Uses for Bit Reduction

[penguinpajamas]

Hey guys! So as much as I love playing with the downsampling in the redux audio effect, I'm struggling to find a creative use for the bit reduction. I can maybe see using it to get a really distorted in-your-face sound like Justice or something, but I can't really see any practical uses other than that.

Does anybody care to share how they use the bit reduction aspect of the redux effect?

Thanks,
Charlie

[DavidStars]

I agree. Redux can be pretty destructive sonically where it distorts the sound to the point where it isn't even pleasant to listen to. I've used it once in one of my beats where I used light settings on it to add a little bit of distortion to some strings I had. It helped make the strings sound a little more "electronic." I had the Bit Reduction on 8 and the Downsample as soft at 2.21. Minimal, but noticeable and helped out.

I would definitely say give it a try and play around with it. Might be able to find some use out of it.

[Tagor]

you can use it to make a normal sounding voice more like spoek through a walkie-talkie
or you enrich the voice with overtones before giving it thru an vocoder - that could be
helpfull if you want make stronger thr robotic voice charakter

just my half cent

[tkarmakid]

Maybe try introducing it by automating it in for just a quick break.
For drum variations try the on/off button with settings that don't totally destroy the sample.
For other things try automating a gradual increase in the bit reduction at the tail end of a sound or sequence so as it fades out its sound quality degrades.

[Matt_Quinn]

I get a lot more mileage out of just leaving the bit reduction all the way up, turning the downsample switch to soft, and playing with the Downsample amount. Drop it on a synth and automate the downsample parameter.

[Machinesworking]

I use bit reduction on high hats and snares all the time, in fact anything that's brittle sounding to begin with can be made more interesting with it. I have hardly any use for it on guitar or synth though.

[yur2die4]

Bury it in reverb.

[Cool Character]

It's pretty great for destroying your hearing.

[Jeffromusic]

I like using it on plain 808s or something. It adds a bit of texture to it. Just don't add too much though.

[ian_halsall]

try it on an really harsh fm sound - it sounds great.

you can also use it on your whole mix in a bit reduction sweep

use the soft setting not the hard

here's a track that I used bit reduction on Neil Young's "Don't let it bring you down" throughout

https://soundcloud.com/ian_halsall/dont ... t-you-down

[Daniel_S]

I use it every now and then.

It has been used in a subtle way on various parts of my percussion within this track...

https://soundcloud.com/dj-daniel-s/daniel-s-cold-pads

[re:dream]

It's pretty great for destroying your hearing.

Word


imho any effect rack with redux in it should have a limiter at the end of the chain.

[Sage]

Useful on triangle waves for getting the full nintendo thing going on.

[Warmonger]

I just used Erosion "noisy" preset to kill resonance on some otherwise nice percussion loop.

[ian_halsall]

you can make that 'classic' dubstep "yay yay/yoi yoi" with it - in conjunction with operator