Introduction
The SSL Digicrush delivers the gritty, lo-fi character of classic digital distortion, perfectly emulating the degradation and artefacts of early digital audio. Featuring built-in jitter, adjustable bit depth, and sample rate reduction, the SSL Digicrush excels at adding a vintage digital edge to your tracks.
Key Features
- Digicrush delivers all the controls to accurately recreate the authentic sounds of classic Samplers & Rack effects from the dawn of Digital Audio Processing.
- Overload works similarly to the technique of gaining into an ADC to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio, whilst the signal that results is coloured in heavily textured saturation, iconic of the "Boom Bap" style drum sound at lower settings and full-on signal decimation at the top end of the scale, giving unique flexibility in shaping your signal for a variety of different sonic tones.
- The Jitter control introduces short-period, random fluctuations to the resampling frequency, generating an extra layer of organic harmonic distortion; a unique premise for a digital effect whereby the resulting signal moves and flexes in complex & interesting ways.
- The Bit Depth control paired with one of the four available quantization modes, allows for dramatically different dynamic responses, allowing the user to create precise & intricate reproductions of classic vintage hardware samplers, whether it's the textured ambience of Chicago House Synth Lead, the grimy 12 Bit swagger of 90's Boom Bap, or tracker style 8-bit crushed Amen breaks, Digicrush covers the entire spectrum early digital that authentically recreates the magic that made those early records withstand the test of time.
- Digicrush’s optional anti-alias & anti-imaging filters allow further sculpting of the signal. These can be used to smooth the sound or remove sonic artefacts introduced into the signal path by the modelling process to your taste, giving incredible flexibility over controlling the bit-crushing effects of the plug-in and resulting in an entirely unique sound design tool that goes beyond that of any other distortion plug-in.
Release Notes
V1.0.9
- Initial release.
Supported Platforms and Hosts
For compatibility information about plug-ins, visit the Plug-in Operating System and DAW Compatibility FAQ.
When we release an SSL plug-in, we test it on all Windows and macOS operating systems that aren't End-of-Life (EOL) at the time of release. We test the plug-ins on a range of DAWs, using the latest version publicly available version of each one. It is possible our products may work on platforms outside of this list. However, if you are using a DAW not listed below, or an older DAW version (perhaps several years old), we recommend you demo the product before purchase to confirm that it works correctly.
macOS ARM Support
This plug-in is provided as a universal binary for macOS and features native ARM support.
Tested Hosts
- FL Studio
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Ableton Live
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Logic Pro
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Reaper
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Pro Tools
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Cubase & Nuendo
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Studio One
Formats
- VST
- VST3
- AU
- AAX
Demo/Trial
To demo this plug-in, you can simply download it from the product page and run it up in your host - the software will guide you through the rest of the process.
- Download and install the plug-in.
- Open your DAW/host.
- Insert the plug-in to commence activation (sometimes this will happen when the plug-in is scanned on startup, depending on your DAW/host).
- When you see 'Activation is required', click 'Try'.
- Log into your iLok account and click 'Next'.
- Select a location to activate the license to, and click 'Next'.
Installation and Download
We recommend using the SSL Download Manager application to to easily manage all SSL plug-in installations all from one place, on both macOS and Windows. In addition to easily installing, uninstalling or reinstalling individual or every SSL plug-in at the click of a button, the SSL Download Manager also provides you with detailed release notes and lets you know when updates are available.
You can also download offline installers for a plug-in from here.
All SSL plug-ins are supplied in VST, VST3, AU (macOS only) and AAX (Pro Tools) formats.
The installers provided (macOS Intel .dmg and Windows .exe) copy the plug-in binaries to the common VST, VST3, AU and AAX directories. After this, the host DAW should recognise the plug-in automatically in most cases. Simply run the installer and you should be good to go. You can find more information about how to authorise your plug-ins below.
Licensing
Visit iLok, Licensing and Activation for guidance in activating your SSL plug-in.
