I played a lot of video games as a kid – and I still dabble. It’s just part of my DNA. The difference between then and now is that the old arcade machines and early computers (shout out C64!) and handheld Game & Watch systems did not have what we would call realistic sound by today’s standards. But back then, that was the vibe. It was part of the game experience, the sound just as real as the lo res graphics we worshipped as our new reality.
So today, when I hear low resolution sound, I’m taken back. It’s part nostalgia, but also fascination with these sound chips being able to create a sound scenario believable enough to keep the illusion of something far from the real world alive. And I think that’s one of the big reasons I love bitcrushed and old digital sounds so much to this day. Plus the fact that any amount of bitcrushing can help a sound find its place in a track, cutting through and becoming a crystallized, crunchy sound byte. I enjoy and sometimes create my own lofi music for these exact reasons. It’s like a time capsule bringing another truth to live in for a while. And it just sounds good!
Just recently I finally got my hands on Chipcrusher by Plogue, a plugin initially released more than 12 years ago at the time of writing this, but nevertheless very competitive in the sphere of bitcrushing plugins. I was full of modest anticipation, as I already have many different ways of degrading my sound in Ableton as well as with VSTs like MBitFun by Melda, Lo-Fi AF by Unfiltered Audio, Decimort 2 by D16 and Bite Harder by Denise Audio. But I’m pretty sure this is one of the best crushers out there, simply because of the technical and historic accuracy that has gone into this by the guys at Plogue.
VIDEO: Chipcrusher on drums, bass and even the Master
In the video below I’ve collected a bunch of clips of me using Chipcrusher on widely different track types, on individual instruments and on the master channel as well. It’s evident how Chipcrusher can be used in either a subtle manner to bring out character or to smash up a sound that’s a little too folder clean. Or to use it directly on the master to crush the whole thing with machines, circuits and cabinets from before this millennium.
What is Bit-Crushing (and why it matters)
In the most basic sense, bit-crushing is the process of intentionally reducing the fidelity of a digital audio signal – lowering bit depth, reducing sample rate, degrading the converter behaviour—so that the signal acquires artifacts, aliasing, distortion and noise. It’s the opposite of “making things pristine”: it embraces the limitations of digital conversion as a creative aesthetic. Chipcrusher brings that edge back.
What was once a limitation of early hardware has become a creative statement in beatmaking. It’s a way of putting tension back into the sound — of reminding clean, high-definition mixes that imperfection has its own musical language. In sound design, bitcrushing matters because it restores texture, contrast, and emotion to a digital landscape that’s often too smooth. It’s about hearing the system struggle, and finding beauty in the struggle itself.
Layers of Degradation
Looking at the UI and how Chipcrusher works, positioned immediately after a gate and compressor stage, the DAC Encoding is the heart of Chipcrusher. In my first tests I loaded a clean sine synth pad and slowly reduced its sample rate and switched encodings. Suddenly it sounded like a failed sampler or PC speaker from the early 90s – grainy, modulated, unpredictable. Changing from PCM to BRR or CVSD gave completely different flavour: one was fiddly Green House on a flip up LCD screen, the other was Double Dragon oozing for a coin at the arcade.
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Next comes the Background Noise module. Here you can layer actual noise samples captured from arcade boards, vintage consoles, computers (Vic20, C64, GameBoy, Atari 2600, Vectrex etc.). plogue.com These aren’t generic hiss tracks—they’re recorded anomalies from old gear. That subtle layer of noise adds depth. I found myself nudging the noise level up just until it became ambient texture, not distraction. A nice bonus here is the ability to alter the pitch of the noise, handy the same way you would tune your drums, if applied as a louder effect.
The Cabinet/Impulse Response module is the final twist. I pushed the same sine pad through a GameBoy speaker IR and then an old TV-monitor speaker IR. The difference was remarkable – not just in frequency but in mid-band weirdness and resonance. The plugin’s IR library spans computers, monitors, game devices, instruments and even answering machines. I just love knowing this is done through research and a shared love for the old skool.
Used lightly, chipcrusher can soften a clean signal’s polish: a drum loop becomes lived-in; a vocal loosens its edge, a synth pad gets warmth by way of decay. Push it harder, and it starts to break things open: drums collapse into lo-fi weirdness, pads acquire a gritty shell of aliasing and intonality, vocals become ghosts on a failing radio. Chipcrusher goes for nuance over chaos with each selection, yet chaos is always within reach if you crank the knobs
Final thoughts
As someone always looking for texture and new sonics in the noise between the notes, I find Chipcrusher is my missing plugin. It may not be the flashiest plugin out there, but it’s one of the most expressive ones, created with attention to detail and history, delivered with enough customization options for it to actually work as a creative tool as well as a peek into the crunchy past of entertainment audio. I could have maybe wished for another form factor for the User Interface, but it works really well. And that’s what matters the most.
