EHX Ring Thing

What a strange piece of equipment. Found a cheap one used, and, with my propensity for EHX gear, thought I'd try out one of their newer offerings.

The Ring Thing has some cool sounds hiding inside of it--it is essentially a 'roided out modulation pedal that pushes things further than most mod pedals. This can run the gamut from tremolo effects that have a super slow Leslie vibe to a more rhythmic, pulsating throb. The use of the fine/coarse knobs lets you dial it a lot of these different textures.

Of course, the heart of the pedal is its ring modulator function, which does some things that I haven't seen done elsewhere. The tuning function is an attentuator that senses the pitch of the input signal when the left footswitch is held down; you'll hear the LFO "tune" itself to the note you're playing. Pretty cool! I still couldn't figure out a way to make this musical, sadly. Since ring mods use a kind of algorithm to determine which secondary pitch is played against the note you're playing, the "tuned" ring mod effect really only sounds good against the original note you've tuned to or very specific intervals of that note. In other words--this is a very cool effect, but, even with my love of noise making, not one I could see myself using regularly enough to keep. Ultimately, I was hoping for more of a bit-crusher effect that would have some interesting harmonic overtones. I think I could have gotten it to where I wanted it, but I ran out of patience. This is the most "difficult" pedal I have ever owned, and I wish I'd spent more time on it.

The last thing that intrigued me about this pedal were the pitch-shifting capabilities. It can do just about everything a Whammy pedal can do, though the interface for it is a little more difficult to use (again, the coarse/fine knobs dial in intervals from--I believe--2 octaves down to 2 octaves up). I have an expression pedal that I plugged in; sounded pretty solid, though I detected a hint of latency. Could just be my rig. I love whammy-type effects, but, ultimately, I was looking for things to trade in for a new guitar, and I sold this pedal. Kind of regret it a little...I wish I had every piece of gear I'd ever sold back! Even the crappy ones. They're all beautiful children, and I miss them. Hope they're doing well.