Bitcrushers and Sample Rate Reduction (SRR) - what's your flavour?

[Al Krow]

I recently dipped my toe into the world of bitcrush / sample rate reduction and got a cheap and cheerful Mooer Lofi, which is a bit (but not much!) of a step up from the bitcrush sim on my Zoom MS-60B. I understand that Mooer may have got the labels wrong on their pedal i.e. the large white knob should be 'sample', not 'bit', and vice versa for the small knob.

The Mooer is a bit of a one trick pony - the small knob doesn't bring much to the party, other than white noise and the large dial has a usable range between about 2.30 pm and 5 pm (anything from 7 am to 12 noon being above the human hearing frequency range). It's also, for me, best on 'synth' setting - the guitar and bass settings simply cut off higher frequencies. But for the price point, it does the job, and has been a good entry point to the world of SRR and it does sound kinda good on the low E and B strings!

I'm now keen to take a step up from the Mooer to one of the more capable units (the pic above seems to have most of the better known 'kids on the block'). I'd be really interested to hear what you guys have landed on for your bitcrushers / SRRs and how you are using them with other pedals on your boards? Any clips of you using them live, would be great!

 

[JimboP]

I love the Fredric Effects Bugcrusher

 

[Al Krow]

I love the Fredric Effects Bugcrusher

Do you typically use this solo or in conjunction with other pedals on your board?

 

[Ryan L.]

I loved the Red Panda Bitmap I had. I was never really able to incorporate into using with my band, but it was a ton of fun to jam with.

 

[Al Krow]

I loved the Red Panda Bitmap I had. I was never really able to incorporate into using with my band, but it was a ton of fun to jam with.

Must admit that I am super tempted by that Red Panda!

Another bass buddy of mine has just bought the Ottobit with a #nooneelseinthebandlikesit

 

[cnltb]

I use randy's revenge for this kind of vibe.
Fun it is!
Once my soldering is good enough , I'll put a Bug workshop crusher(pretty much the same as the Frederic) together too. Will be a while.

 

[cosmicevan]

I love the Fredric Effects Bugcrusher

I have this one on my board too and LOVE it! I use it both alone amd stacked. Sounds amazing w octave and envelope...goes cool w distortion too.

I just got a Meris Ottobit Jr. It will eventually dethrone the frederic bugcrusher but I havent learned it enough yet to integrate on my board.

 

[dalo]

I have both the iron ether frantabit and the hexe bit crusher. The hexe is definitely the best bit crusher I've used. It just instantly made the sounds I wanted it too. That being said, I have the frantabit on my board because it fits better. Just takes me a little more fiddling to get the right sound out of it.

I used to have a Randy's revenge and it is also a great pedal for a sample rate reduced kind of sound.

 

[JimboP]

Do you typically use this solo or in conjunction with other pedals on your board?

Like @cosmicevan said, it works well solo or with other pedals but I think it really shines with an octave pedal. I've had some noise issues with mine where it seemed to be amplifying ground noise and chatter from digital pedals. I haven't heard of anyone else having this problem, so it might be something peculiar to my setup or room. I returned it to Tim at Fredric, who couldn't replicate the problem, but he's designed a new bugcrusher circuit board with noise reduction & power filtering changes, so he's going to swap that into mine free of charge to test it out. I can't wait to get it back on board.

 

[Al Krow]

You guys aware of any pro bass players using bitcrush / SRR as part of their core sound?

 

[Real Soon]

If you can get your hands on a Catalinbread Heliotrope, it can do mild to wild bitcrush-style effects, and I actually really like its gain circuit, which gets gnarly even without a lot of samplerate/bit reduction. (I should put those in quotes really, since it's an analog pedal)

That said, if I can justify the need for something, I'm apparently getting on the Meris wagon with my Mercury 7, so that Ottobit Jr would be high on my list

 

[cosmicevan]

You guys aware of any pro bass players using bitcrush / SRR as part of their core sound?

Janek Gwizdala immediately comes to mind. He uses two...one is part of his famous baby elephant tone

 

[goodformetal]

The bit commander doesn’t belong in the group photo. It’s an analog synth with a deceiving name. I have one and it’s a fun pedal, but I don’t use it very much.

For a bit crusher I use the bitquest, it’s other effects are really cool too. I usually run it set like a gated fuzz, after the boss OC-2 (on the Jojo Mayer setting), and then into the mr black fwonkbeta for funky synthy good times.

 

[ole Jason]

Maybe overkill but the DD-500, TimeLine, and Zoom CDR can also do great bitcrushing effects

 

[monsterthompson]

Outside of the software I use, I find the Empress Echo and Reverb “lo-fi” modes are quite nice. I have a Zoia but haven’t spent much time checking out what it can do in this arena.

 

[Al Krow]

Maybe overkill but the DD-500, TimeLine, and Zoom CDR can also do great bitcrushing effects

Apologies for my lack of knowledge, but which brands are the DD-500 and TimeLine? I've had several Zoom pedals but not come across the CDR either!

 

[theunknowndude]

I used to own the malekko scrutator - I found it very versatile in that it had a gain, bit rate, sample rate reduction, ‘q’ and expression pedal settings... couldn’t actually incorporate it into a band setting so moved it on... only other complaint was couldn’t really use it like a “Lo Fi wah” in that even with something run before it, note decay happened far too quickly for my liking.

I was trying to use it to mimic fold over distortion too as per my aftershock pedal with its fold over engine but was easier just to use the aftershock direct for that..

 

[ole Jason]

Apologies for my lack of knowledge, but which brands are the DD-500 and TimeLine? I've had several Zoom pedals but not come across the CDR either!

BOSS makes the DD and Strymon makes the TimeLine

 

[Alfonso Alba]

I'll be following this thread. Bitcrushing/Downsampling is my favorite effect, and I think it sounds great on bass (I love anything that adds inharmonic components). I do have a Geiger Counter in my eurorack synth but I'm not 100% pleased with it; seems to me the input/output gaining stages are not optimized for modular levels.

 

[monsterthompson]

I'll be following this thread. Bitcrushing/Downsampling is my favorite effect, and I think it sounds great on bass (I love anything that adds inharmonic components). I do have a Geiger Counter in my eurorack synth but I'm not 100% pleased with it; seems to me the input/output gaining stages are not optimized for modular levels.

Might be worth trying this interface box for rack/line/pedal.
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