Key controls
OVERLOAD - Simultaneously reduces the quantisation scale while increasing the overall gain of the output to maintain the level of the output, creating a ‘blown speaker'-style effect.
DOWNSAMPLE - Adjusts the sample rate to simulate vintage digital gear, including resampling Jitter as a secondary control.
JITTER - Introduces random variations in the sample rate. Higher values increase the randomness, adding more jitter to the signal.
BITS - Reduce bit depth by introducing digital distortion, mimicking vintage digital gear. Settable from 24 down to 1.
BIT MODE - Switches between 4 presets of Quantisation Mode and Quantisation Dither Type for the bit reduction. These can be selected by clicking on the Quantisation mode name, or selecting via the rotary encoder:
| GATE | DESTORY | SMOOTH | NOISY |
| Mid-Tread + No Dither | Mid-Riser + No Dither | Mid-Tread (DC Shift) + Rectangular | Mid-Riser + Triangular |
ANTI ALIASING - Activates or deactivates the anti-aliasing filter for a 'punchier' and 'cleaner' sound when reducing the sample rate. The anti-aliasing filter removes harmonic content above the Nyquist frequency from the input signal, which is defined as half of the sampling frequency as defined by the Downsample control. The Frequency Control sets a Cut-off frequency deviation of the filter, which is offset from the Nyquist’s frequency of the Downsampler.
With the Deviation of the frequency control set to 0, (default) this sets the Filter’s cutoff frequency exactly at the Nyquist frequency. This results in the removing the entire harmonic content above the Nyquist frequency, which prevents the artefacts from appearing below this point. The only type of artefacts occurring are harmonics above the Nyquist point, also known as Images.
When we alter the Frequency control, +100% sets it to 44.1kHz & -100% sets it to Nyquist divided by 20. Positive Frequency, therefore allows you to tailor a level of aliasing artefacts from full frequency range. Negative values which result in over-the-top anti-aliasing filtering and extreme negative values remove more signal than would be required for anti-aliasing & also remove some of the signal below the resampled Nyquist point.
ANTI-IMAGES - Activates or deactivates the anti-images filter for a 'softening' effect when reducing the sample rate. When enabled, this reduces imaging artefacts.
When engaged, +100% sets it to 44.1kHz & -100% sets it to Nyquist, which is the downsampling point divided by 20, except this is applied after the resampling. A positive value of the freq control moves the cut-off freq from the resampled Nyquist value up to 44.1k & a negative value moves it from Nyquist down to Nyquist divided by 20.
MIX - Blends the processed and unprocessed signals.
OUTPUT - Applies a gain to the output signal.
Presets
All of our plug-ins ship with carefully designed presets to aid your workflow.
Factory presets are included in the plug-in installation, installed in the following locations:
macOS: /Library/Application Support/Solid State Logic/PlugIns/Presets/[Plug-in Name]
Windows: C:\ProgramData\Solid State Logic\PlugIns\Presets\[Plug-in Name]
Switching between presets can be achieved by clicking the left/right arrows in the preset management section of the plug-in GUI, and by clicking on the preset name which will open the preset management display.
The Preset Management menu reflects the folder structure of the preset folder.
Revert Changes and Delete
- Revert Changes discards any changes to the current preset.
- Delete removes the current preset from the filesystem. Factory and Producer presets cannot be deleted from the plug-in GUI, although they can be manually deleted using the filesystem (Windows Explorer or Finder).
A/B and Copy
- A/B allows you to toggle quickly between two presets. This is useful for comparing between two parameter settings.
UNDO/REDO
SSL plug-ins come with a built-in UNDO/REDO stack, in case your DAW doesn't handle this.
- UNDO undoes the current action in the history stack.
- REDO re-does the next action in the history stack.
Visualisation Toggle
Click this button to toggle on/off the central visualisation
Built-in Help
This plug-in features built-in contextual help. To turn this feature on, click the '?' in the bottom right-hand corner. Mouse over elements of the GUI to see some information about the feature.
Click the tooltip to cycle through the pages.