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Bitcrushing questions.
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| Eric J |
| After producing for a few years now, I still have not quite grasped the concept of why bitcrushers are useful. From what I can tell it degrades sound quality of a particular source audio, but why is this useful? Does anyone have any examples as to why you would want to do this? Audio examples would be helpful or links to examples. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| Bitcrushing is like any other kind of distortion: it just gives a particular "sound" that you might find interesting. It doesn't really have a special particular use that other distortion effects don't. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
Sample-rate reduction is also neat sometimes. Here's the Little Phatty put through Ableton's "Redux" tool, playing around with resonance and sample rate:
http://jbj.raceriv.com/sounds/redux1a.mp3 |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| Cool basslines in your samples, though. |
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| StephenWiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by Eric J
After producing for a few years now, I still have not quite grasped the concept of why bitcrushers are useful. From what I can tell it degrades sound quality of a particular source audio, but why is this useful? Does anyone have any examples as to why you would want to do this? Audio examples would be helpful or links to examples. |
Well you described it perfectly as far as how it effects sound. Degrading the quality on certain elements can be a good thing. Then there are of course prolonged uses for the effect but i can't imagine it being used very wet in that situation.
Best example I can give is to get dBlue glitch (it's free) and run some random perc loops through it and listen to what the bit crusher does. It can, with some of the other FX in dBlue, create some pretty neat glitchy techy type sounds. A lot of people will use it also very very lightly to try and recreate an analog feel. It doesn't do anything to widen a round obviously, but can give a sound a more gritty edge if used properly.
I personally hate bit crushing as I'm into pristine type sounds, but it's a very flavor of the month type of effect lately. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
I dunno, bit-crushing is terrible for "analog feel" IMO. It's the ultimate in digital effects, putting on display the quantized nature of digital media. It does give a "dirty" sound, though, which might be enough to conjure up "analog" for some listeners.
:p |
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| StephenWiley |
| Not saying I do it, but I have read of people doing it. I'm into pristine sounds so I have no interest in it. |
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| Eric J |
OK, I hear what you are referring to. That sounds vaguely similar to the Logic bitcrusher. I see how this provides a nice "distorted" bed in that passage, very cool.
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Sample-rate reduction is also neat sometimes. Here's the Little Phatty put through Ableton's "Redux" tool, playing around with resonance and sample rate:
http://jbj.raceriv.com/sounds/redux1a.mp3 |
This is pretty cool, I'll need to try this out. I'm really digging the stock Ableton plugins lately. Rewiring Live into Logic creates some interesting possibilities.
This example actually answers another problem i have been having with certain types of presence in basslines i have been hearing lately.
Which plugin did you use for this?
| quote: | Originally posted by StephenWiley
Best example I can give is to get dBlue glitch (it's free) and run some random perc loops through it and listen to what the bit crusher does. It can, with some of the other FX in dBlue, create some pretty neat glitchy techy type sounds. |
Thanks, but I can't use dBlue plugins, they are Windows only.
I'll have to give it a try with the Logic bitcrisher tonight and Redux in Live and see how well it works on some of my stuff. The examples given here have definitely given me some ideas. I really appreciate you guys taking a bit of time out of your day to help me out. It is VERY much appreciated.
I have a 30-day demo of the Sonalksis bitcrusher plugin that I'll try as well, see how that sounds on some basslines and other FX. If I like it, then the Sonalksis TBK plugins are only $99. |
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