Ever heard of the Mellotron? It was a British made audio sampler that used the most cutting edge technology available back in 1963… Magnetic tapes. You could record different sounds, music, beats or rhythm onto these magnetic tapes, and then play it back with the keyboard, much like a MIDI Sampler keyboard today. Well, someone has gone and made a newer version of one.
He calls it the Crudman, and it’s the same concept of a Mellotron, but uses slightly more modern components. Specifically, audio cassettes.
A MIDI keyboard sends output commands to a series of cassette players outfitted with Teensy microcontrollers. Depending on the settings, pressing a key can speed up or slow down a tape in order to generate a note. If it sounds simple, trust us, it’s not. The project has been a labor-of-love for the unnamed creator, who has spent nearly 10 years designing it. He now sells them (but only one a month) — you’ve gotta take a listen — they produce some of the most unique sounds we’ve ever heard.
For more cool magnetic tape hacks, why not build yourself a micro cassette tape delay?
[Thanks Itay, via Gizmodo]
Special tapes with a repeating loop? Or is he reversing the deck?
Nevermind, I see him using a commercial Velvet Underground release.
This is very nice (and I want one) but the great thing about the Mellotron is that it played the same piece of tape (including the pre-recorded attack for each note) each time the key was pressed; albeit for only a finite number of seconds.
This is Steve from Crudlabs. I’ve been reading Hackaday forever so thanks so much for this nice writeup! Just to clarify Crudlabs is NOT selling “only one a month”. Right now the goal is to produce and sell around 20 units per month… but due to high demand each individual customer is only allowed to purchase one unit per month.
$375 + tax (where applicable) and shipping..
At first I thought this came with the keyboard too but its only the project box and tape player.
From what I can tell from the videos and later confirmed from his site it uses the midi channels to speed or slow down the tape motor on a slightly more robust walkman, I’d like to see the insides of this before I say more.
with the teensy inside would it be possible to add other effects also, how much room does the current firmware take up?
http://hackaday.com/2009/12/04/melloman-tape-looping-keyboard-2/
The original Mellotron was a notoriously tricky instrument. The classic quote is from King Crimson’s Robert Fripp: “Tuning a Mellotron doesn’t.”