Bit
Our analogue bitcrusher wants to tear your guitar a new F-hole. It will take your ‘tone’ and decimate it. Maybe that’s a little melodramatic, but if you’re looking for a warm overdrive then you’d best move along now…
Analogue bitcrusher? An oxymoron maybe but it’s the simplest description of what Bit is and does. Maybe sample-rate-reducer might be better, but it still doesn’t give you much of a picture of what Bit will do to your guitar. Essentially, it mimics digital distortion and low-fi digital sound (think 80s video games and your getting there), then it does so much more.
The ‘Crush’ control is like a sound quality dial. Turn it down and first things get a bit fizzy and sparkly. Then they become weird and clanging and metallic until finally all hope is lost and there go your musical notes. Or so you thought, but the ‘Blend’ control comes to the rescue with the facility to mix your clean signal with the crushed signal.
It doesn’t end there though, there are two other tricks up his sleeve. Bit has two modulation settings that move the Crush setting while you’re playing. The ‘wave’ setting will sweep smoothly back and forth at a rate controlled by the ‘Speed’ knob, creating twisted phasey or flangey textures, whilst the ‘random’ setting will stagger around like a drunk robot, glitching and bleeping and generally causing chaos.