true.
I like to think that inside, Daleks look like Zippy.
“Everybody knows that, Bunglebones!”
I'm a Dalek Girl😂😂😂
You need to do Dalek Patreon shout outs.
Thank you for this proper lesson. At least i understood Ring Modulation🙂
And the voice of Commander Powell in John Carpenter's first film, "Dark Star."
I can do it with an epiglottis frig or whatever it is called. My 10-year-old son was impressed with my impression of Davros and you can get as technical as you like, but those fundamentals don't engage with a kid in grade 5. Otherwise ... very entertaining. On the Ball as always. $0.02
Like this fun tutorial. How about Metal Mickey? He’s well dodgy, even more so than a robo-fascist.
The Conversation is another film with lots of hot ringmod action
Great movie 👍
This works so much better if you have an English accent :)
The Doepfer A-114 Dual Ring Modulator MULTIPLIES the two inputs.
Curious, isn't it?
Does the MS-50 have a real ring mod? The thing marked as a ring mod on the MS20 is a logic gate iirc
Does this effect go in before the mic pre-amp I'm guessing? I'm thinking about making a pedal that does this and getting my mate to sing part of a song as a dalek at our next gig.
Any other old gabber heads having a revelation about "I will have that power"? 😅
Wikipedia says the original (1963) Dalek voice was a "midrange boosted human voice" ring modulated by a 30 Hz. sine wave.
The windows app Goldwave has a opinion called robot which basically sounds like a Delek.
Ex-ter-mi-nate!!!
Hahaha great video Alex! We were all wondering how they did it! Dope video.
I’m still scared of the Daleks. It started in 1974 for me.
Holding out for, “ The Daleks do Disco”.
yeh, ringmod is a very cool tool,. i use it all the time. great content Alex! 👍
OMG I'm a Dalek Girl was PURE WIN.
***SCANNER TO SYSTEM - I SEE THE REBEL BASE***
I was thinking about the MS50's VCA and ring modulator the other day, because of comments we exchanged recently: *if* they both work all the way down to DC, and *if* they are accurately linear, I reckon you will be able to use them to scale and multiply the pitch CVs out of an SQ10 and a keyboard. The output would give you correct pitch transposition of the sequence.
My, my. How would one set that up?
@@AlexBallMusic I've had a look at an online manual for the MS50 now, and I need to point out that this won't work if you use the VCA that's got a low cut filter, because that won't pass DC voltages - use the one with no knobs. I sold my MS series kit fifteen years ago when I left the UK, and I'd forgotten there were two separate VCAs on the unit.
I think it's going to be necessary to use the VCA to scale down the keyboard CV, because otherwise it might get large enough to drive the ring mod into clipping.
First thing, connect the mod wheel of the MS20 or the voltage source of the MS50 to the control input of the VCA and the keyboard CV to the other, and patch the output to the meter. If you set the mod wheel / voltage source about half way up and play a key, does the meter show a steady output voltage or does it drift towards zero? Check this for both the VCA and the ring mod, and if both of them show a steady reading, things might work. It shouldn't matter which way round you plug them into the A and B inputs of the ring mod
Second thing would be to check if the VCA is decently linear. Patch the mod wheel of the MS20 or the voltage source of the MS50 to the control input of the VCA and the keyboard to the other, and route the output to the oscillator pitch CV input. You should find that if you hold a key and adjust the mod wheel / voltage source, it will transpose the pitch. If you play octave jumps on the keyboard, does the oscillator jump octaves, or does it go out of tune? If it stays in tune, we're good: try the same thing with the ring mod.
If both of them stay in tune, I would set up the patch as: Mod wheel or voltage source to the control input of the VCA, keyboard CV to the signal input of the VCA, output of the VCA to one input of the ring mod, pitch CV from the SQ10 to the other, output of the ring mod to the pitch CV of your oscillators. If you don't have the SQ10 at the moment, but do have a second MS series keyboard to hand, you can do a proof of concept by connecting the second keyboard in place of the sequencer. What I'm expecting is that both keyboards should track octaves correctly, and you should be able to use the control input of the VCA to adjust the overall tuning. So if you play a C on both keyboards, there will be a setting of the VCA that makes the oscillators play C.
I hope this is reasonably clear. We can take this to email if you prefer.
I forgot the meter on the MS50 had separate inputs for DC and AC - use the DC one.
@@David_K_Booth Awesome - thank you!
@@AlexBallMusic It could go wrong at any point, but it's the best approach I can think of. This is why we ended up with linear 1v per octave as the de facto standard, not Korg's exponential tracking: you don't need to go through contortions like that in order to do something as simple as transposing from a keyboard. Let us know how it works out?
Fucking mental video... loved it!
Cheers m'dear. Will be trying this out at my next team meeting. Just to freak 'em out.
