Picked this up last week as I've been searching for a dedicated ring mod pedal for some time, and thought I'd share my observations with everybody about a few things that I had been curious about on this... I compared this back to back for a little over an hour with a full size Moogerfooger MF102 and a Fairfield Circuitry Randy's Revenge. The MFRing won out for me in sound, price and features. (I've also had a ZVex Ringtone for a little while, but that is a different situation entirely...)
First - its really well built, totally solid construction, yet not too heavy. The sound quality is really right on par with the MF102. The quality of the ring mod is exactly the same to my ears, and I am pretty nitpicky about tones. It has the same subtly gated quality as the MF102 too, to squash the carrier tone from being too audible. There is a *very tiny* amount of carrier bleed on the MFRing, its practically inaudible when not playing, but is slightly more audible at the higher pitches. The MF102 has this too, very very faint bleed when not playing, I would say the MFRing has just a little bit more, but in reality it is negligible. Especially considering that a ring mod will generally have some by its nature. The RR also had some bleed through while not playing, about the same small amount as the MFRing, but the pitch of it was not the same as the carrier, but maybe a 4th lower. Which I thought was weird, but...
The sound quality of the MFRing is the same as the MF102, the RR I found a little bit more harsh/high end-y. It could be dialed back with the Low Pass knob of course, but I found the tone control on the MFRing to be more attractive to my ears. Maybe it has a smaller range than the RR that made it easier to dial in. Both Moog rings had a generally more pleasing sound to me, maybe a little smoother (my personal opinion). The added tone control on the MFRing compared to the MF102 is a great addition. I've found that when blending dry guitar with some light ring mod on the mix knob that rolling the tone control back, which only affects the ring mod not the dry guitar, gives a nice range for different sounds. The tone full up sounds like the MF102, rolling it back little smooths it out, etc. I think its very useful when you don't want an in-your-face ring mod tone, but just a subtle amount mixed in.
When the MFRing is on and the mix is all dry guitar I notice a very small amount of level boost, but again, its negligible. The mix can of course go to 100% wet as well. One thing that I wasn't crazy about, but has become not noticeable to me in reality, is when you turn the pedal on and you aren't playing, but have the mix up and the frequency is up a little bit towards the higher pitches, is that you get a quick, but quiet, "ping" sound which is the carrier frequency tone. It just happens for a split second and is not loud at all, I guess the gate has to catch up with the engaging of the effect or something. Again it has become a non-issue for me, but the other 2 pedals did not do this.
The EXP pedal on the Mini is only to control the frequency range, not any parameters like on the MF102. The mini does offer extended high range with the EXP pedal that you can not obtain through just the knob, maybe another *very high* octave+. Although the range on the knob is very very wide as it is. Not slow enough for tremolo sounds but it goes very low to very high.
The reason I chose this over the RR was mainly sound quality. I think the Moog's ring tones just sound very slightly more pleasing to me. The other reason I went with this one is that I didn't really need the tremolo/low speed features of the other two or the OSC section of the MF102. I also didn't need the square wave option on the Randy's, I just prefer the sine wave. The level knob on the RR is also a nice feature, but again I don't see it as needed since the Moog does not cut your volume at all and in fact it gives it *just a little tiny bit extra*. I didnt need a big volume boost out of this pedal. Of course, the MF Ring being the cheapest of the bunch did not hurt either, but was not the prime motivating factor.
Oh, and the MF Ring takes regular -center9v power OR a 9v battery. Makes things simpler for my situation...
Any questions?
First - its really well built, totally solid construction, yet not too heavy. The sound quality is really right on par with the MF102. The quality of the ring mod is exactly the same to my ears, and I am pretty nitpicky about tones. It has the same subtly gated quality as the MF102 too, to squash the carrier tone from being too audible. There is a *very tiny* amount of carrier bleed on the MFRing, its practically inaudible when not playing, but is slightly more audible at the higher pitches. The MF102 has this too, very very faint bleed when not playing, I would say the MFRing has just a little bit more, but in reality it is negligible. Especially considering that a ring mod will generally have some by its nature. The RR also had some bleed through while not playing, about the same small amount as the MFRing, but the pitch of it was not the same as the carrier, but maybe a 4th lower. Which I thought was weird, but...
The sound quality of the MFRing is the same as the MF102, the RR I found a little bit more harsh/high end-y. It could be dialed back with the Low Pass knob of course, but I found the tone control on the MFRing to be more attractive to my ears. Maybe it has a smaller range than the RR that made it easier to dial in. Both Moog rings had a generally more pleasing sound to me, maybe a little smoother (my personal opinion). The added tone control on the MFRing compared to the MF102 is a great addition. I've found that when blending dry guitar with some light ring mod on the mix knob that rolling the tone control back, which only affects the ring mod not the dry guitar, gives a nice range for different sounds. The tone full up sounds like the MF102, rolling it back little smooths it out, etc. I think its very useful when you don't want an in-your-face ring mod tone, but just a subtle amount mixed in.
When the MFRing is on and the mix is all dry guitar I notice a very small amount of level boost, but again, its negligible. The mix can of course go to 100% wet as well. One thing that I wasn't crazy about, but has become not noticeable to me in reality, is when you turn the pedal on and you aren't playing, but have the mix up and the frequency is up a little bit towards the higher pitches, is that you get a quick, but quiet, "ping" sound which is the carrier frequency tone. It just happens for a split second and is not loud at all, I guess the gate has to catch up with the engaging of the effect or something. Again it has become a non-issue for me, but the other 2 pedals did not do this.
The EXP pedal on the Mini is only to control the frequency range, not any parameters like on the MF102. The mini does offer extended high range with the EXP pedal that you can not obtain through just the knob, maybe another *very high* octave+. Although the range on the knob is very very wide as it is. Not slow enough for tremolo sounds but it goes very low to very high.
The reason I chose this over the RR was mainly sound quality. I think the Moog's ring tones just sound very slightly more pleasing to me. The other reason I went with this one is that I didn't really need the tremolo/low speed features of the other two or the OSC section of the MF102. I also didn't need the square wave option on the Randy's, I just prefer the sine wave. The level knob on the RR is also a nice feature, but again I don't see it as needed since the Moog does not cut your volume at all and in fact it gives it *just a little tiny bit extra*. I didnt need a big volume boost out of this pedal. Of course, the MF Ring being the cheapest of the bunch did not hurt either, but was not the prime motivating factor.
Oh, and the MF Ring takes regular -center9v power OR a 9v battery. Makes things simpler for my situation...
Any questions?
