Electro-Harmonix Ring Thing

Specifically, the effect is based on a digital modulation ring, ie an oscillator generating a carrier wave of the incoming wave of the instrument. By the interplay of constructive and destructive interference, we can create new overtones, sometimes very different from the original sound. The sound is very characteristic timbre often metallic or distorted.
EHX has taken in this case to a beautiful decoration so Tron, and added a number of controls to mitigate the effect and make it more musical, namely an LFO and pitch shifter (polyphonic), pedal input expression and an input for a wave generator (or other).
The range of sounds you can get is simply breathtaking: in addition to the effects of regular ring, we get all kinds of sounds based on the wave properties: chorus, phaser, tremolo, vibrato, resonance, whammy ...
It has 9 locations memorized over a free mode.

UTILIZATION

Next edition we have:
- 1 knob balance of dry / wet
- 1 knob waveform (square, sine, pulse, triangle) for the LFO, but will also act on the grain ring mod in some cases
- 1 knob filter (or frequency LFO)
- 1 knob fine tuning (or intensity LFO), zero activates the expression pedal
- 1 knob coarse tuning, which is the frequency of the carrier wave (or pitch pitch shifter mode)
- 1 knob band selection, which acts on the range of height of the ring, but also serves to activate the pitch shifter to select banks and backup.
Obviously this is the weak point of the Ring Thing at the beginning you get lost honestly. All controls are multi-function and interact with them in different ways depending on the positions! Imagine the possibilities but also the puzzle! Finally nothing insurmountable, and after a few hours it was soon found his preferred settings.

SOUND QUALITY

With the Ring Thing, we can expect anything: the worst and the best. It's all about patience and long search. The effect is so Univibe by far my favorite: it's hot, it sounds divinely clear commme in full. Machine Guuuuuuuun!
Tremolos and phasers are typed enough but also very good, I love it.
Whammy effects (+ / - 2 octaves) are less convincing in my opinion, is the attack on his breath if you load too much effect, but they have the merit of polyphony perfectly manage and generate beautiful textures in small doses .
Finally, if you climb the towers, is the intergalactic battle!
The expression pedal is needed to truly enjoy the full potential: according to the settings it will handle height modulation, or the speed of oscillation.
Finally, note it accepts very well overdrive pedals in both upstream and downstream. We must experiment with all sorts of configurations to find one that suits his game

OVERALL OPINION

I use it for two months, after listening to a lot of demos on the net, I wanted to test and I was really excited. It is both an effect generator classic (and beautiful as well), but also a big boost creativity (harmonies completely delusional in a free jazz solo, riffs crossed more than Tom Morello, and even a substitute for playing bass! ... For hackers crazy foremost, but standard effects also deserve a visit.

The ring thing has 4 different modes. The first 3 are similar and offer modulations "in ring". I will not go into details because I do not control, far from it. The fourth mode is a pitch shifter.

Each mode is editable through a series of five pots, and / or optional expression pedal (attention, it plays only on one parameter, which is not selectable). 9 presets allow you to keep track configurations.

UTILIZATION

The pedal is not easy to use. Instead, take time before creating a series of presets. At first glance, the resulting sounds are not musical and difficult to use.
on the other hand, we give some examples of what can be achieved with, and then, after some time, it becomes interesting. Basically, we can recreate much of modulation effects needed to toolbox guitarist from this pedal chorus, tremolo, vibrato, flanger, phaser, pitch shifter.
All these effects are achieved by working on the same principle (except pitch shifter, which is part) of ring modulation, and we can also obtain intermediate effects (tremolo modulated, for example ...)

SOUND QUALITY

The resulting sounds are warm and organic, "typed EHX" somehow. Personally, I use it in concert for a range of modulation effects in the hand (2 different tremolo, chorus, flanger, tremolo, octaver, ...)

OVERALL OPINION

Not easy to give a full review on this pedal, so the possibilities are endless and everyone will find (or not) something useful for his game I guess it is a dream for pedal hackers, but this is not my use. In my case (I play blues rock), she is 2 years of dedicated multi-effect modulation, which I appreciate the organic side and all in one, but I do not use the sound "synthetic" that it is capable of outputting.
It is suitable (among others ...) to a guitarist who wants to turn his x modulation pedals of his pedalboard without feeling frustrated ...

I wish I could select the parameter variable with an expression pedal, have more presets available.

It is unique, to my knowledge, is difficult to judge the ratio Q / P