Vintage Synth Explorer

Crumar • Spirit

The Crumar Spirit was originally designed by Bob Moog (himself), Jim Scott & Tom Rhea and released back in 1983. It is a full featured analog monophonic synthesizer with 2 VCO's so it's got a pretty fat tone, but not as much as the classic 3-VCO Minimoog. However it is considerably more flexible than the latter. It has a basic 37-note keyboard without velocity or aftertouch. The two oscillators feature basic sawtooth, triangle and square waves and can be synced together.

The filter section is very nice featuring low-, high- and band-pass filters and switchable 12dB or 24dB slopes. Other features of the filter include an independent envelope with inverted and normal ADSR, key tracking and single or multiple triggering of the filter. Some other features of the Spirit include a built-in ring-modulator, an Arpeggiator with 3 different patterns and that can be linked to the LFO, and there's an external audio input for running external sounds through its filters, LFOs or Ring Mod.

For the hands-on approach, the Spirit is sure to please. There are 24 knobs, 10 switches and 15 sliders to start. There are 3 performance wheels for controlling the Pitch, Mod-X and Shaper-Y modulation effects (see LFO specs below). Using those with the Arpeggiator can get pretty wild. The Arpeggiator features 3 modes: Ripple (Up/Down), Arpeggio (Up several octaves) and Leap (Goes up 1 and then 4 octaves). There are also Auto and preset Glide modes for getting some elasticity or bending effects. Since all the LFOs, envelopes and filters are quite flexible you are sure to get some weird noises, fat basses, synths, etc. with the Spirit.

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Posting Rules: Please keep your comments relevant! Do not post requests for help, do not use for sales, do not post unless you have something interesting to say about this instrument, or we may delete your post.

 

Joe Kraig

Posted 113 days ago

I think he was promoting an auction actually and trying to inflate the price. There's been a same Crumar Spirit relisted on ebay several times the past 3 months with a buy it now price of 4,595.00. I know I've seen it relisted multiple times. You can get a Minimoog model D for much less than that..

doctorumbria

Posted 167 days ago

5000? are you serious or a seller promoting an auction!? this machine is not worth more than 1000$! more is ebay speculation, this is a CEM based stuff! ok its hard to find but a classical pro-one will do the job if not better ! don't think to buy a minimoog or a syrinx! ok moog DESIGNED it but he did also for kurzweil k1000 or k2000.Moog is minimoog o modular .
if you want to go for italian stuff, go for synthex! BASTA!

Nick Esposito

Posted 235 days ago

I read about it in this cool book and it said that only about 50 Spirits total ever rolled of the assembly line, even in the three years it was in production (1983-86).

DoctorCalabria

Posted 244 days ago

This is one of the coolest vintage synths I've played. All CV pre MIDI, Moog design. When I bought mine years ago, one was usually embarrassed to play a Crumar. They were thought to be inferior to Moog, ARP, Oberheim. Now try getting one of these for less than $5,000 (I think the est. value on the right is outdated)

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