Noise Engineering
Type
Three-stage rectifier/folder
Size
8HP Eurorack
Depth
.8 Inches
Power
2x5 Eurorack
+12 mA
75 mA
-12 mA
65 mA
Pura Ruina
Three-stage CV-controlled full-wave rectifier.
Overview
Pura Ruina is a three-stage CV-controlled fully-hyphenated full-wave rectifier/distortion designed for
audio. Simple waveforms can be manipulated into completely new and exciting tones, and alreadycomplex sounds can be shredded into sonic oblivion. Add some CV and you’ll never want to let PR out
of your rack! Each stage has an individual level control with corresponding CV and individual out, as
well as feeding to the universal Sum output. PR’s rectification creates a unique flavor of distortion
unlike standard wavefolding or clipping. The possibilities are virtually endless: add to a west-coast
style complex oscillator setup for unique timbral shaping, annihilate a percussion mix through it, run its
individual outs through other Ruina modules for further mayhem… You’ll never run out of awesome
things to try, we promise. You know you want one.
Etymology
Pura -- from Latin: “pure”
Ruina -- from Latin: “destruction”
“Pure destruction”
Input & output voltages
CV inputs are all 0-5v.
Special Thanks
Shawn Jimmerson, as always, has been a guiding light throughout the development of this module.
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Power
To power your Noise Engineering module, turn off your case. Plug
one end of your ribbon cable into your power board so that the red
stripe on the ribbon cable is aligned to the side that says -12v and
each pin on the power header is plugged into the connector on the
ribbon. Make sure no pins are overhanging the connector.
Line up the red stripe on the ribbon cable so that it matches the
white stripe and/or -12v indication on the board and plug in the
connector.
Screw your module into your case BEFORE powering on the
module. You risk bumping the module’s PCB against something
metallic and damaging it if it’s not properly secured when powered
on.
You should be good to go if you followed these instructions. Now
go make some noise!
A final note. Some modules have other headers -- they may have a
different number of pins or may say NOT POWER. In general,
unless a manual tells you otherwise, DO NOT CONNECT THOSE
TO POWER.
Warranty
Noise Engineering backs all our products with a product warranty: we guarantee our products to be free
from manufacturing defects (materials or workmanship) for one year from the date of the original retail
purchase (receipt or invoice required). The cost of shipping to Noise Engineering is paid by the user.
Modules requiring warranty repair will either be repaired or replaced at Noise Engineering's discretion. If
you believe you have a product that has a defect that is out of warranty, please contact us.
This warranty does not cover damage due to improper handling, storage, use, or abuse, modifications, or
improper power or other voltage application.
2
Interface
See Design Notes (below) for information on full-wave rectification.
1:
Dry signal volume.
2:
Single full-wave rectification stage volume.
4:
Double full-wave rectification volume.
8:
Triple full-wave rectification volume.
CV ins 1/2/4/8:
CV control of volume for each stage. Knobs act as offsets for the CV inputs.
All CV:
Simultaneous control of all four CV inputs.
In:
Audio input.
Outs 1/2/4/8:
Individual outputs for each section.
Sum Out:
Output for all four stages summed together.
Pura Ruina
In
All
CV
8
4
2
1
CV Out
8
4
2
Patch Tutorial
First Patch:
Patch a simple waveform (like a sine wave) to the In jack. Patch the Sum Out
jack to your mixer. Adjust the knobs to see what kind of sounds PR can create.
Second Patch:
Using the patch from the previous example, take a quad CV source like Mimetic
Digitalis and modulate the 1, 2, 4, and 8 CV inputs to create tonally evolving
sequences.
Third Patch:
Patch a different type of sound (for instance, a percussive loop) and run it through
PR. New sounds are waiting to be discovered!
Fourth Patch:
PR can act as a complex VCA. Run an oscillator to the In jack and the Out jack to
your mixer. Run an envelope to the All CV input. PR now controls the volume of
your voice as well as adding harmonic complexity! For even more control, run
the envelope through a mult and attenuators (like Sinc Defero) and modulate each
section’s volume individually for more harmonic possibilities.
Sum
Out
1
3
Design notes
Full-wave rectification (FWR) transforms a bipolar AC signal so that the negative amplitude portions of the
signal become positive. It does cool and interesting things to harmonics. For example, a FWR sine
waveform loses its fundamental and has a new fundamental at twice the frequency. This forms the basis for
the module: 1 is the dry signal. 2 FWRs the incoming signal. 4 FWRs the signal resulting from 2, and so
on.
Most modules in the NE lineup start as one of our conceptions and we champion it. This one was one of
Stephen’s. He has been interested in full-wave rectification distortions for a long time: he built his first one
in high school! It was only a matter of time before he convinced the rest of team NE that we needed to make
one in Eurorack.
Pura Ruina started as a simple full-wave rectification module long before we dreamed up the Distortion-ofthe-Month series. We initially conceived of it as more of a simple 4hp “anti-filter” that would do really cool
things. Then we prototyped it and it did not do really cool things. It did not even do vaguely cool things.
We tweaked and tweaked and at least Stephen remained convinced that there was a kernal of...something
there. The rest of us were skeptical but believe it might have merit. We sat on it for a few months.
And then there was the fateful day when we decided to do a series of distortions. Although the concept for
the series was based on other circuits and modules, Pura Ruina quickly slotted in. We revised it to fit that
line.
The first version remained 4hp. It full-wave rectified, but didn’t stage split, and wasn’t CV-able. It was
better than the previous incarnation, but Stephen pretty quickly spotted the potential this time around and
slapped the circuit together.
The first go with this revision blew us away. A simple sine wave in with a bit of modulation sounded almost
like polyphony. He was vindicated! The idea had been good after all!
The sonic possibilities PR opens up are way beyond what we hoped for with this one. Where our other
distortions can do pretty EQ, crazy drive, hella resonance...this one is a beast entirely of its own.
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