Devices

Bitbox Micro Firmware: Devices

The two that act on the whole mix, and where they sit.

A device acts on the whole mix rather than on one pad. It sits on the master bus, after everything has been summed and after the delay and reverb returns, so it hears the finished sound and not the parts. That is what separates these from the controls in pad controls, which are addressed per pad on that pad's own channel.

There are two.

  • The compressor: dynamics. It arrives set up as a glue compressor, and all five of its parameters are on MIDI.
  • The master EQ and filter: tone and colour. Ten algorithms on one encoder, and the larger of the two.

Both answer on MIDI channel 1, unlike the per-pad controls, and both act on everything routed to Out 1 and Out 2. Pads on Out 3–6 skip them completely, which is your clean path when you want one.

The module gives you no screen for any of it. Nothing on the display moves when a CC arrives, for either device, so your controller is the display and your ears are the test.

1Where They Sit

Signal chain: pads routed to Out 1 and 2 join the delay and reverb returns, then pass through the compressor, the master EQ and filter, a safety limiter and master volume before reaching the outputs.

1010music do not publish the order of the master bus, so this is reasonably deduced rather than documented. It is consistent with what both devices do to a mix.

Three things follow from that, and they apply to both devices.

They see everything. Each acts on the sum of every pad routed to Out 1/2, including the delay and reverb returns. These are mix processors, not channel strips, and they hear the whole thing at once.

Master volume is after both of them. So turning the module down does not change how hard either one works, which is what you want.

Behind them sits a safety limiter this patch does not touch. It is the last thing before the outputs, it is not adjustable, and it is what stops a careless setting from reaching your speakers. You can push either device hard without worrying that you will damage anything.

2What They Have in Common

Neither is stored in a preset. Both keep their settings while the module is switched on, both survive a preset change when nothing else in this patch does, and a power cycle returns both to their starting values. There is no way to save either into a preset and no reset control for either.

Every control on both devices has been heard and tested on hardware.