With the Red Panda Bitmap 2, the innovative effects company from Detroit gives its popular Bitcrusher a well-deserved makeover and answers the countless wishes of the music world. Accordingly, the flexible Bitcrusher is now equipped with a full stereo signal path, while the sampling rate modulation comes with three waveforms and controls for Rate and Depth. In addition, Red Panda's Bitmap 2 offers four preset locations with direct access, full MIDI functionality and an envelope function.
At the heart of the Bitmap 2 is a highly flexible bitcrusher that offers a wide range of sounds for experimental guitarists and bassists, from subtle digital distortion to toxic synth fuzz to broken arcade sounds. While the Crush knob reduces the bit rate from 24 bit down to 1 bit, the Freq pot adjusts the sampling rate between 48 kHz and 110 kHz. For fans of particularly wacky sounds, the Bitmap 2 also offers the option of modulating the sampling rate with three different waveforms, with Rate and Depth controls influencing the speed and depth.
To remove particularly harsh or toxic highs from the signal, Red Panda Bitmap 2 offers a 4-pole low-pass filter that can be quickly and intuitively adjusted via the Filter knob. The mix pot also adjusts the ratio of clean and effect signals to maintain punch and low end. A highlight of the Bitmap 2 is also the envelope function, which allows you to control mix or sampling rate reduction via the strength of the attack and thus dynamically integrate the effect into the mix.
For saving created settings, the Red Panda Bitmap 2 is equipped with four memory locations that are directly accessible on the pedal and can be expanded via MIDI to a total of 127. The CTRL jack can be used not only to connect MIDI devices via TRS cable, but also optionally available footswitches or expression pedals to control the effect. There's also a practical aux footswitch that either switches between presets or serves as a tap tempo switch. Last but not least, a USB port for connecting to the Red Panda Editor software or for installing firmware updates rounds off the Red Panda's Bitmap 2.
Absolutely fantastic bit of kit that has surpassed the performance of even the well loved Iron Ether Frantabit, in terms of bit crushing and sample rate reduction duties. Can't recommend enough.