Let’s explore frequency shifting - with the Doepfer A126-2

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Patreon: www.patreon.com/monotrail Doepfer A-126-2 on Perfect Circuit (US): link.perfectcircuit.com/t/v1/8-12626-267461-9759?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.perfectcircuit.com%2Fdoepfer-a-126-2.html Doepfer A-126-2 on Thomann (EU): thmn.to/thoprod/532021?partner_id=32555 * These are affiliate links.

[@noahtotten]

The quality looks great! Absolutely love your channel. Something you might interested in for a future video is a thread I found recently on Mod Wiggler titled “Turn your maths into a complex format oscillator like mangrove”. This trick works with most slew limiters/function gens, not just maths. Idk, just thought you’d find it interesting!

[@reheller]

Excellent demo of a not so common circuit. Lots of great patches. Love the Dutch frequency shifted

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thank you! Glad to hear you enjoyed it. Cheers :)

[@Waldemar_la_Tendresse]

As always: very well explained the features of the module with plenty of good examples. That's the way eurorack modules should be presented IMHO.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thanks, glad you liked it! Happy to make these, :)

[@1heUndertaker]

Exceptional demonstration of the possibilities of this module, and comprehensive explanation of how and why it does what it does! Thank you for taking the time (much time) to create this inspiring walkthrough 😃👍

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thanks for letting me know, much appreciated! All the best :)

[@Neurotypique]

Thank you for these always informative and in-depth videos, it's nice to see doepfer modules on KZbin as well!

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Glad you like them! And indeed, hope to do some more :) Cheers!

[@daniel_mana]

@@MonotrailTechTalk yeah please!

[@KorhanErel]

You're possibly one of the best modular synth demonstrators around. Greetings from Berlin to Berlin :)

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Wow, thanks! Greetings back!

[@KorhanErel]

@@MonotrailTechTalk :)

[@justanotheryoutubechannel3102]

BEST demo ever! I love it that you're showing example patches! They're both instructional and inspirational. So many demos I've watched have been just twisting knobs on one patch, sometimes without even telling you what the module's actually doing while other modules are contributing to the sound "modulation" too. You're getting subbed for this!

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Glad you liked it! And thanks for the kind words :) I have been doing animations as a freelancer for quite some time, and thought I could use it to ad to the community. It's really nice to hear when people appreciate it! All the best :)

[@stephenjames4937]

What a great, informative video. The diagrams are especially Useful. I wish other eurorack Presenters would do this. Thank you.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thanks! I work as a freelance graphic designer and animator, and really was part of the motivation for this channel to apply that to modular tutorials! Kinda expect others to steal some of it though :) But also plan to keep going and make a lot more videos myself!

[@justanotheryoutubechannel3102]

absolutely! the WORST is all talk no demo demos, but even actual demos of eurorack modules generally don't go this deep.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel3102]

guess I'm not the only one impressed after reading about this module in this months sound on sound magazine

[@alanc6752]

Very interesting module and great demo. Whilst watching i was imagining what the module would look like as a classic Doepfer, bigger panel, seven full sized knobs, more space. Slimline has advantages but i like the old style as well.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

I have to say I love the old line as well. I'm among those who like the grey look, with all the same knobs and jacks, and similar grid for the knobs etc. Would enjoy an old style Doepfer system for sure :)

[@kr61ab67]

Your first Hi shows a good bass voice ha ha ! Really useful explanations, and the module sounds extremely awesome, I'll go for one ! Thanks a lot.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Hey awesome! Happy it helped!

[@zbsfm]

top quality videos mate! glad to see you got sponsored by doepfer, too

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thank you! And yeah, was really happy with this one, really like many of the Doepfer modules :)

[@CatFish107]

Using a freq shifter in vcv, I like to take the up shifted version and the down shifted and use them as a left and right channel from a mono voice. Just keep the shifting small, and it will make the sound wiiiiiiiide.

