Ring modulators

[altariel]

On the off-chance that one of you knows, a query from a FB friend:

"What were ring modulators used for originally, please? Not their application in music/special effects, but the original application, please?"

Comments

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Reversing the polarity of the neutron flow?

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hee! That's kind of where I am.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

The ring modulator is a signal processing device for multiplying two input signals together. They were used in early FM radio receivers. But they have been used as an audio effects device ever since the earliest days of electronic music.

The question seems to presuppose that ring modulators were invented for some specific application, then nicked by musicians to make weird sound effects, but from my reading I'm not sure that's true. Rather, the ring modulator was created to perform a fundamental operation in signal processing, and creating weird sound effects was one of the earliest and most celebrated applications.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Iain, that chimes with answers I've got from elsewhere. Will pass it on.

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

And that saves the Resident Geek embarking on the explanation he was about to understake. (I spotted this on FB first and got confused about which set of explanations had got furthest) - as ever, the erudition of your LJ flist is unparallelled!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my flisters both rock and roll!

Radio first I think?

[mrazalais.livejournal.com]

A ring modulator is just a specific implementation of a heterodyne circuit (which is what the radio world calls a circuit that mixes two frequency inputs and spits out the sum and difference of the frequencies) IIRC. The patents on those date from about 1902 if this is to be believed.

When does the earliest electronic music date from? I suspect the radio application pre-dates it by some time.

Re: Radio first I think?

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

OK, I take it back - he couldn't resist explaining anyway...

Re: Radio first I think?

[mrazalais.livejournal.com]

Phbbbbt.

Re: Radio first I think?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thank you, kind sir!

[gair.livejournal.com]

The question seems to presuppose that ring modulators were invented for some specific application, then nicked by musicians to make weird sound effects, but from my reading I'm not sure that's true.

::nods:: I transcribed an electronic-music event a while back, and they had some interviews with people who'd worked at Bell Labs and developed some of the earliest electronic thingammyjigs, and the impression they gave me (possibly nostalgic, of course) was that they got paid to mess about making weird noises: I don't know specifically about the ring modulator, but I think that actually musicians and creative types drove the research to a much greater extent than I would have imagined.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I have that sense too. (Is your transcription online anywhere? I've found this really interesting ever since that brilliant paper at the Who conference.)

[gair.livejournal.com]

I know! (re: brilliance of paper.) No, apparently my laborious transcriptions never got put online: the event website is here (the guy talking about it was Billy Kluver). I don't know what will have happened to them...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. Amazes me that a conference from 2002 can have such a contemporary looking website. T'internets still seem so new...

[gair.livejournal.com]

It was a new-media/technology/art conference, so it had the best chance of being cutting-edge, I guess. But yes! I remember when this was all txt....