Bite

Resampling as a sound-design tool

BITE treats an incoming signal as material being captured and replayed by a limited-resolution sampler. Its frequency section changes the sampling clock, creating aliasing and coarse high-frequency textures; its bit section reduces the available amplitude values, producing quantization distortion. These are different processes and can be balanced independently rather than applied as a single lo-fi preset.

Controlled degradation

Crunch makes resolution changes continuous, while Expand changes how quantization values are distributed across quiet and loud portions of the signal. Jitter and Dither introduce independent left/right fluctuations or noise, so degradation can also create stereo texture. Pre- and post-filtering let you decide how much aliasing and imaging survives, and output saturation rounds or intensifies the result. Start with modest reduction on a drum or synth part, then use Mix to retain the source's definition.

Source: Manual, “BITE / Overview of BITE,” pp. 10–13.

Sampling frequency and filters

• kHz: Sets the resampling frequency from 100 Hz to 44,100 Hz. Lower settings introduce increasingly obvious aliasing and loss of detail; sweep this separately from Bits to identify the desired character.
• Jitter: Adds independent timing fluctuations to the left and right sampling clocks. Increase it for noisier, wider degradation rather than a perfectly stable digital tone.
• Pre Flt: Filters before resampling, reducing frequencies that would otherwise alias. Post Flt filters the resampled result to reduce image frequencies. Both cover 50 Hz–22,050 Hz; their center positions correspond to half the current sampling frequency.

Resolution and texture

• Bits: Selects 2–16-bit quantization. Fewer bits create stronger distortion.
• Crunch: Lowers the level entering the quantizer so fewer available values are used. This changes effective resolution smoothly instead of jumping between integer bit depths.
• Expand: Redistributes quantization values. Lower settings allocate more resolution near silence; higher settings distribute values more evenly, making quiet material coarser and potentially pulse-like.
• Dither: Adds noise before quantization. Subtle amounts can soften quantization errors; stronger settings make the noise an audible creative layer. Its independent stereo noise sources also affect width.
• DC: Excludes zero from the available quantization values when enabled. The output can continue as a buzzing square wave after the input fades, so disable it when clean endings matter.

Finish and blend

Saturation drives the quantized signal with loudness compensation. HP removes low-frequency/DC content with 5, 100 or 200 Hz cutoff choices. Mix is an equal-power dry/wet crossfade: restore some dry signal when the degraded layer obscures transients or pitch.

Source: Manual, “Overview of BITE,” pp. 10–13.