Analogish bit crusher

 I just came across this great post about an analogish bit crusher and sample rate reducer from Juanito Moore and Kristian Blåsol in the Synth-DIY group on facebook:

When I made my mcu-based bit crusher I was thinking about doing something similar but couldn't think of how to do the actual bit crushing - this solves that :)

But that got me thinking - could we do away with the ADC too?

Turns out we can of course. By making a flash ADC using comparators for example:

Instead of the 8-to-3 line encoder we could put D flip-flops and clock them, to reduce sample rate. Maybe we could even find a way to re-use the flip-flop as a switch, to combine it with the bit crush-comparator outputs? D flip flops with preset and clear seem able to do this as long as preset/clear are level controlled, not edge.

We can also use the 40174 hex D-storage, which stores 6 bits of info (but does not have a preset though)

If we want to go all-analog we could instead use sample and hold buffers for the bits, though we may not be able to have a combination of both very high and low sample rates as the leakage during hold vs charge time during sample may be incompatible. This could be improved by using a second set of comparators on the output of the S&H so that a voltage drop won't be visible on the DAC side of things, but now things start getting a bit complicated :-D

All in all not a terribly practical project, but fun none the less.