Codec Crusher +

Overview

The expanded edition of Codec Crusher: a dedicated Packet Loss section — density, tempo sync, rate — bolts the lab's dropout research directly onto the codec-crush effect.

How it works

Codec Crusher + has everything in Codec Crusher — eight real codecs, drive and mix — plus a Packet Loss section drawn from the lab's dropout research.

Real concealment where it exists

Opus and Speex are asked about loss at their own frame boundaries. When a packet is “lost”, the decoder is handed nothing, which triggers the codec's own built-in concealment — Opus's LPC-style extrapolation, or Speex's equivalent — rather than simple muting.

A stuck buffer everywhere else

Vorbis, MP3, Codec2, G.711 and ADPCM have no concealment of their own. For them, a fallback works on a 20 ms grid: it remembers the last good packet and repeats it while packets are lost, a little quieter with each repeat, so a long dropout fades towards silence. It is deliberately more broken than Opus's smooth repair, so you can hear which codec family the loss is happening in.

Loss in time

Density sets how often packets are lost. With Sync on, the decision is made once per note value — a whole note down to a 64th — and held for that note, so a dropped packet becomes a rhythmic gate locked to the host tempo. With no host transport it follows a free-running 120 bpm clock.