Vintage Synth Explorer

Crumar • Bit 99

The Bit 99 is one of the first synthesizers from which traditional knobs and sliders have been banned. The edit method is easy to understand. The Bit 99 can produce a wide variety of sounds but bass sounds are the best. With a polyphony of three notes, instead of six normally, you can have two sounds layered! Possibilities are almost unlimited and if the 99 patches are not enough you can save the data to tape and load it when you want! This synth was used by 808 State but the synth sounds a lot like Orbital's "In-sides" album. A rackmount version was also released, called the Bit-01.

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Posting Rules: Please keep your comments relevant! Do not post requests for help, do not use for sales, do not post unless you have something interesting to say about this instrument, or we may delete your post.

 

simon redfern

Posted 23 days ago

I spent my first grant cheque on a new Bit One in the early eighties. That got stolen a few years later from a band flat in Hume. With the insurance I got the Bit 99 (in black rather than the silver shown). Its still working and is light enough to carry around. Kind of limited sounds and real time control - but nice enough to keep for 20 years or so! Oh, and I just recently paid off the credit card bill!

bryan walter mitty lomax

Posted 275 days ago

I had one of these synths but took all the insides out of it so I could keep my plastic guns in it whilst pretending I was a gun hustler and botonist.
Every now and then I would shout jennnarh in a sad bolton droll.

zarcon

Posted 303 days ago

i own one, and i like it a lot! i programmed a bass-sound on it, that sounds exactly like the 'computerworld' bass...also i got some gary numan-like sounds out of it, but mostly it reminds me of a oberheim-matrix 6, with no complex routing-capabilities...
mine is really reliable, but i had a bit one many years ago, that was not working all the time...no repairshop dared to fix it...!
perfect for electro or leadsounds...
the wheels couldn't be placed more useless..!

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