Bitcom User’s Guide Audio Damage, Inc. Release 1.
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Introduction Bitcom was created in part because of an argument. The argument essentially went like this: Chris asked Adam whether a particular bit-oriented operation could be applied to digital signals. Adam said yes, but that doing so didn’t particularly make much sense from a digital signal-processing perspective. Chris asked whether it could be done anyway. Adam said yes, but tried to explain why it didn’t make any sense and why the end result wouldn’t be useful.
On OS X, the installer installs the Audio Unit and VST versions of Bitcom by default. If you click the Customize button you can choose to not install one or more of these formats. There‘s no need to install formats that you don‘t use, but on the other hand they don‘t take up much space if you do install them. The OS X versions are combined 32/64-bit binaries. If you‘re running a 64-bit version of Windows, you can choose to install either 32- or 64-bit versions of Bitcom, or both.
Bitcom’s bits buttons and flag buttons are shown in the image on the right. The numbers across the top enumerate the steps. Each step’s buttons are arranged in a column, with the bits buttons on top (as suggested by the cunning placement of the word “BITS” on the right) and flag buttons below. We’re going to work with just one set of bits buttons, the first one on the left. You’ll see it peeking out on the left in the following screen shots.
Each of the eight bits allows part of the input signal to pass through to the output. These parts are added together to form one output signal. In rough terms, the upper bits correspond to the bigger parts of the input signal, and the lower bits correspond to the smaller parts. Putting it another way, the upper bits select the parts of the signal that correspond to big changes in loudness, while the lower bits select the fine details.
Now at least we could say that the input signal is something other than a square wave, because of those intermediate steps in the output. Still, most of the detail of the input is gone—no smooth changes anywhere. If we add the next bit down we get closer to reproducing the input. If you squint your eyes, or take off your glasses if you wear any, you’ll see that the output is now not too far from the shape of the sine wave input.
These effects always operate as we’ve proceeded here: they turn the bits on or off, but only working from one end or the other, and only by turning off the smaller bits. Bitcom, on the other hand, lets you turn on or off any bit. For instance, if we turn on just the third bit from the top, we get the output shown on the top right of this page. Remember when we said that any one part of the signal, in isolation, doesn’t tell you much about the signal? Now you see what we meant.
Earlier we said that the lower bits correspond to the smaller details, so you might be wondering what happens if you turn on just the bottom button. If you think that you’d hear just a teeny little signal, you’d be right, except that Bitcom has another trick up its sleeve.
Operation Bitcom can be used in either a mono or stereo context. When used as a stereo plug-in, the input channels are processed separately. Bitcom is probably most useful as an insert effect, but there’s no reason you can’t use it in a send/return loop. If you do so, you’ll probably want to set its MIX knob to 100%. The controls in Bitcom’s window are grouped into areas by their function. We’ll look at each area in turn.
Sequencer Controls On the right of the button matrix you’ll find the controls for Bitcom’s sequencer. The STATUS buttons are possibly the most important: click on the RUN button to make the sequencer run, and click on the IDLE button to stop it. Bitcom’s sequencer is locked to your host program’s transport, and hence will run and stop when your host runs and stops. The STEPSIZE buttons set how rapidly Bitcom’s sequencer moves from one step to the next by choosing the metrical unit for one step.
With either setting of the WAVEFORM switch, moving the SHAPE knob can produce some nice timbral changes—nice enough that we hardwired the SHAPE knob to MIDI controller #1, the modulation wheel on most keyboards. If you route MIDI data to Bitcom in your host software, you can use a mod wheel to change the shape of the wave. The TUNE knob sets the frequency of the synthesizer. In the absence of incoming MIDI data, this is the only control you have over the synth’s musical pitch.
Bitcom’s synthesizer certainly won’t win any awards for software synthesis. During Bitcom’s development we used a simple tone generator as our input signal. As Bitcom came to life we discovered that mixing that tone generator with other, more complex input signals produced sounds that didn’t happen when either signal was processed by itself. Hence we gussied up the tone generator with an adjustable wave shape, an envelope follower, and MIDI control, and incorporated it into Bitcom itself.
Automation All of Bitcom’s parameters can be automated using your host's automation features. Consult your host's documentation for information on how to use these features. Note that Bitcom’s RND BITS and CLR BITS buttons broadcast automation data when they randomize or clear the BITS matrix. If you find unexpected automation data in Bitcom’s track in your DAW, this might be where it’s coming from. And Finally… Thanks again for purchasing Bitcom.