[@CatFish107]

Commenting before watching to say I was shopping through Doepfer's selection, and noticed this module had a much higher price than I would have expected, compared to other modules by Doepfer. It has me curious about what kind of complexities it may be hiding in the circuits. Dieter doesn't seem like the kind of guy to price gouge, so I must be missing the justification for the cost. I'm glad it was your video that first showed up when I started looking for answers.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

It's a complicated circuit indeed, think there is a flowchart on the site. Probably achieving stability in pitch both up and down is hard to do analog, but have to admit my knowledge about modules stops at user level :)

[@stephenspackman5573]

Perhaps the most impressive thing is around 17:15 where you use it to translate between German, Dutch and Old High Oil Drum.

[@CatFish107]

Hahaha. Old High Oil Drum is still spoken on parts of Trinidad, from what I hear.

[@remcovandermost1139]

there's also a lot of fun stuff to do with multiple frequency shifters, delay's and some mixers. eg. use a sine as an input, send to first delayline, then to the first frequency shifter. Use a multi-channel mixer (more channels for for frequency shifters) to mix both the original and shifted versions. Then also mult the frequency shifter's output to the next delayline, again followed by another frequency shifter and add it's output to the above mixer. Repeat this for as many frequency shifters you have and feed back the last frequency shifter into the first delay (which will need an extra 2-channel mixer to do this, to mix it with the sine input). Now for every feedback-loop through the delaylines&shifters, in case you have for example 2 frequency shifters, it will generate 2 extra partials, each repeating the spreading and adding this to the multi-channel mixer. So if you start with a 500hz sine and use +300hz and -50hz shift, you'll get a wave containing (in hz): 500, 800,750,1050,1000,1300,1250,1550,1500,1800,1750,2050,2000, etc Which is basically a very nice waveform with a root frequency of 50hz (without actually having the 50hz in it's signal. just a lot of it's overtones). If you also add an attenuator between each delayline and shifter, you can also control the damping rate of the feedback, while adding an equal-power crossfader, to crossfade between the attenuator and shifter output, you can dial in the amount that this shifted version will be in the signal, without losing power within the feedback loop. and one extra..use some audio rate modulation on the delaytime for "post-fm" effects (you need a good digital delay for a good sound so to not create unwanted partials, which would add a lot of noise). Together with a low frequency shift, this will create very nicely morphing fm sounds.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thanks for sharing!

[@remcovandermost1139]

@@MonotrailTechTalk you are dutch aren't you? Perhaps it might be nice to meet up and share some insights

[@dietervoser4425]

Einmal mehr sehr spannend und lehrreich :-)!

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thanks! Glad to hear you get some value out of it :) Alles Gute!

[@richarquis]

Damn, this needs to sit close to Morphagene. The drum loops and vocal mangles were the best parts to my ears.

[@Annatar3469]

Hier zat ik op te wachten! Dankjewel

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Haha, dan komt ie mooi optijd :)

[@Annatar3469]

@@MonotrailTechTalk Alleen zelf nog even sparen ;)

[@fetterssv]

What I like about this is an easy means to add the natural harmonic series to a base tone for more accurate generation of natural instruments - simply shift by a copy of the interval of the fundamental frequency. The downside of this is having to use a bunch of these modules and chain the outputs using a common fundamental as the shift - so a buffered mult to feed them all the shift frequency. Secondly, they would each need to be fed into a mixer with amplitude and phase manipulation in order to select which orders of harmonics are phase matched such that it emulates the same harmonic fingerprints of natural instruments, such as how strings sound versus wind instruments, et cetera. Harmonic series is extremely powerful, as our ears process and recognize the fundamental tone and instrument type not from the fundamental sine tone but from the timbre created by its harmonic series. Think about this concept as approaching the "uncanny valley" segment of sound design.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Chaining a bunch of these modules doesn't sound to easy to me, if only for financial reasons :) But sounds like great idea, thanks for sharing!

[@fetterssv]

@@MonotrailTechTalk at second thought, you're correct - why I had assumed there is an input for the shift amount is silly!

[@bewusstsein7061]

I love it !!! ❤thx for sharing

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

You are so welcome! Cheers!

[@tanksmoonchild]

Super. Really enjoyed this one

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Glad you enjoyed it! Cheers :)

[@bak4320]

Good stuff here as always!

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Glad you enjoy it! All the best!

[@MartinDoudoroffLLC]

Good tutorial with excellent patch ideas.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Glad you enjoyed it, all the best!

