Mr. Brown’s Crumpter on Significant Objects

April 7 2010

Matt Brown, designer and human extraordinaire of IxD 2009 and Design Fancy fame, seems to have done it again. But this time, he charmed no other than Paola Antonelli, of all sorts of fame. With Core77, she’s curating this exhibition for Significant Objects, and assigned Matt the difficult task of coming up with a story around the use of a (past-future?) material.

Here’s a peek:

When I first met Ron Chutney I was 16 and looking to cut a record. Sang a few songs for him at his studio and I remember my voice being horrible and embarrassing, so imagine my excitement when Ron heard the first track and said, “Yeah we can Crumpter that up just fine.” Crumpters. Today auto-tuned vocals are all the rage, but no one remembers the analog version Chutney created back in the late ’50s. It was a way for guys like me to get an acceptable track out. You see, if you sang through it, your voice would be pitch perfect every time, “like an angel,” Ron would say. Nowadays they teach advanced harmonics in the third grade, so I probably don’t have to explain to you how a Crumpter works — but I will anyway. Each one has to be made by hand, in the winter, in Detroit.

You can read the full article, and see a whole lot of additional images, here. Congrats Matt, witty and entertaining as usual.

April 9 2010
Brown permalink

PA- mercy! There’s only a few people on the planet who know what a crumpter really is…Schultze is one of them.

April 12 2010
Mikko permalink

The weird thing is that the search function can’t find this. http://www.interactiondesign.se/blog/2009/03/spring-summit-2009-recap-part-1/ss_06b/

April 12 2010
Brown permalink

Chutney grew up with Henderson I think.

April 12 2010

Crumpters aren’t searchable. Too advanced for the internet.

April 12 2010

It doesn’t show in the search because the text is part of the title+description of an attachment/media file. I guess the WordPress search is not digging those out, only posts and such.

Another proof that Crumpters are way not made for our time.

April 13 2010
Mikko permalink

Tales of Thessalonikian conspiracies tell a grim story of men and women alike losing their vocal chords due to excessive use of the original series of Crumpters. The Delayed Molecular Paralyzer used in conjunction with Puritanical Stewardship Shield might counter the effects, however. But be aware of the time limit.

April 17 2010

I’m glad the word Crumpter is now out in the wild. Thanks for making it so, Matt. Different than a a Nutmeg Crumpter, but an effective crumpter nonetheless.

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