Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:08 pm Post subject: Mooger Fooger.
In the style of Luke Skywalker fashioning his own light sabre, I've decided to have a bash at building a Ring Modulator.
Some interesting facts for people (and boring repetition for others )
Ring Modulators are sometimes called metalizers.
Guitars generate a single dimensional sound on the string generating harmonics from the fundamentals of the note.
Bells and gongs are 3 dimensional sounds and 2 dimensional sounds so the frequencies produced are not necessarily fundamentals of the target note. Since most 2 or 3 dimensional instruments are made of metal, ring modulators are thought to produce a sound similar to a metal instrument.. hence metalizer.
If you want to cheaply immitate a ring modulator pick up the g string, pull it to the other side of the b string so it crosses for a section and press it and the b string down say at the 7th fret.. now play the b string.. that's a pretty similar sound. Basically the frequencies of both notes is being mixed.
In the electrical version a signal is added to the guitar signal and the notes are heterodyned together (so a signal of 20hz added to a guitar signal of 440hz will make 420hz and 460hz) to make freakish and fun sounds.
I'm just revising the schematic at present to include different sine waves for the modulator and and attaching flashing lights to the modulator signal and an on light and a true bypass. I'll bore you guys a bit more later
Anyone else here do pedal stuff? _________________ Fabulous powers were revealed to me the day I held my magic Suhr(d) aloft and said "by the power of great scale!"
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 2:13 am Post subject:
Interesting info, frankus. That Mooger Fooger is a pretty trippy pedal. I'm normally not into those kinds of wacky sounds but they can be put to good use if applied properly. Obviously, Guthrie makes it work well for him. I wouldn't really know where to begin. Do you mess with it a lot? _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
Well track 5 on the Live at the Bassment album was pretty much my introduction to one, I'd tinkered with the metalizer on the zoom 9001 multi fx, and there are some bits on the live track of Time Machine by Satriani.
There's also a track on the Partisans CD called Max that uses a ring mod. The more I look at it, the more I think the actual logic of the system isn't a million miles from the whammy pedal.
I was basically curious as to how it did what it did. I also think the stuff about it resembling a gong or bell explains stuff like the gonkulator (although there is a reference to it as a fake electric device in Hogan's Heroes).
I'm looking at it as a means to get to grips with the concepts of wave modulation (sine, saw tooth and square) .. also found in tremolos.. and also LFOs as these are found in phasers. The idea is to make the range of the LFO quite broad so it can be hooked up to an expression pedal.
All that said, I'm hating wiring it up on a bread board and rarely get any time to complete it. What's more I bought a varitone and reused the breadboard to try out all my instruments with it. Big D's varitone is awesome and I'm trying to find a way to house it externally as I like it on all my guitars .. but I can't reconsile myself to radically altering the lines of the strat given the sheer effort involved to convert it from an 84 smith strat to a 2k strat with a tex-mex wiring.. and then to add a whopping great black chicken head knob to the scratch plate _________________ Fabulous powers were revealed to me the day I held my magic Suhr(d) aloft and said "by the power of great scale!"
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