The Krackle Krusher is an ode to the Crackle Box of the 1970s paired with a hand sketched silkscreen. At it’s heart is a LM709 OpAmp, originally designed by Bob Widlar, which, when launched in 1965, was sold out for two years. The LM709 era opamp is unique in that it lacks frequency compensation, creating the crackle sound that makes this synthesizer so awesome. Because it uses capacitive touch pads, this instrument produces a different sound from musician to musician.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get ahold of a LM709 and had to make do with the identical B109D. The Krackle Krusher has it’s own custom PCB designed with Patchr.io paired with a hand drawn silkscreen. It features an 8 ohm speaker to generate just enough of a crunching squeal to compliment a good jam sesh.

Check out a video of it in action in the links section.