MOTM-510 Wave Warper

Quantity: 1
Modifications: none
From the Synthtech website:

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-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!

But wait, there’s more! 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.

The famous blue MOTM-510 PCB
Expensive AD538 Chip

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