[@jgrzinich]

Please run your voice through the frequency shifter when narrating all future videos. It has a great late night short wave radio feeling. Just kidding... clear and informative as always.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Haha, yeah would give an interesting flavor :) And thanks, all the best!

[@apeirogonmusic]

Transformers voice was a frequency shifter So cool MONORAIL TECH TALK RULES Best Modular Lessons I've had

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Haha, thanks! All the best :)

[@7177YT]

sublime! thank you!

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Glad you liked it!

[@slowADSR]

when you want to show a demo, dont mess around with other modules!

[@internetnoisesignal6251]

Would be really helpful you color coding on the diagrams you made were mimicked with the actual patch cables on the systems would help to clarify what’s going on when the actual examples are played

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Would be indeed! If only people made some nice colored cables. I approached black market modular, but they seem to be out of business? Lot's of colors are out of stock here, and they don't respond to my messages. But might look into it again some time, that was my plan :)

[@NickHchaos]

Interesting to see someone who is also an ADDAC fan. Too bad they stopped making their weird complex analog modules and seemed to more and more make tiny modules with compromises for the current market. Also, heard multiple reports with bugs in their stochastic function generator and heard the triple bandpass was underwhelming.

[@studio48nl]

@5:09 how would you patch this external quadrature vco to the A-126-2? You loose the 'audio in' capabilit, so with a A-110-4 for instance, put the sine to sine ans cosine to cosine and play the vco normaly?

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

You would patch into the Sin & Cos external VCO inputs :) But to be clear, this is when you like to replace the internal VCO of the A126-2, creating the frequency shifting.

[@studio48nl]

@@MonotrailTechTalk ah, with that, you're not bypassing the audio in, but bypassing the internal vco which is doing the shifting part. Like you said, schematics on the Doepfer site 😅

[@justanotheryoutubechannel3102]

18:34 *Forbidden Planet!*

[@pedroeustache5511]

One more time: BRILLIANT tut/demo!!! BRAVO!!! Thanks!!! ,,,Question: is it possible to put 1V/OCT CVs to tune the internal Osc? or --in this case-- couldn't the 'Random Stepped' output be put into a Quantizer in order to get tuned CVs?

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Hey, glad you like it! The frequency input doesn't track 1v/oct. So of course you can use such a signal to modulate the 126-2, but not to create tuned melodic modulation.

[@pedroeustache5511]

@@MonotrailTechTalk Oh I see!! Thanks!! Again brilliant Tutorial!!

[@MYGAS21]

Hey! I had no idea what a frequency shifter was! ....I came here because of the new Red panda Labs Ring modulator/ Frequency Shifter RADIUS. They confirmed that with the RADIUS you can set a ratio of the RING MOD sidebands to a desired timbre and go up and down a scale without altering the ratio.... something impossible with a Ring Modulator. Do you think they are creating the Ring mod sidebands with two frequency shifters?

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Hi there, glad the video was helpful! Radius looks like a fun device, but I have no knowledge of how it works :)

[@MYGAS21]

@@MonotrailTechTalk Well I saw some pretty impressive patches on this video. You seem to know your stuff.... How would YOU achieve the aforementioned result using (as they state on the pedal) a) Ring modulator b) Frequency Shifter and c) a Pitch tracker? If you need something else feel free to put that in the mix as well. The result matters.... which in my opinion is the Holy Grail of Ring Modulation: To have a steady timbre throughout the scale. IF I'm not mistaken that means a steady ratio between the side bands.

[@pianolight5]

Lekker, braadworst

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Haha, inderdaad :)

[@johnhowell6214]

I reallllly want to try one of these with a Sine wave and a sub

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Sound good :)

[@JuanDale]

Awesome.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thanks for watching!

[@syndrohm1920]

As always, your videos are really clear an inspiring. I must ask....are the knobs smooth or stiff ? ( all my Doepfer modules have stiff knobs) This is something that I never liked about Doepfer. Great job Monotrial!!!

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thanks! And same as other Doepfer modules. What you call "stiff" though I personally really like. Feels solid, you can dial in very detailed positions and knobs don't turn if you let go of them or brush against it. :)

[@syndrohm1920]

Ok, thanks for the reply.... Personally i prefer smooth knobs as I like to do manual swiping some time. and not use cv all the time.

