8-Bit What?

Samplers or any digital processor take analog audio in and convert that analog information into digital information called bits.

More bits allows us to make measurements of amplitude — from the quietest signal just above the noise floor, to the loudest signal just before clipping.

1-bit gives us two different measurements, ‍2-bit gives us four measurements, 3-bit gives us eight. Each bit doubling the number of measurements.
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‍8-bits gives us 256 different measurements of a signals amplitude.

In All The Wrong Places

Sands bit-matrix is your cockpit — allowing the patching of individual bits to the wrong places.

Move bit-1 to the position of bit-8. Now the noise floor screams in your face.

Move bit-6 to the position of bit-2, now it sounds a bit like FM.

Move bit-3 to to the position of bit-4, bit-1 to the position of bit-7, turn off bit-2, and invert bit-6. Now it sounds like a robot punching you in the face.

Flavorful Filters

Most samplers from the 80s used filters to prevent aliasing, a reconstruction error from digital back to analogue audio.

Sands too employs a modeled filter that starts as a high shelf filter, morphs into something resembling a band pass filter, and then at the bottom of the range, becomes a high shelf filter again.

Sands is co-developed by Dr. Ryan Page and Takuma Matsui.