Hello, I am always hearing people talk about the "classic ring modulator" sound but cannot figure out what they are talking about. Can someone please send me a patch example of what this is? Or even a couple."

Try using two sine waves as the inputs, and turn the main knob on the RM module all the way clockwise. Tune the two sine waves a fifth apart (tune the second osc 7 half steps above the first). Or, tune them a sixth apart (nine half steps) and then use the fine tune control to slow down the "beating" effect you hear. I personally prefer this tuning for the "classic" RM sound. Then try substituting different waveforms for the sine waves (use oscillators with selectable waveforms to make this easier).

Just take the RM module and set the big knob to the RM setting, input any audio and connect an oscillator to the modulation input. As an alternative you can use the gain controller module as well. That's also a ringmodulator, or better balanced modulator or more technical a four-quadrant multiplier. Different words for the same thing. You can even use the AM input present on some of the slave oscillators, as those are actually ringmodulators as well.

The actual ringmodulator circuit is around for a very long time, it was and still is used much in radio techniques, e.g. in shortwave radio SSB and for decoding FM radio signals to audio. It is also used as a scrambler/descramber, ringmodulation of a signal with a high frequency sinewave can be more or less undone by ringmodulating it again with a sinewave of the same frequency. If those sinewaves don't match perfectly you get a 'beat' in the signal, like you can hear on some shortwave radiobands. Scrambling with two disharmonic sinewaves means you need to know the exact frequencies of those two waves to render the signal legible again. Sixties 007 stuff, so to say.

Feeding a sinewave in both inputs of a ringmodulator will output a sinewave with the frequency twice as high. The signal will also be positive only. This can be very useful on LFO signals, its like you flip the negative portion to the positive domain and make it exponential as well. I use this a lot on the random LFO as it will thus give a positive only signal with a more natural 'exponential' modulationcurve on e.g. slow random filtersweeps. Just feed the random LFO into both inputs of a gain controller module and connect the output to e.g. a modulation input of a filter or the phaser module and set the LFO speed to a slow speed.

It's hard to use the effect musically, but a very good example of some ringmodulator uses you will find on the seventies Billy Cobham album Spectrum. Suppose those can be considered classical ringmodulator sounds, as that album was very well-known then.

I too have been looking for a CS-80 like ringmod sound, which to me IS a very musical ringmod.. I have a CS-40m, but it's not quite the same, you can't control the amount of ringmod vs the original signal, it's just on/off on the CS-40m. I got some great sounds out of my Modular once, but silly me! I didn't save it.. Anyway, for a good musical use of ringmod, check out some of Vangelis' records starting from 1976, when he bought the CS-80 and used its ringmod very much. If you have 1492 Conquest of Paradise album from 1992, it's last song has a mesmerizing lead that uses ringmod at it's end.. brrrr, gives me the shivers every time! </ramble>

Maybe thats why I presumed "classic" meant the nonharmonic sounds you get when ringmodulating two non-frequency tracking sources, like an audio source and an oscillator with fixed frequency. (I do like that old fifties and early sixties electronic stuff especially of its from cheap B-movies. As well as e.g. those Pierre Henry remixes by St Germain, William Orbit and Dimitri on Metamorphose Messe pour le Temps Present. And the endless number of other styles, sounds, etc. in our endless universe)

So I repeat Angela's question, what the heck is THE "classic ringmodulator sound"?

When I asked about the classic ring mod sound, I meant the ring mod sound of 70s prog rock and fusion groups and lead synth solos, I have heard that it was used that way, but I don't know, seeing how I don't know what effect the ring mod has on sounds, or how to use one.

I seem to recall a thread about a 70s fusion record with George Duke playing a ring mod solo with a Rhodes running thru the audio in on an Odyssey. If anyone knows the name of this ecording, please pass it along, as I would like to hear what the timbres were like.