5 Ways To Use The Bit Crusher

Use the bit crusher to go from this….

to this….

Mastering In Logic presents Logic Pro Quick Tips.

The Bit Crusher is an amazing plugin that can subtly or not so subtly transform your sound. Here’s 5 quick tips to help you better understand, enhance and warp your mixes with the Bitcrusher.

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Here’s the transcript from the video!

1 Bitcrusher on a Drum kit.

Adding the bit crusher to Drummer or Drum Kit Designer immediately makes it sound bigger.

It’s an amazing tool on drums and I use it all the time.

Usually you only need 2-4dB of Drive and you’ll get a bigger drum sound.

In this case I’ve driven the bit crusher hard at 9dB and added a bit of downsampling to really colour the sound.  Even though it’s louder it’s actually thicker and more overdriven.

I copied the snare to a new track so I could add some reverb which I’ll come to in a moment.  The snare is driven hard with 17dB of drive, which really brings out the thwack of the snare, it’s louder but forward and much grittier in the mix.

Adding the Bit Crusher to a track channel either on the whole drum kit of individual drums is a great way to bring your music to life by adding harmonics and edge to the sound.

2: Bitcrusher on Reverb

Sometimes you might like your reverb to have more of a LoFi sound rather than a squeaky clean ambiance so why not use the Bitcrusher to break it up and give it more edge.

On this track I wanted to add some reverb to the snare, I used Logic’s Enverb along with the Bitcrusher to add more colour to the sound.

The reverb is short so it doesn’t get in the way of the track and a super short decay ensures it stays in time with the music.

The Bitcrusher has some drive but the main affect here is the Resolution by bringing it down to 9bit it really adds some grit to the clean reverb sound and therefore adds some edge, width and colour to the music.

3: Bitcrusher on a Bass.

You can subtly overdrive a bass with the Bitcrusher or really change the sound of a stock plugin presets.

Here I’ve selected a bass sound from Alchemy and really messed with it by driving it hard, reducing the Resolution and raising the Downsampling to really break up the sound and give it much more edge.

All I did was adjust the dials until I found something I liked.  Notice that I used the Mix dial to blend the processed back in with the original sound.  The bitcrusher makes the sound much fatter.

You could also duplicate the bass track and load the bit crusher on the duplicated track and then really distort and warp the sound finally blending the two together.  This is a great way of having to bass parts on completely clean and a second warped and distorted.  Of course the advantage of doing it this way means that you can have the duplicated track coming in at different times throughout the arrangement making the music more exciting to listen to!

4: Bitcrusher On Vocals

Adding a small amount of Drive from the Bitcrusher can really bring a vocal part forward in a mix but in this example I’ve gone for a more extreme sound.

A subtle drive, low resolution, and Downsampling to taste coupled with a 20% mix really adds flavour to the Vocoder part and brings something new to the vocal sound.

I often use the Bitcrusher on vocals to subtly bring the voice forward but sometimes going extreme works wonders too.

5: Bitcrusher on the Master Buss

You’ll need to exercise caution on this one but adding the Bitcrusher to the Master Out can bring a track to life.  It’s almost like you’re adding tape distortion.

You’ll want to leave the Resolution at 24bit, Downsampling at it’s minimun and the Mix can be blended to taste if you want to.

The drive is where you’ll add the saturation to the mix 1-2dB is plenty enough but keep an eye on the level so you’re not going into the red!

Don’t forget to A/B it though to make sure it’s adding some positive to the mix.

So there you have 5 uses for the amazing Bitcrusher I hope you found them useful and given you new ways to use the BC in your own music.  It’s a great Logic Pro tool that I use all the time and find it has multiple uses from subtle enhancement to all dirtiness!

Happy mixing and mastering!

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