Date: Tue, 05 Sep 95 17:44:56 CET
From: "kve" <kve@smtp.fl.dk>

     Hi there,
     
     
     The Booster & Ring Modulator features are very powerful in the JV, 
     since it is the only way to create entire new waveforms from the 
     existing ones.
     
     They're not much used, probably because it is not easy to use these 
     functions properly (it is very easy to make some dirty sounds coming 
     from the gates of hell with it, but a good sound without too much 
     dirty harmonics - that's not easy!).
     
     Very careful use of the filters do a great job here (remember - you 
     then have 2 filters in series!). Small modifications in keyfollow, 
     resonance etc. here give drastic differences in sound.
     
     
     Let me summarise some of my previous mails:
     
     
     
     RING MODULATOR:
     
     Basically multiplies both waves. Those people knowing about Fourrier 
     analysis and trigonmetry know that this operation results in added and 
     subtracted frequencies, including all harmonics. Hence, you obtain a 
     sound with a lot of non-harmonic overtones.
     
     FIRST LESSON: Try to combine two sines, one detuned Coarse +7.
     
     I also had some good results with the subsonic waves (Low sine, Low 
     saw etc) combined with a "normal" wave. Obviously, the pitch settings 
     of both waves also play a major role.
     
     
     
     FXM:
     
     FXM is mainly for noisy sounds. In fact, it's a kind of ring 
     modulation, but using twice the same wave. I had good experiences with 
     simple waves (sine etc).
     
     There is though one very interesting use (execpt for all the strange 
     sound effects): adding some growl-like effects. You can here this 
     clearly in some of the sax parts: when hit they key hard, you get a 
     typical growl. When analysing how they did this, I found out that it's 
     by using the FXM (check it!).
     
     FIRST LESSON: Try to add some FXM growl to a sharp trumpet sound. Make 
     it happen only when you hit they keys very hard.
     
     
     
     BOOSTER:
     
     When I just bought my JV, I obviously was very courious about this 
     booster, and hence took some preset and changed the structure to 3 or 
     4. I was rather disappointed: it merely gave some distortion.
     
     I now discovered that this is NOT how to use the booster. Instead, if 
     you carefully think about what the booster does, it is really a great 
     thing (just as the ring modulator).
     
     Boost pushes the waves until they clip, even if boost is set to 0. 
     Wave gain increases the effect.
     
     The TVA envelope on the other hand, is used -after- this, and hence 
     has no effect on the clipping.
     
     Using for instance a simple triangle wave, with a high gain and boost, 
     and combined with the DC wave, creates a kind of pulse wave. If you 
     take the structure with at least one TVF after the boost, you have 
     created a new wave and can treat it with the TVF.
     
     Since TVA1 or TVA3 adjusts the balance of the wave and the DC wave, 
     you can make this one velocity sensitive and hence having a sound that 
     changes from triangle to pulse depending on the velocity (of course, 
     you can also use the LFO, so your sound sweeps between triangle to 
     pulse).
     
     Now, replace the DC with a LOW SINE wave. You now have some additional 
     sweep, which lets you create (together with the LFOs) some very 
     complex sweeping.
     
     If you use instead of the triangle some other wave, you can get very 
     wild effects with the booster. But my experience is that you can 
     better 'control' the booster function if you use at least one very 
     simple wave (DC, LOW SINE, LOW TRIANGLE,,,,).
     
     So, if you spend some time learning using the booster, you really get 
     great analog sounding sounds.
     
     FIRST LESSON: Boost a saw or triangle with a DC wave.
     
     
     
     Try it! Get some of my patches on pacificrim, and create some 
     yourself.
     
     AND LET ME HEAR YOUR CREATIONS! DUMP PATCHES ON PACIFICRIM AND MAKE 
     THE WORLD HAPPY!
     
     
     In some next contribution, I will explain how tuning inluences ring 
     modulation. Note already that our mean tempered 12-tone system is just 
     a lousy simplified system of what it should be.
     
     
     
     Koert
     
     Lord of the Ring Modulators
     
     
_________________________________________________________________

a  little adding by Matthias Kopfermann (kopf@rrz.uni-hamburg.de)

if you want to combine e.g. a low sine wave and another wave 
by the booster
you should know that to avoid the effect of increasing the pulse rate
of a boosted wave by key you can set the keyfollow to 0. then
the pulse will be the same whereever you play on the keyboard.      
and if you change the pitch envelope of the second wave
the pulse will change with time.