The Crudman 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.

This product could have well been influenced by what we saw Alessandro Cortini doing when we were lucky enough to check out his live rig when touring with Nine Inch Nails.

The Crudman can also be chained to make a polyphonic Walkman Mellotron.

 

Standard synthesizer parameters - ADSR, pitch bend, portamento, can all be set using MIDI Control Change messages.

The Crudman has been designed specifically to be accurate enough can function as a traditionally melodic musical instrument. But you can record anything onto a tape, so if you're a fan of the sound and idiosyncrasies of tape, the possibilities are pretty much endless.

If you want to play melodies like any other synthesizer, just put in a tape tuned to C, and you play all the way from C two octaves down, to C one octave up - 3 whole octaves. If you want to make new atonal sounds with the singular qualities of analog cassette tape, just put in a tape with literally any music or sounds on it, and see what happens.

The Crudman is the result of a great deal of research and experimentation in trying to build the most versatile and powerful cassette Walkman instrument possible, with the easiest build, lowest cost of parts, and a very simple tuning/calibrating system similar to what's in most analog synths.

Crudmans are currently being made to order in small quantities. For pricing and availability get in touch with Crudlabs at lab@crudlabs.org.

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