Lamer Degrader turns real MP3 and Ogg Vorbis encoding into an expressive effect for the Reason rack. Sweep it as you would a low-pass filter: soften a drum loop, push a vocal into the distance or build movement through a pad. The familiar motion comes with the recognisable texture of heavily compressed digital audio—softened highs, smeared transients and swirling, metallic detail. Each sweep reveals more character as the bitrate falls.
Smooth, dynamic bitrate
Automate Bitrate anywhere from 8 to 256 kbps to make the texture move with your track. Draw a gradual sweep, shape a transition or bring the detail back as a new section arrives.
Enable the rear Bitrate Crossfade switch for smooth fades between bitrate settings. It blends the old and new bitrate results for both MP3 and OGG, reducing abrupt switching artifacts while the codec texture evolves. The switch starts Off, is saved with the song and uses additional CPU during bitrate changes.
Two codecs, four generations
Choose MP3 or OGG and stack one to four encode/decode passes. Every pass adds another generation of real lossy compression, taking the sound from a subtle digital edge to grainy, smeared and heavily degraded textures.
Shape the signal and keep the impact
High-pass and low-pass filters sit before the first codec pass. Each spans 20 Hz to 20 kHz, with a 12 dB/octave slope and an Off position. Mix blends the processed result with the unfiltered, latency-aligned original. Keep the punch of a dry beat while adding texture underneath, or turn Mix fully wet for a complete transformation.
Built for the rack
The compact 2U device has stereo inputs and outputs, a standard On/Off/Bypass switch, and automation for Bitrate, Rounds, LP, HP and Mix. MP3/OGG selection is manual, saved with the song and available through Remote. Switching encoders fades through a brief silent gap while the new codec gets ready.
More passes increase latency and processing work; Lamer reports its latency to Reason and aligns its internal dry/wet paths. At very low bitrate targets, format overhead can exceed the selected bitrate. The target still reduces the useful coding budget and changes the sound.
Requires Reason 14 or later.
