BitSynthzr

BITSYNTHZR is a synth built for texture, instability and glitch.

At its core are two Sound Generators, each offering sine, ramp, pulse and a pinging noise with variable bit depth, and each able to modulate the other. Their signals meet in the OP section, a combiner that goes far beyond ring modulation: bitwise XOR, AND, OR and bit-shift, 8-bit wrap-around multiply, MIN/MAX, difference, gating, envelope following and sample & hold. Thirteen ways to fuse two signals into buzzing, unpredictable hybrids, in the spirit of the name. A 3-lane sequencer with its own CV outputs, an LFO-driven modulation section and a built-in glitch engine let a patch twitch, stutter and mutate on its own, while onboard Delay and Reverb smear it into something more spacious.

BITSYNTHZR is quirky by design. There is no traditional synth filter, only a master Tone control, so the sound is shaped by bits, pulse widths, cross modulation and logic rather than by a cutoff knob. The sequencer can be clocked by either Sound Generator, all the way up to audio rate, where the pattern stops being a rhythm and becomes the timbre itself. It’s less a preset machine than an experimental playground.

Quality settings go beyond a simple sample-rate switch: dropping to ECO or LOW decimates the voices themselves, baking real lo-fi grit and aliasing into the sound. Route external audio or CV into the Operator and BITSYNTHZR becomes a glitch and logic processor for anything you feed it, with or without notes playing.

Eight voices of beautiful malfunction: crackling leads, fractured basses and pads that come apart just enough to feel alive.

BITSYNTHZR is built on Reason’s Rack Extension SDK 5 and uses its newest panel features. The front panel folds out into the Modulation Programmer, a drawer that holds the LFO, OP and sequencer, so the full depth is one click away without taking up rack space. The cross modulation is controlled with concentric dual knobs: the inner knob sends SG1 to SG2 and the outer ring sends SG2 back to SG1, so all eight modulation paths fit in one row.

Important: Requires Reason 14

Sound Generators (SG1 & SG2)

• Waveforms — Sine, Ramp, Pulse, Noise.
• BWR — Bit depth (Sine/Ramp, ~11-bit down to 1-bit), Pulse Width (Pulse), Ping length (Noise).
• Noise — Built from random-pitched sine pings; density via Freq, playable from the keyboard.
• Range — Low (0.01–40 Hz), Mid (1 Hz–1 kHz), High (30 Hz–10 kHz).
• Mode — Free or Quantized (tempo-synced divisions in Low/Mid, semitones in High).
• KBD — Keyboard tracking, -100% to +100%.
• Envelope — Attack, Decay/Release, Sustain on/off.
• Level & Pan per generator.
• Polyphony — 8 voices (Sine/Ramp/Pulse), mono for Noise.

Cross Modulation

• Bits, Freq, Level, Pan — Four concentric bipolar knobs.
• Inner knob SG1 → SG2, outer ring SG2 → SG1, both can be active at once.

OP (Combiner)

• Inputs 1 & 2 — SG1, SG2, SG1+2, External L/R/L+R, LFO, CV 1/2, SEQ lanes.
• Modes — RM, AM, XOR, AND, OR, SHFT, MULT 8, MIN, MAX, DIFF, GATE, ENVF, S&H.
• Depth — Blend from dry mix to pure OP result.
• Works on audio and CV; control inputs run without notes playing.

Modulation (LFO)

• 16 shapes — Waves, Pulse & Random, and One-Shot envelope shapes.
• Rate — Free (0.01–30 Hz) or Sync (16 bars–1/32).
• Retrigger, One-Shot, Bipolar/Unipolar.
• Destinations — SG parameters, all 8 cross-mod amounts, Tone, Delay, Reverb, Glitch, OP Depth.

Sequencer (5256 Programmer)

• 3 lanes, up to 16 steps each; Lane 1 holds separate SG1/SG2 values.
• Per-lane Speed (/8 to x8) and Steps (1–16) for polymetric patterns.
• Master Reset count (1–256) to realign lanes into phrases.
• Trigger sources — Note 1st, Note All, LFO, SG1, SG2 (up to audio rate), CV1, CV2.
• Destinations — SG parameters, cross-mod, Tone, effects, Glitch, MOD Rate/Depth, OP Depth, OP Source.
• Follows Reason transport and Combinator Run.
• Draw, random, line, curve and ramp editing.

Glitch

• Single-knob controlled malfunction: instability, octave jumps, gating, reverse, stutter and ratchet.
• Tempo-synced, note attacks protected, velocity-scalable.
• True bypass at 0%.

Master

• Tone — 12 dB/oct LP/HP on the full mix (centre = bypass).
• Volume, Velocity amount.
• Quality — HIGH, ECO, LOW (voice and effect rate reduction).

Effects

• Lo-Fi Delay — Free/Sync, Tone, Feedback, Ping-Pong, Mix.
• Reverb — Vintage digital-style; Mix, Tone, Time (up to ~30 s).
• Delay & Reverb Send — Modulation-only, for gated effect input.

CV Inputs

• SG1 & SG2 — Wave, BWR, Freq, Attack, Decay, Level, Pan.
• Volume, OP Depth, MOD Rate & Depth.
• Delay — Rate, Tone, Feedback, Mix.
• Reverb — Mix, Tone, Time.
• CV In 1 & 2 — OP inputs and sequencer triggers.
• Mono Seq Ctrl — Gate and Note CV.
• Sequencer — All Trig, All Reset, per-lane Trig and Reset.

CV Outputs

• MOD Out — LFO at full strength.
• OP Out — OP result, with or without notes.
• Lane CV Outs — 4 outputs (two for Lane 1).

Audio Connections

• External In L/R — Through Glitch, Tone, Delay, Reverb and available to OP.
• Left / Right Out.