MOTM-510 Live Patch Jam
via JohnLRice:
Here is another instance of playing around with a particular module and coming up with something “almost” good enough to post here . . . and going ahead and posting it anyway!
Sorry for all the keyboard noise!
I promise for the next video I’ll take the time to attach carrot laden sticks to the heads of the multitude of little donkeys that turn the big wheel the powers my studio and record a proper line out to the computer instead of using the camera mic again!
About the MOTM-510:
The MOTM-510 is a new kind of analog signal processing module. It’s not easy to describe what it does, but I’ll try.
Let’s start with the well-known Ring Modulator (like the MOTM-110 or MOTM-190). A Ring Modulator is a multiplier: the output can be written as Out = X * Y, where X and Y are the 2 input signals (sometimes referred to as the modulator and the carrier). X and/or Y can be audio or DC signals. The output is simply the voltage X times the voltage Y. This produces the sum of X and Y (X+Y) and the difference of X and Y (X-Y).
The traditional RM has no ‘control voltage’ inputs: you just feed 2 signals in, and get 1 signal out. The MOTM-510 takes this concept and generates entire new types of waveforms.
Instead of the 2 RM inputs, the basic WaveWarper has 3: X, Y and Z. These are audio inputs. The transfer function is OUT = X * (Y/Z)^m, where:
- X is the GAIN signal. It controls the overall amplitude of the signal
- Y is the ‘main audio’ signal, the one that is getting ‘warped’
- Z is the DIVISOR signal. This is acts to modulate the amplitude of the main audio signal before it gets warped
- m is the Warp Factor. This is a fixed exponential factor, which is what is doing the ‘warping’. No, it’s not voltage controlled.
- m varies (by the FACTOR control) from 0.2 to 0.6 (ROOT mode), 1 (UNITY, which makes it similar to a RM), to 2 to 5 (POWER mode)
- each input (X, Y and Z) has attenuators
- the AUDIO OUT is AC-coupled and band-limited to 18Khz. The FULL OUT is DC-coupled and can go as high as 200Khz!
There are 3 DC-coupled inputs called OFFSET. These can be DC control voltages (LFOs, EGs, etc) that add to the audio signals. In this manner, the WaveWarper can respond to 6 different modulation sources simultaneously.
Great….what does this MEAN? Well, it makes an absolute mess of even the simplest waveform. Effects range from frying bacon to a frog in a blender to sticking your head into a jet engine. You can warp LFOs into bizarre new waveforms, as well as the output of MOTM-800 EGs. You can process any line-level audio.
