Crudlabs has introduced the Crudman – a monophonic Mellotron-like instrument, designed around a single cassette Walkman.

The Crudman, above, is based around a Walkman which has been elaborately hacked so that a tape of a looped or droning sound (or any other sound) can be precisely sped up or slowed down, via MIDI or 1v/octave CV, to accurately hit notes over a range of 3 octaves.

The Crudman can be used monophonically, or multiple Crudmans can be used polyphonically.

Here’s an example of a single Crudman in action:

Here’s an example of three Crudmans, daisy-chained for polyphony:

The Crudman can be played just like a synthesizer with MIDI or CV in. Standard synthesizer parameters – ADSR, pitch bend, portamento, can also be set using MIDI Control Change messages.

To use, put in a tape tuned to C, and you can play all the way from C two octaves down, to C one octave up – 3 whole octaves.

While the concept is simple, the developer says that a great deal of research and experimentation has gone into building the most powerful cassette Walkman instrument possible. They’ve documented the design and build process on their site.

via Sonic State, Crudlabs