How a Hacker Turned Cassette Players into a Cool DIY Synth

Well, if you can’t recall the instrument, or you don’t feel any need to do so – we present you the reinvented Mellotron. Yeah, somebody from Brooklyn created this modern rendition of the Mellotron. Instead of the bare magnetic tapes, this device uses the cassette players.

Crudman is actually a series of hacked cassette player with tapes that contain a single droning tone (or something weirder). The cassette players are connected and tweaked using an Arduino-based Teensy microcontroller. This makes them respond to MIDI signals from the keyboard. Each time you press a key, the motor of tape runs and slows down accurately to give rise to a particular musical note.

The hacker, who made this possible, has put up the detailed instructions online. Hack it together and make your own DIY Mellotron.

Here’s are the detailed instructions to get you started. Good luck.

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