Crush on Duality: Bit Depth and Sample Rate Together
Ma'afinator Crush is one knob for bit-depth and sample-rate grit. How to use it in parallel without a separate crusher.
A lot of lo-fi plugins split the damage into two knobs: bit depth, and sample rate. On Paraflex Duality those two reductions are Crush, one control on the Ma'afinator.
Duality is a zero-latency VST3 effect. Ma'afinator is grit, clipping, and dropouts. Crush is the digital half of that. The Duality guide is the full window. This note is how Crush behaves when you turn it.
What the knob is doing
Crush runs from fine grit to a stepped, aliased tone. A knob that is all the way down is out of the circuit. You can leave Crush at zero and use only Distort, which is the hard clip, or only Drop, which cuts gaps.
There is no second knob for sample rate. If you wanted a telephone and a bit-reduced edge as two moves, you will do both by riding Crush and then shaping the result with Mix. That is a smaller interface on purpose. The character changes as one gesture, from dust to a console-like stair.
Mix is the amount that matters
Mix is a crossfade with the dry signal for this engine. At halfway you hear both. At full you hear only Ma'afinator's output.
A full-wet Crush sounds smaller and harsher than the same Crush at a low Mix in parallel. The dry signal keeps the body and the low end. The crushed path adds the edge. For drums, vocals, and bass, start with Crush clearly audible and Mix low enough that the transient of the dry hit is still in front.
Delta plays only what the plugin changes. Solo it for a second if you cannot tell whether Crush is the thing you are hearing or whether Distort is doing the work. Then turn Delta off. It is a check, not a sound you print by accident.
Where it earns a place
- Drum room and overheads. A little Crush, Mix well under halfway, so the close mics stay clean and the room picks up grain.
- A synth that is too polite. Crush further up, Mix higher, when the patch should sound like a resampled machine.
- A send, not every channel. One Ma'afinator on a bus, fed by the parts that should share the same digital dirt, keeps the song from becoming one texture.
Distort is the other damage. It is hard clipping, with a fast leveller behind it so the level does not leap when the clip bites. If the sound got loud and flat, you are on Distort. If it got grainy and stepped, you are on Crush. They stack. Turn one down while you learn the other.
Dual, if you want it larger afterward
Dual runs Ma'afinator and Benzonizer in series. The arrow sets the order. A new Dual starts as Benzonizer, then Ma'afinator, so the signal is made bigger and then broken. Flip the arrow if you want Crush to chew the dry sound first and Benzonizer to put weight back.
Benzonizer's Saturate is soft. It will not undo Crush. It will put a warmer harmonic on top of whatever Crush left. Inflate widens, and that widening follows the Benzonizer Mix. A crushed vocal usually wants very little Inflate.
This release is VST3 on Windows, and VST3 and Audio Unit on macOS. AAX is not in this release. Current price and status are on the Duality page.
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