Links update: 23/02/2024
Cronk-O-tron is part of a new series of ‘MLM Lite’ products I’ll be banging out from time to time for ‘cup of coffee’ prices.
Cronk-O-Tron (as the name suggests) is a cheap and cheerful thing with a dark and crusty old tone. It’s made up of layers of stuff carefully blended to create a vintage/retro kind of strings/voice pad sound – lo-fi and wobbly.
It’s extensively multi-sampled in stereo and each sample was recorded for a minute before having long and luxurious loops applied that allow the sound to ‘breathe’.
But there’s another twist…
Some time ago, I found one of these at a rubbish tip …
A Sony TC377. A bit ironic actually as it was the first tape recorder I ever owned back in the 70s - they were a good domestic tape machine. This one at the tip was in perfect cosmetic condition so I, errrmmm, shall we say, 'borrowed' it.
Back at HS Towers, with eager anticipation, I fired it up. Looked promising - all the lights and meters came on so I lashed up some old tape and gave it a whirl...
But it was buggered - the motors were faulty. So up to the attic it went.
Anyway, I dug it out the other week and had a poke around and kind of got it working – sort of … ish. For a laugh, I recorded these samples to it. God, they were awful … and so marvelously wonderful – old tape, wow and flutter, bias on the heads all over the shop, phasing and wobbling … and I thought “This would make a fun little library”.
So, after an extensive sampling session (while the tape machine lasted) and some judicious post-processing, I came up with this.
And so it is that we present ‘Cronk-0-Tron’.
Deep and moody and Gothic sounding – ideal for atmospheric pads and drones and unusual black and white movie style strings with hints of the Mellotron and Novachord but kind of more 'cronky'.
And BTW, for non-native English speakers, a ‘cronk’ is a word for something that doesn’t work correctly. Most notably applied to unreliable old cars and the like. Also applied to old TVs that don’t have a good picture or an old computer that can barely boot up, etc.. Or a tape machine that doesn’t quite work.
Hence the name, Cronk-0-Tron… kind of warped and wonky/cronky and disabled but delightfully charming and dark and sometimes maneacing and suitable for many genres of music.
And we’ve gone with a ‘steampunk’ GUI that should be entertaining as well as practical. This carries through to the effects section...
It comprises chorus > echo > convolution reverb with custom spring, plate and hall impulses and there's a stereo enhancer in there as well to create a broad and expansive sound.
It also comes with a handful of presets to get you started and tweak.
FEATURES:
* 44.1 kHz/24-bit samples
* Advanced Retro Synthesis Engine
* Mysterious lo-fi string/vox samples
* All-pass filter for tonal modification
* LFO sweep of filter for phase shifting
* 'Crud' switch creates edgier lo-fi elements
* Simple envelope shaper
* Stereo spread control
* Chorus and stereo/mono echo section
* Convolution reverb with custom impulses
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