Warm Audio’s dead-on homage to the Moog Moogerfooger MF-102 ring modulator is a source of everything from rich tremolo pulses to haunted bell tones and alien voices.
Very accurate reproductions of MF-102 tones and functionality. Deep and colorful modulation textures. Satisfying to use intuitively. Invites unusual playing techniques.
Finding precisely the same tone twice can be tricky.
$219
Warm Audio RingerBringer
warmaudio.com
When Moog released the Moogerfooger pedal line around the turn of the century, there were few musical devices I lusted after more. They were beautiful objects, built in the spirit and aesthetic of Moog’s legendary, lovely wood-clad Minimoog and other synthesizers in the company’s line. They also made amazing sounds and were, in every way, instruments in their own right. But they were pretty expensive for a young person minding their pennies, and since their discontinuation, prices for secondhand specimens climbed to ever more stratospheric heights. That exclusivity made the Moogerfoogers logical targets for Warm Audio, who excel at authentically replicating vintage circuits as well as the physical, tactile experience of working with them. And the new RingerBringer, Warm’s take on the Moog MF-102 ring modulator, is an experience indeed.
Earthy Elements and Starbound Sounds
You could confine your activities to intuitively tweaking the RingerBringer’s controls and find your way to countless fascinating places. But in mastering the device, it can be helpful to think of the RingerBringer as a little synthesizer instead of a guitar pedal, and get to know the principles behind the basic effect.
Ring modulation occurs when the RingerBringer’s carrier frequency, a sine wave that’s tuned via the frequency knob, interacts with the signal from your instrument. At the pedal’s lower carrier frequencies (selected via the hi/lo rocker switch), those interactions tend to sound like tremolo. At higher frequencies, the combined signals can generate intense modulations with bizarre harmonics and overtones.
The LFO section of the pedal oscillates the carrier frequency within a range of as many as three octaves (which is determined by the amount knob), and the rate knob governs how fast that oscillation happens. The waveform selector plays an enormous role in shaping this oscillation, too. In square-wave mode, the LFO will effectively move between the two extreme points in the oscillation, creating a choppy modulation. In sine-wave mode, the oscillation sweeps between those extremes, producing a comparatively smooth and vocal sound. The RingerBringer also features a drive control at the pedal’s input that kicks up cool low-gain distortion and generates sharp, resonant peaks. All of these controls are highly interactive. And even if you only use the four knobs and six switches, you can uncover troves of freakish and lovely tones. But you can also assign an expression pedal to any of the four knobs, which opens a whole new realm of possibilities, particularly when you add unconventional prepared guitar techniques.
Of Flutters and Faraway Worlds
The tremolo-like effects that live in the low-frequency range are among the real joys of the RingerBringer, though you’ll encounter some very crooked takes. Various combinations of square and sine waves, frequencies, rates, and drive levels yield pulses that are deep, rich, resonant, and rubbery, but also percolate with hiccups, odd accents, burbles, and subdivisions that can color or craze a picking pattern, depending on the wet/dry mix and your intent.
The high-frequency range is where the aliens and Daleks live. But depending on the frequency and rate controls, you can also create the toll of haunted trans-dimensional church bells and the whir of UFO engine rooms. These frequencies are highly reactive to changes in picking intensity, and even the point along the string’s length where you pluck a string. They can also drive other effects in cool ways. For instance, if you use a low effects mix and pair the pedal with a delay setup for a long sequence of slapback repeats, you can generate dissonant notes that subtly shadow the true notes from your dry mix as the delay manufactures whistling sheets of overtones and compound notes. These settings free you to chase intuitively fashioned note clusters that generate off-kilter harmonizing chords—a liberating exercise that can make you look at the fretboard in totally new ways.
The Verdict
It probably goes without saying that the RingerBringer won’t be for everyone. Though it’s capable of pretty sounds—generally the ones on the tremolo-like spectrum—it might be a candidate for the pedal most likely to get you kicked out of your cover band. But if your musical inclinations are more experimental, you’ll find the RingerBringer overflowing with sounds that can shift the mood of a song from neutral to haunting, futuristic, alien, or unsettling—or recast it into an altogether different musical entity. Players with more conventional tastes should take my ratings as highly subjective. I relished almost every sound here and many of them sparked fresh musical ideas, so my tones and value ratings might be higher than they would be for folks down to pick a few James Taylor jams. But at just $219, this very authentic take on a Moog classic will be a righteous deal for those that regret missing out on scoring the real thing.
Warm Audio RingerBringer and Warm Bender Demo | PG Plays
The updated loop pedal from Mooer is a user-friendly blast at a budget price.
Easy to use. Intuitive controls and layout. Auto record mode is handy.
Multiple layers can get muddy.
Mooer Micro Looper II
mooeraudio.com
Within 5 minutes of plugging in Mooer’s Micro Looper II, the updated model of the company’s spartan Micro Looper, I knew everything there was to know about it. That’s thanks in part to a simple, smart control suite that eschews digital displays—the direction in which many loopers seem to be moving—in favor of a central rotary dial that navigates between the 16 available save slots in three banks, which are accessed via a 3-way toggle. A small level knob lets you simmer loops more quietly, or crank them with a 6 dB boost. Another mini knob controls the threshold at which the auto record function is engaged. Auto record is toggled on and off via the rubber LED in the pedal’s center that also tells you whether you’re in record, playback, or stop mode, depending on its color and pattern. The included manual did a fine job articulating all of these parameters.
