What is this?
This is a bitcrusher VST plug-in with an emphasis on realism. It processes audio in the same way as creating an audio file with a lower bit depth. To prove this, you can do the following test in Audacity.
- Install the plug-in.
- Open Audacity.
- Enable the effect.
- Open preferences and disable dithering.
- Record or generate some audio.
- Apply the effect with the default settings.
- Export a 16 bit WAV file.
- Invert the track.
- Import your previously exported audio file.
- Mix and render the project. You should notice the audio is pure silence.
Parameters and their descriptions
- Disable: Bypasses the effect. This is useful if the host application doesn’t have a way of bypassing the plug-in.
- InGain: Input gain of the effect.
- OutGain: Output gain of the effect.
- BitDepth: The target bit depth.
- DCBias: applies a DC bias to the input.
- Dither: Enable or disable dithering.
- DitherType: The probability density function that is used to generate dither noise.
- InvertDither: Flips the polarity of the dither noise.
- HighpassDither: Applies a highpass filter to the dither noise.
- DitherGain: controls the over all affect of dithering.
- MersenneTwister: Switches to using the Mersenne Twister pseudorandom number generator instead of the PRNG provided by the standard library.
- MersenneGenerator: The Mersenne Twister generator function to use.
- Seed: The value used to reset the pseudorandom number generators.
- SeedWithTime: Resets the pseudorandom number generators with the current time. When this is enabled, the value set by Seed is ignored.
- NoiseShaping: Enable or disable noise shaping.
- NoiseShapingFilter: The noise shaping filter to use.
- PsychoacousticCurve: The EQ curve that is used in the psychoacoustic noise shaping filter.
- NoiseShapingFocus: Controls whether the noise shaping focuses on low or high frequencies.
- NoiseShapingGain: controls the over all affect of noise shaping.
- AutoBlank: If this is enabled, silent audio isn't dithered or noise shaped.
- Clip: Clips the audio before quantizing.
- ClipThreshold: Sets the threshold for Clip.
- Quantize: Enable or disable the actual bit reduction.
- QuantizationMode: The type of math that is used for quantization.
- Clip0dB: Clips audio that is over 0 dB as part of the quantization process, so the quantized audio can fit in a fixed point format.
- DitherInError: Treats dithering as part of the quantization process.
- OnlyError: Sends the quantization error to the output instead of the quantized signal.
Extra notes
- The seed parameters take effect when the plug-in is next reset.
- This is only a VST2 compatible plug-in.
- This plug-in has no User Interface of Its own, so the host application should provide a method of interacting with effect parameters.
- This project is developed directly with the VST SDK. As a result, this plug-in has a small footprint.
License
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
Lesser General Public License for more details.