Dr. Scientist Bitquest

Well, this thing's pretty wild. I came across a great deal while investigating bit crushers, and snapped it up.

The great news is that this pedal circumvents many of the problem of digital multi-effects. Though I love the sounds I can coax out of my H9, I do struggle with the workflow. That's not an issue with the ingenious layout of the Bitquest, as it gets really close to the analog knob-per-function of much simpler effects. The build quality is killer, and--though I'm a pedal nerd--I really love all of the case candy and swag that comes with the Bitquest.

Not all of the modes are for me, I'll admit: the notch filter, the flanger, and high/low pass filters haven't blown me away yet, but that's probably more a function of having owned some really high-quality units that do those effects in the analog realm. 

Having said that, the other modes are excellent! The bit crusher is intuitive, simple, and utilizes mix tone and volume controls in addition to the required bit depth and sample rate controls. In "clean" mode, you can also dial in an LFO to modulate the bit depth, which takes an already out-there effect and pushes it beyond the limits of what's possible with other comparable pedals. 

Surprisingly, the delay is my favorite mode. I'm an unabashed delay nut,and--considering how many delays I've owned--I didn't expect to be blown away by the last mode in a digital multi. There's a modulation control that has an effect on the repeats that I've never heard. They glitch out, collect bizarre alien artifacts, chatter at you, develop strange rhythmic ticking...none of it is predicable, and all of it is weirdly musical. My favorite technique is to crank the repeats so that they go into a gentle oscillation that never quite runs away, set the delay time to maximum, and layer sound over one another. You can then manually manipulate the modulation control to introduce the weird to your "loop."

With a bunch of useful and out-of-the-box inclusions, as well as "clean" and "dirty" (featuring an over-the-top digital distortion), the Bitquest comprises an indispensable toolkit for noisemaking. Its modes are a little off the beaten path, and even standard inclusions (delay, reverb) have peccadilloes that push them out of the realm of the normal. And that's what I'm after! This one's here to stay.