Earthquaker Devices Bit Commander review

The Commander-in-Chief of analogue synth pedals?

  • £159
  • $175
Reviews
By
( )
published

MusicRadar Verdict

Cool analogue synth sounds for guitar with a hard edge and tweakability, too.

Pros

  • +

    Versatile.

Cons

  • -

    Some glitches found.

MusicRadar's got your back Our team of expert musicians and producers spends hours testing products to help you choose the best music-making gear for you. Find out more about how we test.

The Bit Commander is a monophonic analogue synthesiser that will give you square-wave synth tones from your guitar notes.

Three knobs add in and turn up the level of three synth tones - two octaves down, one octave down and one octave up. The Base knob adds a distorted version of your guitar sound that sits really well with the octaves: it can actually do straight distortion if you choose to keep the synth tones turned down.

While it's easier to trigger stutters and glitches lower down, single notes played above the 7th fret track really well and sound really good, with the combination of four sounds offering many useful blends, all sharpened or dulled down by the Filter knob.

If you want to turn your guitar into a hard-edged mono-synth this will do it, but to add to the versatility, it also does a neat line in distortion with a touch of added octave.

Trevor Curwen

Trevor Curwen has played guitar for several decades – he's also mimed it on the UK's Top of the Pops. Much of his working life, though, has been spent behind the mixing desk, during which time he has built up a solid collection of the guitars, amps and pedals needed to cover just about any studio session. He writes pedal reviews for Guitarist and has contributed to Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Future Music among others.