Yurt Rock presents

CARTRIDGE Manual

console-era drum crusher · four generations of sound chips · manual for v1.0

1 · What CARTRIDGE is

CARTRIDGE runs your drums through four generations of game-console audio. Pick a cartridge and everything follows it: the bit depth, the sample rate, the DAC filter, the console's own quirk, and even the screen's resolution and palette.

On top of the converter there's a square-wave Chip fuzz, an LFSR Noise channel keyed from your hats or snare, a tempo-synced Echo whose repeats degrade, and a DAC stage that overdrives, hard-clips or wraps around. It works on a drum loop, a drum bus or a single drum track, as an insert like any other effect, and adds no latency.

2 · Requirements

Mac	macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later · Intel and Apple Silicon (one universal download) · AU, VST3, AAX, standalone
Windows	Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit): VST3, AAX and the standalone app.

3 · Installation

These links always give you the newest release — they're safe to bookmark:

Download for Mac Download for Windows

Mac

Open Cartridge.pkg and follow the installer. It installs the AU, VST3, AAX and standalone versions; you can deselect any of them on the Installation Type step. The installer is signed and notarized.
Restart your DAW and rescan plug-ins if it doesn't find CARTRIDGE on its own. In Logic it appears under Audio Units → Yurt Rock → CARTRIDGE.

Windows

Run Cartridge-Setup.exe and follow the installer. It installs the VST3, AAX and standalone versions. The installer is signed, and it adds Microsoft's WebView2 runtime if your PC doesn't have it yet (CARTRIDGE's window needs it).
Restart your DAW and rescan plug-ins if it doesn't find CARTRIDGE on its own.

Where the files go

AU (Mac)	`/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/CARTRIDGE.component`
VST3 (Mac)	`/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/CARTRIDGE.vst3`
AAX (Mac)	`/Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins/CARTRIDGE.aaxplugin`
Standalone (Mac)	`/Applications/CARTRIDGE.app`
VST3 (Windows)	`C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\CARTRIDGE.vst3`
AAX (Windows)	`C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins\CARTRIDGE.aaxplugin`
Standalone (Windows)	`C:\Program Files\Yurt Rock\CARTRIDGE\CARTRIDGE.exe`

4 · Activation & demo mode

Click Demo · Activate to open the licence panel. Two ways in:

Sign in with Yurt Rock — Vault members and anyone who bought CARTRIDGE, no serial to type. Your browser opens the sign-in page; CARTRIDGE finishes activating by itself.
Paste your serial from your purchase email and click Activate. CARTRIDGE serials start with CRTG-. The Paste button reads your clipboard, for DAWs where ⌘V doesn't reach the plug-in window.

Activation needs the internet once; after that CARTRIDGE starts without it, and nothing is checked when your DAW loads a session. One licence or membership covers three machines. You can free machines from Your Plug-Ins in your Vault account.

Demo mode

Without a licence CARTRIDGE runs fully — every cartridge, every preset, every control — except that the audio mutes briefly every 45 seconds. Activating removes the mute. Saving your own presets also needs a licence or a Vault membership.

5 · The four cartridges

The cartridge sets the converter's native spec. Everything downstream — Crunch, the DAC filter, the Quirk control — works relative to it.

Cartridge	Year · converter · rate	Quirk
POCKET 4	1989 · 4-bit wave · 8.2 kHz	Speaker — the handheld's tiny speaker.
HOME 8	1985 · 7-bit DPCM · 16.7 kHz	DPCM — 1-bit delta modulation, slew-limited and grainy.
SUPER 16	1991 · 8-voice BRR · 32 kHz	BRR — 4-bit block-compressed samples, gaussian-smoothed.
DISC 32	1995 · CD-ROM ADPCM · 22 kHz	ADPCM — adaptive 4-bit coding, with slope overload on transients.

6 · Console & Circuit

CARTRIDGE has two views. Press 1 and 2 to switch between them; ? opens the tour.

Console — the screen, the four macros and the cartridge slot. The screen takes on the resolution and palette of the cartridge you've loaded.
Circuit — every stage in signal order, each with its own on/off switch, so you can hear the kit with any stage taken out.

On any knob or slider: drag (Shift for fine), scroll, double-click to reset, or click the value to type one.

7 · Signal path

Crush (anti-alias filter → sample-and-hold rate reduction and bit quantise → the console's quirk → DAC filter) → Chip → Noise → Echo → DAC (drive, clip, bad contacts) → Mix / Output.

Chip and Noise are summed in before the converter, so they're crushed along with the kit. CARTRIDGE adds no latency.

8 · Crush

Crunch	0–100 %. Pushes the bits and the rate past the console's native spec — down to 2 bits and three octaves below the native rate.
Bits ↔ Rate	Where Crunch goes. Centre takes both down together; to the left it's mostly bits, to the right mostly rate.
Aliasing	0–100 %. At 0 the signal is filtered before the sampler; at 100 you hear raw sample-and-hold aliasing.
DAC filter	Native (the console's own reconstruction filter), Raw (no reconstruction filter — stair-steps and images) or Soft.
Dither	0–100 %.
Quirk	0–100 %. Named for the loaded console: Speaker, DPCM, BRR or ADPCM (see The four cartridges).