You should have done Frankie Boyle's Dalek poetry........"DAFFODILS"
Wow... it's like 3 tutorials in one... Dr. Who, Star Wars, and how a Ring Modulator works... and one critique... you missed an opportunity with your Dalek voice: YOU WILL LIKE AND SUB-SCRIBE!
The most forceful subscription request of all time. 😂
@@AlexBallMusic Yes! And You do that voice so well... It's so perfect! I couldn't tell that apart from the TV Series, you might have a new line of work voicing the Daleks!
Yup! Although I'd seen Daleks in _Dr. Who_ earlier in life, my first real awareness of ring modulation was in the original _Star Wars._ It was used for the radio chatter from the x-wing fighters during the final battle around the Death Star. Although I did not know what the process was called at the time, even at 10 years of age, it I immediately was pulled in by the authenticity it added.
You need to try less pitch variation except to the key words very deliberately
I ate the jam sandwich.
I always wished a Dalek would roll in and quip, "What's all this then?!?"
Alex,
I really enjoy your music content! But post it without using science fiction graphics. Please make it music related graphics content.. (just asking...)
I have no known fears... I'm not scared of heights, tight spaces, crowds, bugs, etc... Other than Daleks. They scare the living bejebus out of me. As a kid growing up in the 1980s, Dr. Who would come on after Sesame Street or other kids shows and proceed to scare the crap out of me. To this day Daleks creep me the eff out!
I just realized this is the same technique used to do some of the beetle voices in Spoilsbury Toast Boy. Weird. Maybe Alex is a beetle.
I was wondering when you'd do some Dr Who content. I've been watching the old Who (the true Who, I'd say) now that it's all on iPlayer. Most of the early '70s series with Jon Pertwee are scored entirely with synths of the era and it's a veritable bleep and shreak fest. When you get to Tom Baker they'd gone for more orchestral sounds (though not a full orchestra - got to think of the BBC budgets!).
I've seen very few of the very early ones. I'll have to have an iPlayer trawl.
@@AlexBallMusicEvery season 8 (Jon Pertwee's second season) score was done electronically. After that it varied a bit but The Sea Devils has an extremely experimental electronic score by Malcolm Clarke. As mentioned, the small orchestra playing music composed by Dudley Simpson became the norm in the Tom Baker era. This changed in season 18 when John Nathan-Turner became producer and decided that the music should be done electronically by the Radiophonic Workshop. The early 80s scores mainly featured the CS-80, the mid 80s had A LOT of DX7 and occasionally the Elka Synthex and the late 80s stuff is more varied but generally features lots of samplers, the D-50, some DX7 and the M1. Keff McCulloch's work is about as 80s as you can get (the amount of orchestra hits is INSANE at times).
@@AlexBallMusic the Autons were great in Jon Pertwee's debut. Definitely got me peeking round the sofa!
I'm getting over a bout of the lurgy and that made me laugh out loud. Apart from coughing my internals externally that's a brilliant demonstration and description. :)
Alex, did you find yourself incapable of climbing stairs after recording this video?
You have to really give it and go for it doing Dalek voice or it’s … shit
A late turn of the century windows app was an early text to speech converter, with careful misspelling and pitch options I had it say the most often heard order, advance... I have a copy of it around the program has long vanished. It sounds very good. The Outer Limits used the ring often starting with the first show early 60's.
After many years of wanting one, I recently bought a Behringer 2600. Can you guess what the first thing I did was to annoy the missus with?
Try moving the formant up a bit; or even the pitch. Sounds Dal-icious!
Great. In my channel I have mine using AJH Synth modules.
As usual. Know how and fun. If only schools could be managed this way...
4:17 - you mean Sonic Screwdriver.
Excellent.
Giving Nicholas Briggs a run for his money. Or behind his sofa.
How to do the Dalek voice and trying to remain serious for the purpose of recording a video on that 🙃
well, I'm hiding behind the couch again, anybody else?!
What's the three-stringed instrument in the background at 2:04?
It always sounded to me like they used the higher-pitched ring modulator for the voice of the Cybermen as well.
I dislike ring modulation with a passion and never use it however this is an exception
Natash Beddingfeld has a nice Dalek song... "No one else can do it for you! No one else! No one else!"
Learning how to create the signal chains needed for the sound you’re looking for can be challenging, but having examples I know & love used as reference points really helps. Thanks!
There have been a few comments about how (ignoring non-linearity) a ring modulator outputs the product of the carrier and modulator. To see this, we dig out the old high-school trig to get: sin(a)sin(b) = (cos(a-b)-cos(a+b))/2. I.e. ignoring phase, the sum of sine waves at the sum and difference of frequencies a and b. The effect is basically that for a wave with overtones, the resulting sine waves are no longer spaced harmonically. I got to play with some of this stuff when I contributed to an opensource software synth years ago.
