BITCRUSHERS? Suggestions please.

[Greg.Bassman]

Hi all.

Ok so, I'm shopping for a Bitcrusher.

My mate keeps banging on about a certain 'Bugbrand Bugcrusher Micro' that he used to own, and swears by it. Anyways, little does he realise (and as I later found out), the pedal is out of production.

What alternatives are out there at the moment? something that could be twigged to sound like the Bugbrand perhaps. I've had suggestions for the IE Frantabit; but I'm worried about it sounding too 'whooshy' (filter like), for want of a better term.

What do you guys reckon?

Cheers. Greg.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Greg.Bassman

[pantherairsoft]

WMD Geiger Counter. Amazeballs.

[toneknob]

+1 for the WMD (I bought pantherairsoft's - thanks!). I've convinced an Ernie Ball VP Jr to act as an expression pedal so you can detune the amount of bit crushing and wotnot on the fly.

Also the Mooer Lo-Fi Machine for a compact and more easily-grokked variant. And the Death By Audio Robot which ahem "transforms any input into a spuree of resynthesized robot jargon". (Also it's got a random arpeggiator which is fun)

[pantherairsoft]

If you let that WMD go, I'll take it back

[elephantgrey]

I have the frantabit and the mooer lofi machine.

The frantabit is a digital bitcrusher and samplerate reducer. It has a blend. Its simple, on a beautiful lofi way.

The mooer has some filtering applies to it, selectable by a switch.

The other ones like the WMD all seam to have some modulation applied to them. I wouldn't mind this, if I could sync the LFO to midi.

Edited December 11, 2015 by elephantgrey

[Guest FretNoMore]

The new Malekko Scrutator looks very interesting.

http://youtu.be/ymJUObEmUCw

Edited December 11, 2015 by FretNoMore

[AustinArto]

The Bugcrusher Micro isn't a bitcrusher, it's a sample rate reducer, it sounds a bit like a tame ring modulator - it creates new harmonics, and more of them the lower you go with the sample rate.

The IE Frantabit does sample rate reduction too but, for me, it doesn't sound as good on bass as the Bugcrusher, it's not as useful. It's more harsh-sounding and seems to lose the low end somehow. I've got both on my board and I only really use the Bitcrushing side of the Franta.

I could be wrong but I think the Bugcrusher is an analogue circuit and the Frantabit is digital.

I've been wanting to try the Mooer LoFi Machine but never got around to it.

[elephantgrey]

[quote name='AustinArto' timestamp='1450037400' post='2929092']
I could be wrong but I think the Bugcrusher is an analogue circuit and the Frantabit is digital.[/quote]

That's correct. The bitcrusher and some others are analouge recreations of what true digital samplerate reduction sounds like.

They mainly seamed to start showing up about 2006~ (if I remember correctly) when the only bitcrusher pedals found where only about in small limited runs, and beyond the average DIY pedal builder.

[krispn]

Catalinbread make one which sounded quite good and I recall a guitarist friend of mine lusting after one for years.

[Guest FretNoMore]

I just bought a Malekko Scrutator; here is a first quick soundbite, with an expression pedal controlling the filter on the Scrutator, and with some delay added from an EarthQuaker Devices Afterneath. Fun.

https://soundcloud.com/fretnomore/scrutator1

Edited December 18, 2015 by FretNoMore

[Greg.Bassman]

Hey fretnomore, great clip mate. Cheers!

[Guest FretNoMore]

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