bitcrust

bitcrust is a polyphonic synthesizer built around a SID-style voice architecture: three oscillators per voice, up to twelve voices, with ring mod, hard sync, and the pulse-width behaviour that defined a generation of 8-bit sound. The DSP is an in-house, clean-room implementation written from the public MOS 6581 register map and general DSP literature — not an emulator port — so bitcrust sounds SID-adjacent without inheriting the license constraints that keep most SID-inspired tools off the major app stores.

Sonically the plugin sits between a chip synth and a modern subtractive. The voice core can still do gritty arp basses, zap leads, and 8-bit percussion, but the surrounding architecture — three LFOs, a per-voice modulation envelope, an 8-slot modulation matrix, and a 6-slot post-SID FX rack with drive, bitcrusher, tempo-synced delay, chorus, reverb, compressor, and limiter — extends it into pad, keys, and texture territory.

Universal Purchase: one price buys the Mac Standalone plus the iPad AUv3. The iPad build is a co-equal target, not a downscale — the full 113-preset factory library, all 14 themes, and the complete mod matrix / FX rack ship on both platforms.

Voice core: 12-voice polyphony, 3 oscillators per voice, SID-style triangle / saw / pulse / noise with hard sync and ring mod, per-VCO ADSR

Filter: global VCF (LP / BP / HP) with live curve, selectable 6581 / 8580 chip model, Vintage vs. Modern oscillator mode

Modulation: 3 global LFOs (7 shapes, host-sync or Hz), per-voice mod envelope, 8-slot matrix, MIDI sources (velocity, poly AT, channel AT, mod wheel, pitch bend)

FX rack: 6 slots, drag-to-reorder, per-slot bypass / mix; effect types Drive (5 modes), Bitcrusher, Delay (tempo-sync), Chorus, Reverb, Compressor, Limiter — every FX parameter is a modulation destination

MIDI: 16-step sequencer, arpeggiator (Up / Down / UpDown / Random, 6 rate divisions, octave range), MIDI Learn on every knob, note Hold

Presets: 113 factory patches across 10 groups, full-metadata save (author, description, tags), Preset Preview audition without committing, A/B snapshot compare, XML import / export

UI: 6-tab navigation, 14 themes with optional phosphor / CRT overlays, monitor strip (oscilloscope, vectorscope, FFT spectrum, 3D spectrogram, stereo field), QWERTY note typing from any tab

Mac: Standalone app with universal binary (Apple Silicon + Intel). iPad: AUv3 extension plus a Standalone for headphone jamming. A supported AUv3 host is required for in-DAW use on iPad (GarageBand, Logic Pro for iPad, AUM, Cubasis, etc.).

Support: https://anode-labs.com/bitcrust · [email protected]

Privacy policy: https://anode-labs.com/privacy

What's new in 1.0.0: First release.