Thanks! That's as lucid and down-to-earth an explanation as I
could've asked for. So basically, a frequency shifter allows you to
send the sum and the difference frequencies to seperate outputs (that
must sound interesting with one output panned hard left, the other
hard right), whereas a "conventional" ring modulator doesn't allow
you to seperate the two. That's the main difference?
What I was referring to as an octave divider sounds like what's being
called a pitch shifter in this thread. For some reason, I always
thought a pitch shifter was strictly a digital device that changed
the pitch of sampled audio input without altering the length/speed.
This may be a naive question, but if a frequency shifter is basically
two ring modulators in parallel, why are FS's so expensive? For the
price of one Serge FS (external carrier), a person could buy 4 or 5
of the ring modulator modules...does anyone have any theories as to
why this is? Is seperating the sum/difference frequencies more
difficult to achieve than producing both of them combined?
Igor.
could've asked for. So basically, a frequency shifter allows you to
send the sum and the difference frequencies to seperate outputs (that
must sound interesting with one output panned hard left, the other
hard right), whereas a "conventional" ring modulator doesn't allow
you to seperate the two. That's the main difference?
What I was referring to as an octave divider sounds like what's being
called a pitch shifter in this thread. For some reason, I always
thought a pitch shifter was strictly a digital device that changed
the pitch of sampled audio input without altering the length/speed.
This may be a naive question, but if a frequency shifter is basically
two ring modulators in parallel, why are FS's so expensive? For the
price of one Serge FS (external carrier), a person could buy 4 or 5
of the ring modulator modules...does anyone have any theories as to
why this is? Is seperating the sum/difference frequencies more
difficult to achieve than producing both of them combined?
Igor.
--- In SergeModular@y..., John Papiewski <johnp@w...> wrote:
> Hey Igor,
>
> You can think of a frequency shifter as a ring modulator with TWO
> outputs: the upshift output has only the sum of the two input
> frequencies, the downshift output has only the difference
frequencies.
> Serge has two FS's in their catalog, the internal carrier model,
which
> has an onboard sinewave oscillator, and the external carrier, which
lets
> you use your own sinewave or some other waveform or complex source.
>
> Please note that since it is ring modulator based, a frequency
shifter
> is NOT a pitch shifter! A frequency shifter will add the carrier
> frequency to all the harmonics of the sound you want to shift. The
> greater the carrier frequency, the more pronounced the harmonic
> distortion. This is suitable for, well, distortion effects like
> robot/computer/alien voices, etc. At very low carrier frequencies
the
> FS will simply impart vibrato, mild doppler effects, leslie effects
etc
> since the harmonic distortion is more subtle and harder to notice.
>
> A pitch shifter on the other hand will multiply by the harmonic
> frequencies, keeping the original sound's harmonic structure
intact, so
> you can *transpose* the original sound by an octave, fifth, or some
> other arbitrary interval. You can't do this with a frequency
shifter as
> far as I know.
>
> Make sense??
>
> John P.