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.
• 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.