Cognate Bitcrush

Ramp down the sample rate to step up the aliasing and emulate 80’s samplers adding crunchy distortion. Sounds great swept with an expression pedal. Drop the bits and the bass becomes gritty and gated.

We wanted more. We added a unique Blocks mode that re-imagines JPEG lossy artefacts as a bass effect. Crank the block size to add a cleaner, sci-fi crunch.

Use the Tone knob – a tilt eq, to shape the distortion, and Blend and Level to fit them into your bass sound. Go max blend for the full devastation, or dial it back to add a crisp edge and brightness to your tone.

Env follows the shape of your bass notes with the sample rate for more movement and dynamics, to create growls and zappy laser blasts. The LFO lets you tweak the sound further with smooth sine or random stepped modulation.

Just one more feature – a menu of digital glitches, to twist the bits and bytes in unheard-of ways that interact with your bass signal for more unique digi-stortion.

Bassists love bit crushing for the bright, gnarly character and edge it brings to their tone. Add it after octaver for robotic synthiness, or add sizzle to overdrive. Give delays a 80’s retro throwback, or a crystal-like edge to pitch shifting.