wierd ring type thing... or Armstrong Green Ringer

[Sean Costello]

Scott Gravenhorst wrote:

> Question:  Has anyone here actually ever used one?
> If so, on what?
> And what did it do/sound like?

Someone else wrote "poor man's Octavia," which is pretty much dead on.  I
would emphasize that it sounds closer to the current Roger Mayer Octavia
(smooth, trebly, somewhat subtle) than the Tychobrahe Octavia (psycho).
Both designs are Roger Mayer's, mind you - the Tychobrahe was a ripoff of an
original 60's Mayer Octavia.  Anyway, the Green Ringer, when I tried it,
seemed very subtle, and didn't really produce distortion, just the
rectification effect.  It would be good for feeding the input of your
favorite fuzz, to get a rectified fuzz with the EQ you like (it would be
real nice going into a Big Muff - then again, I think EVERYTHING is better
going through a Big Muff.  I have 3, and I often use them all at once, on
drums, synths, etc.).

> Basically, I want to know if it would be worth my trouble to put a
> "real" one together.  Right now, it's just on a solderless breadboard.
> I can't see this being much good on my FatMan since I have other ways
> of generating the 2nd harmonic that this produces.  Probably electric
> guit*r?

Actually, full wave rectifiers are very nice for running synths through,
especially synths that have VERY resonant filters.  By placing the filter
resonance just below self oscillation, and running it through the rectifier,
you can get some very ring modulator-esque effects with just a single
oscillator synth.  Additionally, a two oscillator synth sounds very wicked,
as you will get a sum and difference effect that varies with the interval
between the oscillators.  Example: set your Fatman oscillators for a major
third.  Run it through the full wave rectifier, and the output is a
distorted signal an octave below the root of the third.  It's super nasty
fun!  I have used my Fulltone Octafuzz on a send/return on my Mackie, to get
wicked drones when a few synths are run through it at once.

Sean Costello

P.S.  Check out the voltage-controlled full wave rectifier in the Serge
Tcherepnin patent at the IBM Patent Server site (I forgot the address, but
you can find it easy at Yahoo).  By using a single LM3900 and a few diodes,
resistors and caps, you can have four cascaded stages that can vary from no
effect to full wave rectification, with nice transitions in between.  I
built a single stage of this circuit, and the effect of changing the control
voltage was very nice - a cross between PWM, and the effect of two sawtooth
oscillators beating in and out of phase with each other.