[@rmanpojo8485]

Hoe is het met het vogeltje? Great tutorial. Thanks?

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Glad you like it! Het vogeltje verdrinkt in de put aan het einde... :(

[@charlesbronson2806]

I wonder if the clouds parasite version is in the same ballpark?

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Hmm, far as I know parasite has no frequency shifting mode.

[@charlesbronson2806]

@@MonotrailTechTalk its actually labeled as a pitch shifter/time stretcher. I'm still trying to get my head around frequency vs. Pitch. Nonetheless good vid as always.

[@liantrosretrospectiva4134]

Do you like this or the XAOC better?

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Hmm, I feel there both a bit different. In short, the Doepfer one is a bit more raw and hard-core. It's analog and you can feel and hear that in the sound in a good way. The Xaoc one is digital, but because of that offers a more easy to incorporate sound. It can be subtle, can be brutal, can be stereo, can be lot's. The Xaoc one is the one still in my setup.

[@liantrosretrospectiva4134]

@@MonotrailTechTalk thanks for your detailed description. It seems that the XAOC would fit my needs better.

[@alexbarn]

TIL!! TY!!

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

:)

[@TheModularClubhouse]

Noice! Do like the use of Dutch spoken word samples ;) But this one was rather obscure right?

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Yes it was! It's me reading the opening of "Van het muisje, het vogeltje en de braadworst", a little Grimm story :)

[@TheModularClubhouse]

@@MonotrailTechTalk Brutal :)

[@St33v33]

@@MonotrailTechTalk lol I had the impression you were telling a joke along the lines of, ‘a mouse, a (something) and a sausage walk into a bar…’

[@tomax2578]

Does it work with envelopes and lfos?

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Oooeeh, that, my friend, is a good question. I'm assuming not with envelopes, as it think it needs a "frequency" to hold on to. But lfo's could be interesting. In neither case it will be how it's meant to work, and its posible ofset voltages are erased in the input, but ill give it a shot soon!

[@tomax2578]

@@MonotrailTechTalk thanks for the informative answer :) your video's are great by the way .

[@mutedsounds2k]

Well, If I had 375€ to spend in modules... I'd probably go for am A-118-2, an A-140-2 and an A-110-1. Or maybe an A-147-2, an A-121-3, an A-130-2 and an A-170.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Haha, yes, all lovely modules! And that sounds like you're up for getting some solid ingredients first, seems like a good choice :)

[@mutedsounds2k]

@@MonotrailTechTalk Or even a Behringer Neutron (80 HP, eurorack friendly!) That's a complete synth in a single module!

[@marcbsounds]

I like it. but not for £320. £150 yeah I'd have one already.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

That makes sence! It's a pretty expansive module for sure, and lots of options to compete with these days. Totally depends on what you are after! Cheers :)

[@robinarens]

die braadworst moet wel koken ja

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Inderdaad :)

[@binarybotany3218]

Hehe, had no idea that you're Dutch speaking.

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Glad to hear I don't have a horrible Dutch accent ;) Thanks for watching!

[@niiiiiiik]

13:17 mmmm.... delightful ❣

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thanks!

[@damienchalot5835]

its a nice review but there a bad reverb in your room when you talk !

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Thanks! And i know, had some sadbacks this year, just fixed improving light and camera, mic and room treatment is up next! Cheers :)

[@damienchalot5835]

@@MonotrailTechTalk may bee its the position of the mic its spécialy at the beghining of the présentation , the rest is good

[@kaiherrmann3477]

I hope the Expander comes soon, makes it even more unique + special : ) Some complain about the price, i think its just fine. choices for Hardware: from Behringer 1630 Bode Frequency Shifter that gonna be around €150.- to Frequency Shifter from Wavefront Audio around + €2000.-...

[@MonotrailTechTalk]

Yeah, hope it comes soon for people who like it! And agree, analog frequency shifting isn't the cheepest thing to do properly, and comes in a wide price range. Also mostly comes down to if you have other modular aspects covered and after this kind of sound :)