Ring Modulation – Synth Clips 21 – Daniel Fisher

Daniel Fisher, Sweetwater's synth guru, takes you on a discovery of the creative potential and inner workings of ring modulation.

0:00 – Intro
0:19 – Moog Grandmother Synth
0:45 – AM (Amplitude Modulation)
3:50 – Turn Knobs as Slowly as You Can
4:14 – Different Notes with Ring Mod
5:00 – Using Ring Mod for GIRTH
6:26 – Moogerfooger MF-102 Ring Mod
8:17 – Modulating the Modulator of the Carrier
9:52 – Ring Mod on Your Solos
10:20 – EHX Ring Thing
11:02 – Standard Ring Mod
11:43 –Stereo Ring Mod Split
12:40 – Different Modulator Wave Shapes
13:05 – Ring Thing for Pitch Shifting
14:13 – 5th Pitch Shift on Fifths
15:06 – Ring Mod Wrap Up
15:32 – Thanks for Watching!

#Sweetwater

[sweetwater]

Thanks for checking out this episode of Synth Clips! Let us know what you thought by liking this video, commenting, and subscribing🔔

[Noise-Conductor]

"it's your job to find those momentary slivers of beauty"

[winddealer]

These "bite size" formats makes a lot of sense. Focused deep dive on a single primary function available with most synths. Great way to divide and conquer the available complexity of sound design. Clever to include the other accessories to augment and fortify the concepts. Gratefully.

[UncleMilty]

As we used to say back in the day (60s) Far out! Love this series! Thx Sweetwater forever.

[tomtebby]

Thank you Daniel - another great synth clip video. Although I love your demos of new synths I think these in-depth videos on techniques is very interesting and great for the synth nerds amongst us.

[coolguy]

I am very thankful to live and be young in a time where we can have vast amounts of fun education like this completely for free. Also, I was surprised to think that the electro-harmonix pedal sounded much better to my ears than the moog one. I assumed going in that it would be the other way around. Thank you for this video!

[joelowens]

Great video. Remember there are big differences between strict AM, which is in fact tremolo, and balanced modulation. A balanced modulator outputs signal in all four multiplier quadrants (in both positive and negative going phases of the carrier and the modulating signal). AM will produce a zero signal output where the modulating signal is less than or equal (near) zero. At the point where the carrier is suppressed, all you have is the lower and upper harmonics, which puts the ‘ring’ in the sound.

[dani_raudvik]

I just stumbled across this playlist the other day and it's been a refreshing way to brush up on some things I don't use too often in my own designs. This video in particular was really helpful to me since I kind of get how to make ring mod do what I want it to do, but I never really got... why?
Thanks to this video, I have a better understanding and feel like I can be more targeted in my approach with ring mod in future designs, so thank you again for putting this out there.

[joxer]

Slivers of beauty...a beautiful concept itself!

[lkstr]

Thanks so much, Daniel! Whenever I have a nagging synthesis question I always end up finding one of your videos to answer it. I greatly appreciate what you do!

[krea]

This synth clip is unreal. I really like how Ring Modulation emits annihilating sounds. 🤖

[georgetouros]

I just got a RingThing and I can say I've got a real thing for it!

[arcadeapocalypsemusic]

@5:25 making me wanna go play some Atari now

[bobboulden]

That "Ring Thing" effect with one side going up while the other side goes down make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

[MYGAS]

Thank you for your informative video. I play guitar and I am fascinated by the ringmodulator effect. I understand I think the concept of the two sidebands one as the sum and the other as the difference. What I don't understand is what exactly is happening when I tune the internal modulator to a certain note of my guitars' carrier signal. How is this possible?

[geraldgoodiii]

I’m guilty of cranking up the rate too fast. Gonna try out the slow build. Thanks man!!

[simoantere]

This was good, came here to watch the Moogerfooger in action with the Grandmother. However, it would be super interesting to see a video of cross patching the two since the MF has inputs and outputs. I guess I do it myself in near future with my units! And by the way, ring mod is most powerful with more simple waveforms.

[geraldgoodiii]

Arojnd 2:10 rigggghhtt before u hit the side bands it almost had a Reese bass sound. Dope !

[mulkytool]

I would like to see a clip about the gated sequencer, like the one on the prophet rev 2, thanks :)

[pfmmodule]

Nice video as always. Got Grandmother (from Sweetwater) and a real old big briar MF102. Got some 1/4 to 1/8 cables, can I safely patch between the Grandmother and MF102 like swapping out the MF102 carrier with one of the GMs oscillators or patching the MF102 LFO into GM?