User guide

Appendix One: Crumar Bit One Background
22 Appendix One - Crumar Bit One
It is often stated that the Bit One synthesizer was designed by Mario Maggie, the creator of the
legendary Elka Synthex. This is in fact a myth; the only connection is that both instruments are
Italian. However, all credit should be extended to the team of engineers who did create the Bit One
– It’s a fabulous sounding machine with a sleek and rugged appearance and provided extensive
functionality for the time, at a price tag accessible to all.
Crumar hoped that this instrument would revive their fortunes, but at the time digital synthesizers
such as the DX7 were coming up and analog suddenly seemed ‘old hat’. The Bits failed to sell in the
numbers that were expected, and Crumar failed to reap the rewards that they should have for
developing such a hot product.
The Bit One is often criticised for its awkward programming interface and very basic midi
functionality; however, many instruments of the time suffered from these issues.
The Bit one produces its waveforms by summing the outputs of several digital counter chips, set at
octave intervals, which produces a very low resolution ‘stepped’ saw wave. All three waveforms are
derived from this, but all three (including the bit one’s output saw wave) use additional analog
circuitry to turn the stepped wave into smooth, rich and very analog sounding waveforms. At low
pitches, the output waveforms have a characteristic but not unpleasant buzziness about them . At
higher pitches this effect disappears as capacitors smooth the waves out completely. The output of
these oscillators is by no means digital, but rather, digitally controlled and that is because the
refining circuitry which shapes & refines the waves, is analog. One feature of this oscillator design is
that across the entire pitch range, the waveforms sound amazingly bright and punchy.
The reason that the Bit One does not feature PWM, is because the Pulse width is not totally
continuous – it is stepped (32 discreet steps) and that is because PW is derived from the low
resolution stepped saw wave described earlier. (With the Manx Bit 100, pulse width is continuous,
and thus the Bit 100 offers PWM on both oscillators.)
Following on from the Bit One, Crumar produced the Bit 99 & Bit 01 rack-mount instruments.
These offer significantly better midi implementation and a host of other improvements, but be
warned; the highly desirable unison mode available on the original Bit One is inexplicably missing!