Hey, kids, look, it’s the Easter Bunny! And listen to the way the beast helps your beautiful song to evolve! Okay, if the folks at Caelum Audio wanted to sell us on their new DynaBit plugin, this isn’t the worst way – especially as even this holiday freebie has some powerful features. They’ve got some other free downloads, too.
You will need to sign up for an account at Caelum Audio for the VST/AU/AUv3/AAX plug-in for macOS and Windows, but once you do, you get a license for DynaBunny deposited along with two other free plug-ins (Tape Cassette 2 and Flux Mini 2). The iPhone/iPad version is available free on the App Store.
Obviously, the UI is perfect for people who were rooting for the Rabbit of Caerbannog over the invading crusaders. Even though it’s free, this software already offers some powerful features:
- Sample rate reduction down to 10 Hz
- Bit-rate reduction down to 1-bit (and partial bits, even though, sure, technically that doesn’t entirely make sense!)
- Range boost control (for even more extreme settings)
- Randomization
- Presets
- “It’s a bunny”
Sure, I have some things that do this already, but it’s useful to have a tool that becomes portable between the iPad and desktop, plus some of the extreme options here are unusual. And, hey, it’s fun and festive to destroy everything.
Here’s how it sounds. No rabbits were harmed in the production of this:
DynaBit, the paid bigger sibling of this, looks interesting – it’s funny, like a kind of hi-fi take on the genre. Both have the same fundamental addition to bitcrushing. The envelope control restores the source material’s dynamic range (I think by adding an envelope follower on the source, applied as amplitude modulation to the output). Range boost is clever, too: it prevents sounds from going silent at lower bit depth just by adjusting the gain. To that, they’ve basically added a bunch of modulation, with two sequencers, two envelope generators, and two LFOs, all assignable. And there’s a filter and beat repeat. You could actually do something like this with plug-ins you already own, with some outside modulation, but it’s nice having it in one place – and it’s on iOS, too.
I’m going to step away, though, as … my plug-in folder is starting to actually cry; I didn’t know that was possible.
Just gather the kids round and give them this, since eggs are too expensive and this is free! They’ll probably wind up … mostly … normal later on. Maybe.