Data Bender: bring the sound of failure to your Eurorack

Qu-Bit has released Data Bender, a module that will corrupt and destroy your audio in delightfully digital ways. If there are not enough software bugs, CD skips or defective machines in your life then this is for you.

Data Bender

We originally saw this at the NAMM show at the beginning of the year but now it’s here in all its glorious bugginess. The idea is that Data Bender is a circuit-bent digital audio buffer. It takes in audio and bends it all those terrible digital ways that we try so hard to avoid. Although it also harbours a more analogue bend towards broken tape machines and scratched records so maybe it’s more of a hybrid bender and breaker.

Data Bender works by holding up to a minute worth of stereo audio in its 24-bit 96kHz buffer. And then it lets you play with that. The funny thing is that in the demo video the sounds being produced are actually quite sweet. You have beat repeats, ratcheting, reverses and adorable glitches going on that bring a sense of liveliness and movement to the audio. Then they wind it into some areas of destruction but all the time you get the feeling this could actually be a very creative module. I admit to being completely surprised.

Qu-Bit makes some really interesting modules. I have a few and they can be complex but also unique so they add textures and ideas to a Eurorack that didn’t exist before. Data Bender could easily be described as a digital glitch machine or bit crusher but that would miss the acres of other possibilities that spew out of this machine when a bit of thought is injected into the knob fiddling. Interesting stuff.

Data Bender is now available for $349. Order yours here, and learn more.