Talk:Ring modulator

Merge with care
For anyone contemplating slicing out this page and (re-)directing it to the page on Ring Modulation, please note that that page is almost exclusively about the use of the ring modulator in the sphere of electronic music. A better distinction would be: "Ring modulator" is the device, "Ring modulation" is the application of the device. Given the enthusiasm of the electronic music community to contribute to the page on ring modulation I think it important to have a clear separation between the description of the device itself and of one specific application. One might further suggest that the current page on Ring Modulation be renamed with the suffix "(Electronic Music)" to disambiguate it from other applications of the ring modulator. Nejo17 (talk) 15:27, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * These are good suggestions! I'd recommend instead the slightly broader title "Ring modulation (music)", to denote the application of the more general "Ring modulation" to the field of "music".  The suffix "(Electronic Music)" would be unduly restrictive, since that field is no longer the practical island it once was, in the days of Karlheinz Stockhausen et al.  Modern classical, pop, rock and film music now quite often incorporates means, methods and instruments that were once used exclusively in the electronic music laboratory.  Please see  below.  yoyo (talk) 09:42, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I've just added a section heading "Merge with care" to summarise User:Nejo17's concerns. yoyo (talk) 12:21, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with your comment about the more generic title using the "(music)" suffix. There is a separate matter of whether there should be a page specifically for the general application "Ring Modulation" or whether that is kept as a subsection of the "Ring Modulator" page. On the one hand the predominant application of ring modulators was/is in telecommunications, whereas the weight of the music-oriented page would lead a reader to conclude that that was by far the more widely used application.  Perhaps a list of important presidential conversations that took place over a telephone line that went through one or more ring modulators might provide some balance? Nejo17 (talk) 19:14, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
 * That was a joke by the way Nejo17 (talk) 19:14, 10 June 2016 (UTC)


 * The original assertion here by that this article (Ring modulator) is "almost exclusively about the use of the ring modulator in the sphere of electronic music" is questionable. Radio communications and Analogue telephone systems are given the same amount of treatment. The text goes in to circuit details and other non-musical aspects. ~Kvng (talk) 15:50, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I suspect you have misread or misunderstood my comment. I was referring to the page on Ring modulation as being almost exclusively about electronic music (for example, 26 of the 29 references refer to electronic music literature). Nejo17 (talk) 20:04, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge with "Ring modulation"
I don't know who proposed this merge last month, but it's worth considering. My preference would be to keep two pages, one more general, the other describing the musical applications. Most of the material we need already exists within the present articles.

The way I envisage restructuring the present two pages is this:
 * Keep this article "Ring modulator", possibly renamed "Ring modulation", as the main discussion of the device, including:
 * the history of its development
 * the theory and practice of its operation, migrated from the present section Ring modulation
 * the techniques used to build and design practical devices
 * a brief overview of its applications, with links to articles such as "Ring modulation (music)"
 * a brief discussion of alternative devices used for similar or overlapping purposes e.g. multipliers, with links as appropriate to articles such as


 * Keep the related article, now renamed "Ring modulation (music)", as the detailed discussion of the application of the technique to music, including the history presently found there, but without the electronic theory presently found at Ring modulation.

However, I would not oppose merging the two articles, as this would reduce some present duplication (and the associated fact-checking necessary to having the same information repeated). If there is a consensus to merge these two articles, I'd personally prefer the title "Ring modulation" rather than "Ring modulator", which would emphasise the action rather than the thing. (But then, I have a bias toward action rather than objects, verbs in preference to nouns.) And I have no idea whether WP naming policy or guidelines prefer things or actions ... . yoyo (talk) 09:42, 9 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Please be aware that Frequency mixer covers the radio applications of a Ring modulator. I'm not clear as to whether a Ring modulator is a specific type of Frequency mixer or whether the two term are interchangeable.
 * In general I support pulling the music applications out into a separate article. ~Kvng (talk) 15:57, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I would say that a ring modulator is a type of frequency mixer as there are many other ways of achieving the same, or similar, results that do not use a ring modulator. In the rf context "mixing" is the action of shifting in the frequency domain (see Frequency mixer and Heterodyne). Nejo17 (talk) 09:33, 13 June 2016 (UTC)

coming back to try and resolve this proposal. After a review with fresh eyes, I no longer see a case for two articles and can see despite the warning above how these two articles can be readily merged. Unless length is an issue, we don't typically have multiple articles for different applications of the same concept, that's what sections are for and we don't have a length issue here. ~Kvng (talk) 15:50, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * If you want to have a go at merging then by all means go for it. Nejo17 (talk) 20:10, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

✅ I have done so. ~Kvng (talk) 17:13, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Electronic music
The use of 'implement' and 'implementations' is a sour note - but I don't know enough about the topic to rephrase accurately. Can anyone help? Notreallydavid (talk) 23:58, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I've done my best to rewrite the last paragraph to make it clear that modulators are now usually built from multipliers. The evidence for this is from the reference named "analog", which includes this sentence:

Most high-speed integrated circuit modulators consist of a translinear multiplier (based on the Gilbert cell) with a limiting amplifier in the carrier path overdriving one of the inputs.
 * but so much detail is overly technical to include in our article. yoyo (talk) 12:18, 9 June 2016 (UTC)