Crank

Crank from Rhythmic Robot takes over six hundred samples of an Eastern European stringed folk instrument – the wonderfully erratic hurdy-gurdy – and welds them into a four-oscillator analogue synthesiser framework capable of creating strange, eerie, evolving patches. This is what a polysynth would sound like it it was built by Black Forest gypsies out of old planks and lengths of twine...

The hurdy-gurdy produces its sounds by rubbing a rosined wooden wheel over a series of violin-style strings: the sound is half violin, half hand-cranked barrel organ. It's uniquely strange and can be both plaintive and raw-sounding. We've sampled a hurdy-gurdy extensively to create the DNA for Crank, and have named the instrument after the handle that the player cranks round to make the hurdy-gurdy play.

The twin Crank oscillators are independently controllable, with dual filters, envelopes, pitch control, LFOs and so on; they also run in tandem with twin Analogue Oscillators, adding some classic analogue waves to the tonal palette. The characteristic attack "squeal" of the acoustic hurdy-gurdy can be turned on or off individually, and the sound sources mixed and blended to create haunting and evocative instruments that sound "almost real". Crank is a great way to get the sound of strings from parallel universes into your mix! Features include:

• Twin Crank oscillators drawn from extensive samples of the hurdy-gurdy.
• Twin Analogue oscillators sampled from the Roland SH7 flagship analogue synth.
• Twin flavours of noise: classic white noise, plus vinyl-style crackle.
• Extensive LFO modulation of pitch, amplitude and filter cutoff, independently for both Cranks.
• The famous Rhythmic Robot GLITCH button to randomise the instrument in musically inspiring ways.

Crank is available now and requires Kontakt v.4.2.3 or later to run (including all versions of Kontakt 5). Kontakt Player is not supported.