bitcrush

fx.bitcrush

A bitcrusher effect node for adding digital distortion.

Parameters

ID	Range	Default	Description
BitDepth	4.00 - 16.00	16.00	Controls the bit depth reduction. Lower bit depths produce more pronounced distortion.
Mode	0.00 - 1.00	0.00	Selects the mode of operation for the bitcrusher.

The bitcrush node is an audio effect that applies bit reduction to the incoming audio signal, resulting in digital distortion. This effect is commonly used to create lo-fi, gritty sounds characteristic of early digital audio. By snapping the input signal towards a stepped curve, some quantization noise is added, which creates the characteristic "crushed" sound.

The bitcrush node supports multiple voices, making it suitable for polyphonic applications. Each voice can have its bit depth controlled independently.

Modes

There are two available modes that the bit crusher can operate that have subtle differences: DC Offset and Bipolar . This screenshot shows the difference in the ramp using two oscilloscopes:

The difference comes down to how the quantisation is calculated: With the DC Offset mode, it rounds up the values using the ceil operator and in the Bipolar mode it rounds the values using the floor operator. This yields two differences:

1. In the DC offset mode, there is no silence (you can see in the graph that it jumps from a negative value to a positive value). Hence the name: it always introduces a DC offset.
2. In the Bipolar mode, it rounds the signal towards the smaller number, so that quiet signals will be rounded to silence. This removes the DC offset (which is a bit annoying to deal with), however, the output itself is a bit quieter and the total number of steps is one smaller than with the DC Offset mode.

In most cases you might want to use the Bipolar mode.