Mutable Instruments Warps Meta-Modulator (10HP)

Full Description

Listen to the Mutable Instruments Warps demo here, and a demo of the Warps with a vocoder here.

Controls & I/Os

• Modulation Algorithm: Selects which signal processing operation is performed on the carrier and modulator
• Modulation Timbre: Controls the intensity of the high harmonics created by cross-modulation, or provides another dimension of tone control for some algorithms
• Internal Oscillator State: Enables the internal oscillator and selects its waveform. The colour of the LED depends on the oscillator waveform. When the LED is off, the internal oscillator is disabled and an external signal is used as a carrier
• External Carrier Amplitude or Internal Oscillator Frequency: When an external carrier is used, this knob controls the amplitude of the carrier, or the amount of amplitude modulation from the channel 1 LEVEL CV input. When the internal oscillator is active, this knob controls its frequency
• E. Modulator Amplitude: This knob controls the amplitude of the modulator, or the amount of amplitude modulation from channel 2 LEVEL CV input. Gains above 1.0 can be applied for a warm overdrive effect
• External Carrier Amplitude or Internal Oscillator Frequency CV Input: When the internal oscillator is switched off, this CV input controls the gain of the carrier input. When the internal oscillator is enabled, it acts instead as a V/Oct control for the oscillator frequency
• Modulator Amplitude CV Input: This CV input controls the gain of the modulator input. Just like its carrier counterpart, it is internally normalized to a constant +5V source when no patch cable is plugged in. When a signal is patched into this input, the amount of CV modulation is controlled by the modulator amplitube knob
• Algorithm CV Input: The CV on this input is added to the position of the modulation algorithm knob
• Timbre CV Input: The CV on this input is added to the position of the modulation timbre knob
• Carrier & Modulator Audio Inputs: Warps expects modular-level signals (typically 10Vpp, up to 20Vpp)
• Modulator Output (1x2): The main audio output
• Auxillary Output: When the internal oscillator is disabled, this carries the sum of the carrier and the modulator, post VCA. Otherwise, it carries the raw waveform from the internal oscillator

Modulation Algorithms

• Crossfade: Carrier and modulator are crossfaded into each other, using a constant-power law. Timbre controls the crossfading position. Both signals are equally mixed at 12 o clock
• Crossfolding: Carrier and modulator are summed. A tiny bit of cross-modulation product is added to spice things up. The result is sent to a wavefolder, the amount of which is controlled by Timbre
• Diode Ring-Modulation: Carrier and modulator are crudely multiplied using a digital model of a diode ring-modulator. Timbre post-processes the resulting signal with a variable amount of gain and emulated diode clipping
• Digital Ring-Modulation: A more gentle version of Diode Ring-Modulation which uses a proper multiplication operation in the digital domain. Timbre post-processes the signal with a gain boost and soft-clipping
• XOR Modulation: Both carrier and modulator are converted to 16-bit integers and the two resulting numbers are XOR'ed bit by bit. Timbre controls which bits are XOR'ed together
• Comparison & Rectification: A handful of signals are synthesized through comparison operations. Timbre morphs through these signals
• Vocoder: A classic implementation of an analog vocoder with a bank of 20 analysis and 20 synthesis third-octave 48dB filters. The modulator sub-band signals are processed by envelope followers from which are derived the gains of each of the carrier sub-band signals. Timbre warps the connections between the modulator's envelope followers and the carrier's gain elements, effectively shifting up or down the formants extracted from the modulator signal. As the Algorithm knob is turned clockwise, the release time of the envelope followers is increased. By turning the knob fully clockwise, the modulator signal is frozen. The carrier is filtered by whichever formants were present in the modulator signal before the knob reached this position

Internal Oscillator

Using the INT. OSC button, you can enable the Warps' internal oscillator or select the waveform that it uses. Because cross-modulation algorithms work best with harmonically simple signals, whilst vocoders work better with harmonically rich signals, the available waveforms are different. They consist of sine, triangle, and sawtooth for the cross-modulation algorithms, and sawtooth, pulse, and low-pass filtered noise for the vocoder. Some of the inputs, outputs, or controls operate slightly differently when the internal oscillator is enabled.

Features

7 Signal Hybridization Algorithms

• Crossfade
• Cross-folding
• Digital model of an analog diode ring-modulator
• Digital ring-modulation
• Bitwise XOR modulation
• Octaver/Comparator
• 20 band-vocoder

Everything Under CV Control

• CV control of modulation algorithm selection, with crossfading between adjacent algorithms
• CV control of each input's amplitude with emulated analog saturation
• V/O CV control of the internal oscillator (when enabled)
• For each algorithm, CV control of timbre/brightness/distortion

Built-In Carrier Oscillator

• Audio input 1 can be replaced by an internal digital oscillator with through-zero FM
• Available waveforms:
  • Sine
  • Triangle
  • Sawtooth
  • Pulse
  • Filtered Noise

Specifications

• Input Impedance: 100k
• Audio Inputs & Outputs: 16-bit, 96kHz
• CV Inputs: 12-bit, 1.6kHz
• Internal Processing: 32-bit Floating Point, 576kHz (32kHz for the Vocoder)