MOTM

-> 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