| UNEARTHED CIRCUITS

This device is created from a toy voice changer… two actually. They are called the Yada Yada voice recorders. (check out your local Target store) I originally discovered the potential of this toy from the Get Lo-fi website which had great info and diagrams of the circuits. I’m seeing them everywhere now… and I buy them. They make great gifts even without bends.

The toy that used in this device

It has record and play buttons and a dial to adjust the pitch. You can keep re-firing the sample every time you hit play and if you hold it down it would continue to loop. Having both a momentary button and a toggle switch was obvious. I also added a mute switch so you can have it continue to play and mute certain parts without re-triggering the loop.

I decided to incorporate 2 devices into this because i wanted the capability of recording one loop into the other. To do this I used two 3-way switches which select the different inputs. You can record from the microphone, the 1/4 jack input or re-record the loop from the other circuit. Each overdub greatly reduces the sound quality… which is the charm of this thing (and where it gets it’s name “bit-crushing”)

This is really fun to mess around with. It’s great for both rhythmic, percussive loops or longer droning tones.

I’m currently planning the next version of looping device from the Yada. I’d like to add a variable record speed so you can have a lot more control of the length of the recorded sample. Slowing down the record speed will crush the sound quality into a grungy distorted mess…. perfect!

Finished Looper

View full Bit-Crushing Looper Gallery

These first two Bit-Crushing Looper packs are short percussive hits that are great for lo-fi, glitch, IDM style drum sequencing. Created by sampling sounds into the device and then re-sampling and recording them. They are chopped up into small pieces and are ready to be used for drum sequencing or triggering from a sampler. Around 150 total samples in this pack.