Each loop offers up to 10 minutes recording time and unlimited layering in each loop slot, and I put those parameters to the test with no disruptive issues or glitches. Things got a wee bit foggy once more than four layers of guitar were introduced. But my Dr. Z’s chiming cleans were looped in perpetuity through the 2x10 speakers with what felt like very little loss of fidelity. And the Looper II’s auto record function worked seamlessly at all stops on the threshold spectrum. It’s a very welcome feature to have on hand, and I found myself opting for it as a quick fix for microscopic but annoying timing issues. For the price, it doesn’t get much better than this.
Small Supro-inspired simplicity leads to growling, raunchy, bad-attitude drive tones and lead sounds with venom.
Dynamically responsive. Sounds a lot like a little amp made enormous when used with bigger amplifiers. Great build quality.
Some players won’t dig the midrange focus here.
$215
Skreddy Skunk
skreddypedals.com
Most of the pedals I play that are built by Skreddy’s Marc Ahlfs feel like the product of a lot of deep listening and diligent research. They always seem to go a layer deeper—more detail, more authentic, and just more moving when you plug in and play loud. That certainly goes for the new Skunk Drive Model 1606, a simple, straight-ahead stomp designed to add vintage small-Supro sounds and dynamics to a player’s crayon box. Skunk nails a sort of sound, feel, and responsiveness that strongly evokes Supros and other low-wattage classics. And it can transform the sound of a high-headroom amp while retaining a very organic sense of touch.
Airship Inspirations
If you’re familiar with Skreddy’s work, you’ll know Marc Ahlfs has an affinity for old-school stomps and the players that made them famous. A few of his fuzzes are revered by the David Gilmour cult. His Little Miss Sunshine is as enveloping as any Phase 90-inspired pedal you’ll ever play. And his love of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, among others, inspires fantastic Fuzz Face- and Tone Bender-style stomps that effectively enhance and expand upon the potential of those platforms. The Skunk is, at least in part, another product of Ahlfs’ affinity for Jimmy Page—specifically Pagey’s dalliance with a Supro, and, quite probably, a Solo Tone Bender, on Led Zeppelin I. To many Zep’ fans (this author included), those tones are at least tied for Pagey’s most-bitchin’-ever sounds. There are many such textures hiding in the Skunk. But Zep’ tones are not the whole ball of wax here.
As is typical for a Skreddy pedal, the Skunk, which is fitted into a pretty gold-finished 1590B enclosure, is a tidy piece of pedal manufacturing. The circuit is made up of a fairly modest number of components, but they are arranged on a through-hole board with plenty of space between them. Skreddy will repair any pedal that malfunctions due to defects for three years. The build quality I see here suggests that’s unlikely. But if it happens, servicing the pedal should be no sweat.
Rippin’ with Le Pew
For most of the time I spent with the Skunk, I had it hooked up to an old black-panel Fender Vibrolux Reverb. I mention this because my Vibrolux is an especially “surfy” specimen. It’s clean and sparkly, the reverb is deep and splashy, and the treble will rip your head off if you’re not careful. In many respects, it’s the antithesis of the kind of amp the Skunk is built to approximate. And what impresses in this configuration is the Skunk’s ability to transform the sound and feel of an amp like my Vibrolux without sounding or feeling like you splashed a cheap coat of paint over your direct tone. Most overdriven sounds have an organic, natural aggression. And though the pedal creates a vivid illusion of a small amp, which flips the character of your amp completely, in a dynamic sense it feels seamlessly integrated with the amplifier on the receiving end. The Skunk doesn’t seem to rob the amp of its intrinsic energy, like some overdrives will—even though it adds a pretty squishy, almost tweed-like helping of compression to the base tone. It retains responsiveness to guitar volume attenuation and can essentially approximate the clean bypassed sound of the amp (save for loss of a little top-end zing) with a just-right reduction in instrument volume. The Skunk excels at clean-boost tasks, too, with the gain low and the output volume up high, adding a little midrange focus, but never clouding over an amp’s essence. At the other end of the gain range, the Skunk flirts with near-fuzz sounds that brim with delectable raunch.
”Though the pedal creates a vivid illusion of a small amp, which flips the character of your amp completely, in a dynamic sense it feels seamlessly integrated with the amplifier on the receiving end.“
The pedal’s midrange emphasis won’t float everyone’s boat. Depending on the Skunk’s settings, and the pickups driving it, it can sound a bit honky and filtered, not unlike a cocked wah at some settings. (Check out “Communication Breakdown” for reference to hear what I’m talking about.) Depending on your affinity for these types of colors, the tone profile could sound narrow at first. But the midrange emphasis does not obscure clarity. The first and second strings snap and pop with authority and definition that adds heat to leads, and you hear very nice balance between strings in chording situations. Incidentally, situating a Tone Bender fuzz before the Skunk, in true Led Zeppelin I style, generates amazing nastiness. Again, the midrange focus in these sounds won’t be everyone’s idea of fuzz perfection, but they will stand out in a mix like Wilt Chamberlain in a third-grade-class picture. Personally, they left me giddy.
The Verdict
Even though it delivers the surprise of awesome clean-boost tones. It’s not transparent, and it will shift the voice of a louder amp noticeably and profoundly. But in the process, it really does create the picture of a little amp writ large. How this sound aligns with your tone ideals will be very personal, and you should consider my tone score here as very subjective. If you dig Jimmy Page, Mick Ronson, and other sprouts from the glam, punk, and raw, electric Mississippi blues vines, you’ll find a lot to love here. But any guitarist keen to carve out a distinct, visceral place in an ensemble or mix could well find the Skreddy Skunk invaluable.