9 · Chip & Noise

Chip

Chip	0–100 %. Square-wave fuzz blended in with the kit.
Duty	12.5, 25 or 50 % — the pulse width, from thin and nasal to hollow.
Octave	0, −1 or −2 — a flip-flop divider, like the octave-down of the old fuzz boxes.
Tone	800 Hz – 12 kHz.
Gate	−60 to −12 dB. Below it the chip stays quiet, so it speaks on the hits and not the tails.

Noise

Noise	0–100 %.
Mode	Long (15-bit LFSR — hiss) or Short (93-step — metallic).
Pitch	16 clock steps, like the hardware's period table.
Key	What the noise envelope follows: Hats, Snare, All or Free (runs whenever audio is playing).
Decay	10–400 ms.

10 · Echo & DAC

Echo

Echo	0–100 %.
Time	1/16, 1/8T, 1/8, 1/8D, 1/4, 1/4D or 1/2, synced to the host tempo.
Feedback	0–90 %.
Tone	Dark to bright.
Degrade	0–100 %. Each repeat passes through the converter again, a generation lower.
Ping-pong	Off / On — alternates repeats left and right.

DAC

Drive	0 to +24 dB into the output stage.
Clip	Soft, Hard or Wrap — integer overflow: loud peaks wrap around to the other side.
Bad contacts	0–100 %. Crackles from flipped bits, dropouts, and a stuck sample now and then.

11 · Global controls

Mix · Output	The balance between the dry and the processed signal, and the output level (±12 dB).
Bypass	Bypasses CARTRIDGE to your dry signal.
A / B · Undo	A / B keeps two complete settings to flip between. Undo and redo (`⌘Z` / `⇧⌘Z`) step back through your edits.
MIDI learn	See In your DAW & MIDI.

12 · Presets

CARTRIDGE ships with 300 presets in twelve folders. In the browser they alternate between folders that keep the drums clean (the converter switched off, layers added around the kit) and folders where the console's converter does the work. More than half the bank is clean.

Clean — the drums stay as they are:

Polish — drive and sheen with the full top end, or a 12-bit converter's warmth.
Texture — noise woven into the kit: air on the hats, wires on the snare, a bed under everything.
Rhythmic Echo — short, synced repeats that add groove: sixteenths, triplets, dotted ping-pong.
Space — long, dark repeats that crumble softly behind the kit.
Weight — a chip voice an octave or two under the kit, gated to the hits.
Snare Design and Hat Design — noise, chip and echo aimed at one part of the kit.

Effected — the converter is on:

Lo-Fi Kits — gentle, warm crunch for beats.
Console — each cartridge's era at moderate settings.
Crush, Glitch and Extreme — fewer bits, flipped bits, and everything at once.

Presets marked clean in the browser have the converter off. Every preset is level-matched, so stepping through them compares character rather than loudness.

Your own presets

Saving presets is for CARTRIDGE owners and Vault members (activated or signed in). User presets are files in Documents/Yurt Rock/CARTRIDGE/Presets, one .cartridgepreset per sound, shared by every DAW and the standalone app on that computer. Copy the files to another computer, or send them to a friend, and they show up there too.

13 · In your DAW & MIDI

Sessions. Every control and the bypass are saved with your session and come back when you reopen it.
Automation. Every control is automatable, and they shape the sound with the window closed and in offline bounces.
Timing. Echo times follow your DAW's tempo. CARTRIDGE adds no latency.
Your transport wins. Pressing play in your DAW stops an audition loop, so your track is what goes through CARTRIDGE.

Because every control is a host parameter, your DAW's own MIDI mapping reaches all of CARTRIDGE: Logic's Controller Assignments, Ableton Live's MIDI Map mode, Cubase's Quick Controls, Pro Tools' plug-in mapping, Bitwig's and Reaper's parameter learn. Where the plug-in window can see your MIDI devices directly (Web MIDI — the Windows plug-in and the standalone app), there's also an in-plug-in MIDI learn; on a Mac, use your DAW's mapping.

14 · Preview loops

Starter loops — drum loops from the Vault catalog, built in. Pick one and it plays.
The Vault — browse the library's packs and play their loops through CARTRIDGE (Vault members and CARTRIDGE owners). Previews need the internet.
Your own WAV — drop one onto the window.

Loops play at your DAW's tempo when there is one, and the DAW's transport stops the audition loop. The standalone app never sends your audio interface's input through CARTRIDGE (it would feed back through a laptop mic) — its sound source is the audition loops.

15 · Troubleshooting

Nothing is happening on the screen.: Nothing is coming in. Press play in your DAW (CARTRIDGE needs to be on a track that's playing), or pick an audition loop.
The sound drops out every 45 seconds.: That's demo mode. Activate (section 4) to remove it.
Clicks and crackles I didn't ask for.: Check Bad contacts in the DAC stage, and Clip — Wrap turns loud peaks into full-scale jumps on purpose. Lower Drive or switch Clip to Soft.
The noise keeps hissing between hits.: Key is on Free, which runs whenever audio is playing. Set it to Hats, Snare or All, or shorten Decay.
CARTRIDGE doesn't show up in my DAW.: Rescan plug-ins and restart the DAW. In Logic, check Plug-In Manager for a failed validation and click Reset & Rescan.
The window is blank or shows a fallback panel.: Press Try again, or close and reopen the plug-in window. If it persists, use Copy details on the panel and send them to us — yurtrock.com or reply to your purchase email.