It’s like instant Hawkwind and Dave Brock too!
Sorry i only know the polished kettle, that says ‘by your command’. It scared me as a kid. I now love it 🤖
I think that is from the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica in the late 1970's. The technique used there was the Vocoder, where the human voice is used to modulate a synth carrier, such as a sawtooth wave.
yes vocoder, the question is, which one was it. There is a website about it somewhere :)@@NeuroPete
It was the EMS Vocoder 1000 using an ARP 2500 synth for the carrier, plus other analog gear adding color to the sound, such as EQ, compressor, tape machine and more. A RUclipsr called Supajc talked to someone who actually did the analog audio processing for the Cylon voice. He produced an excellent set of 7 videos detailing his research and demonstrating the sounds.
Can you also do that with an Odyssey? I tried it but I didn't get much out of it
Ring mod should be outlawed. Now I know the enemy better.
Hahaha nice once ! Memories of my childhood watching Dr. Who.. I only watched the first 4 seasons and I was told they were the best ones. There's something else in this tutorial, it only works with a British accent xD
Great to see you cover one of my very favourite devices. Every analogue synth should have one of these! It's the thing I most wish they'd included on the MatrixBrute. I also think it's important to tell people that what it's actually doing is multiplying the two waveforms together. I reckon that's just as important as talking about sums and differences, because it makes it easier to imagine what's actually going on. The link between the two is a bit trickier to explain, but anyone who's curious and not scared of a bit of maths can look it up: it's to do with trigonometric identities for sin(ax).sin(bx) making an expression that involves both sin((a+b)x) and sin((a-b)x). I think. It's been a while since I studied it!
I tried to use some tricks, sometimes it was very close to Nick Briggs' voice
Thank you for explaining that. I've never used a ring modulator for that purpose, but now I'm going to have to give it a try.
Great fun ,cheers Alex
"...put your voice into it and experiment. Experiment! Experiment!"
It almost sounds overdriven, too. Amp'ed
Dude 😂 0:52 had me crying
A ring modulator gives you the product, not the sum of the two signals. Fantastic video! As always
Thank you!
I've got about a dozen explanations all saying sum and difference. Would you mind explaining "product" as I've not seen that anywhere. Would be good to know.
@@AlexBallMusic a ring modulator multiplies one input by the amplitude of the other. The frequencies produced are indeed at the sum and difference of the frequencies of the two inputs but the process to get there is multiplicative
@@hpoz222I believe in mathematical terms it's called a 4 quadrant multiplier, correct? Whereas AM is 2 Quadrant
@@hpoz222 Thank you. OK, so my explanation was correct, I just didn't get into the multiplication part, although I did show the MS-50 legend with 'A x B' written on it and thought about going into that but it felt like too much info. Perhaps I should have clarified.
Edit - Just realised that that is what 'product' is referring to in the original comment - mathematical product meaning the result of multiplication.
Ok, so we're all talking about the same thing. In hindsight it would have been better to have explained that rather than jumping to the result. I live and learn. Thanks for the comments.
The terminology around this can be quite confusing - in the RF world, a ring modulator circuit (and other kinds of multipliers) would be called a "mixer", in reference to its behaviour in the frequency domain. An entirely different concept to "mixer" in an audio context, where we're talking about summing signals, rather than multiplying them.
Thanks for this video Dalex. 😮
Educates, Informs and Entertains!
“I am and always will be the optimist" that there will continue to be great content on this channel.
They also used a Ring Mod for the opening theme tune reboot in the Tom Baker era for the cool intro noise.
I’d love to know how to recreate that scream
@@MePeterNicholls there is a BBC Radiophonic Workshop video someplace on YT or used to be..showing how they did the theme remake with a CS80 and ARP Odyssey. It was good.
@@supersteveworld yeh. That screams not as good tho ;)
Finally! A synth tip for my generation!
How do they do Mr Blobbys voice?
Ah, I must find my Dalek relaxation tape for humans.
Breath in....
YOU ARE FLOATING ON A CLOUD
ALL IS TRANQUIL
TRANQUIL! TRANQUIIIIILLL!!!
Lord of the ring modulator.
I remember years ago, my Dad howling with laughter at the new Moog MF-102 pedal I'd wasted my money on. For the next few days I was subjected to a constant barrage of 'ring' based Dad jokes.
All jokes are funnier through a ring mod. This is science.
Timely and topical. I'm amazed.
"No, R2. I am your father."
Impressively authentic
"I'm a dalek girl..." ended me ;)
Meet me upstairs, Mr. Dalek.
Ha! Nerd!
At brief moment at 2:48 you sound like Max Headroom who hacked Chicago TV in 87. Ironically they were airing a Dr Who episode exactly in that time.
Same ring mode technique was also likely also used when voicing Helper robot from Venture Bros, but with different wave than pure sine.