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-> I send an audio input and a control input into my ring mod, and well, not much really happens. Anyone have any suggestions on how we can get more ring from the ring mod?
->> When you say "Control input," you don't mean a control voltage, do you...?
->>> Yes, control voltage
----REPLY----
That's your problem right there. If you feed a control voltage into one of the inputs of a Ring Modulator, you are basically using it as a VCA, not a ring modulator.
Here's a quick & dirty explanation that will probably make the more math-enabled and technical folks cringe, but hopefully shed some light on what you're doing.
A ring modulator (or "Balanced Modulator") is a 4-quadrant [amplitude] multiplier. Think of a cross-shaped X-Y 'Cartesian' graph, you know, the kind of thing you use to plot "x,y" "-x,y" "-x, -y" etc. There are your four quadrants: positive and negative for both X and Y.
Audio signals swing back and forth from positive to negative and back (with reference to ground). When using a ring modulator, you are multiplying two AUDIO signals together, hence your four quadrants (+/- for X, +/- for Y). You are multiplying the amplitudes of the two together, regardless of what phase they are in.
If you make either X or Y a _control voltage_, you are doing ∗two∗-quadrant multiplication. You are multiplying the amplitude of your signal by the control voltage. This is a VCA! Because your control voltage is not a signal, you just "lost two quadrants."
Ring modulators are best thought of as working in the frequency domain, not voltage. You are multiplying ∗frequencies∗ together to get their sum & difference frequencies. If one of the signals is a DC voltage, then its frequency is essentially "zero" and you aren't really doing what you want to do.
On the other hand, you can get some ring-modulator-type sounds out of a VCA if you feed a signal into the control voltage input. It isn't true ring modulation, because the circuitry isn't multiply with four quadrants (still only two), but the signal at the control input can be "lifted" above ground so that it still oscillates, just that its swing is all above the zero-line and never goes negative. You can get a different range of metallic sounds that way.
Make any sense? I could probably explain it better... I'm just kind of winging it while typing with one hand and eating my lunch with the other... <g> I'm much better with a pen and a napkin for this kind of thing.
Long and the short of it---take the control voltage cord ∗out∗ of the ring modulator and jack it into the CV input of a VCO or VC-LFO, and take the sine (or whatever) output of THAT and put it where you originally had the CV going into the ring modulator. I think that's the effect you're looking for.
Mr. T