Home » R/E/P » Whatever Works » Mellotrons for the masses
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| Re: Mellotrons for the masses [message #302621 is a reply to message #300876 ] |
Fri, 04 January 2008 22:58   |
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Brian Kehew
Messages: 2344
Registered: January 2005
Location: North Hollywood |
Platinum Member |
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Same as the 360 Systems, which is astounding in how good it sounds. EVERYONE who hears it is amazed, for an early ROMpler...
Relax and float downstream...
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| Re: Mellotrons for the masses [message #302710 is a reply to message #300876 ] |
Sat, 05 January 2008 12:57 |
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Exactly.
I just did an album with full orch on a couple of tunes, and there is no way the tron could have sounded right on those.
But on another song, we used a tron sound, and an orchestra wouldn't have sounded right in that case.
Things is what they is.
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| Re: Mellotrons for the masses [message #302724 is a reply to message #302710 ] |
Sat, 05 January 2008 14:16 |
 RSettee
Messages: 3635
Registered: November 2006
Location: Winnipeg, MB |
Platinum Member |
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...and if you're Led Zep on "Kashmir", Mellotrons and actual strings live in perfect harmony!
Ryan Settee,
Instrospection Records
http://www.myspace.com/highwattelectrocutions
"Wickedly pulsing washes and acoustic jangles lead to gorgeous clean tones and winsome noodling. The denoument feels indefinite, woozy, like waking up from a strange dream."--Cosmo Lee, All Music Guide
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| Re: Mellotrons for the masses [message #339972 is a reply to message #301339 ] |
Fri, 09 May 2008 06:09 |
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Enth
Messages: 41
Registered: May 2008
Location: Norway/France |
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| maxim wrote on Sun, 30 December 2007 17:40 |
maybe, it's just me, but i find it hard to get excited about a recreation of a machine that was invented to recreate an orchestra (and not very well at that)
the only sound i've ever found useful or distinctive enough is the melloflute, and even that is so retro, it's almost unusable
if i'm looking for emulations of strings or flutes, there are other exciting options available to the producer...
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I completely agree with you, IF you see the Tron as an sampler.
But for me, it don't belong on the same scale as any sampler that try to reproduce
orchestra or any other instruments as accurate as possible.
Mellotron IS an instrument, with its own mood and character.
The wow and flutter, the noise and how it attacks the playback of the tapes.
All that makes the Tron unique.
And I would say, even the options on the soft-plug Tron, with attack and
release, becomes a little strange, something that not really belong on that instrument.
I've been using Mellotron since 1974, and it's still close to my heart.
I've spent much time since the good stereo sampler came, to supply my self
and other artists with emulation of orchestra as close the reality as possible.
But all this becomes boring in the end, nothing is like the real thing anyway.
But the Tron survives it all, because it don't try to emulate or copy anything.
(even if the intentions was to do exactly that)
The Mellotron became "ALIVE" in a way its master didn't plan.
We can say the same about any other historical instruments, the violin, the Hammond, the Strat etc.
"we heard it so many times now, it's retro, it's almost unusable".
Forget about the emulations, the Tron is the Frankenstein monster that came alive!
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| Re: Mellotrons for the masses [message #340007 is a reply to message #300876 ] |
Fri, 09 May 2008 09:39 |
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A bit like the organ in general, and the Hammond in particular, which were/was supposed to, at least in a way, emulate orchestral sounds and/or pipe organs.
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| Re: Mellotrons for the masses [message #340014 is a reply to message #340007 ] |
Fri, 09 May 2008 10:06 |
JohnLisiecki
Messages: 81
Registered: November 2004
Location: Chicago |
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Just a note on something Mellotron:
I had been using the M-Tron virtual instrument for a few years, but had decided that I was sick of booting up and configuring a computer to record some Mellotron parts (and I wanted an easily portable solution for live performance). So I went on a hunt for a solution.
I did consider the Nord Wave, but was put off that the entire library of Mellotron sounds could not fit into its' memory - I'd have to load the dozen or so that I used frequently, and was right back to connecting a computer for the odd sounds that would need to be temporarily loaded. Long story short, I ended up loading the entire Mellotron CD-ROM (From David's Mellotron.com) onto an Alesis Fusion, which has an 80-gig internal hard drive. I'm using the instrument for just a tiny bit of its' capabilities, but it works very well indeed. The one real shortcoming of the instrument is the very velocity-imbalanced keyboard (large differences in velocity values between the black and white keys, and quite common to this instrument, according to posts on the web) is made moot by the non-velocity Mellotron samples.
The real star here, however, is the quality of the samples - I'm floored at how much better these are than the M-Tron set, particularly the Chamberlin samples. Lot's of effort was put into these. On samples that have dodgy pitch, you can load a version of the sample set that has been tuned properly - a very nice touch.
I don't want this to come across as a commercial, but it is pretty rare indeed when something really exceeds expectations. Excellent work!
John
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| Re: Mellotrons for the masses [message #340071 is a reply to message #340022 ] |
Fri, 09 May 2008 13:15 |
JohnLisiecki
Messages: 81
Registered: November 2004
Location: Chicago |
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| J.J. Blair wrote on Fri, 09 May 2008 16:45 |
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The one real shortcoming of the instrument is the very velocity-imbalanced keyboard
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This is adjustable, you know.
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You can adjust the velocity sensitivity of the whole keyboard, for sure, (per program or globally, if you like) but not the black keys vs. the white keys. The same key strike on a black key provides for a much higher-velocity value than a similar strike on a white key.
I haven't found anything in the manual relating to this. It seems to be the number one complaint of users on the internet (taken for what that's worth). I haven't found anything like this on any of the other instruments I own.
If I remember correctly, you can pop the thing open, and check that the keybed is properly aligned, but like I said, since I use this thing primarily to play back no-velocity samples, it's not much worth the effort.
John
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| Re: Mellotrons for the masses [message #340105 is a reply to message #340014 ] |
Fri, 09 May 2008 14:38 |
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Brian Kehew
Messages: 2344
Registered: January 2005
Location: North Hollywood |
Platinum Member |
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| JohnLisiecki wrote on Fri, 09 May 2008 07:06 |
I'm floored at how much better these are than the M-Tron set, particularly the Chamberlin samples. Lot's of effort was put into these.
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Nice you noticed - and how OLD the Mellotron CD version is, relatively, shows how poorly the MTron version was done. The Mellotron version is a decade older - and still blows it away!
Relax and float downstream...
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| Re: Mellotrons for the masses [message #340174 is a reply to message #340105 ] |
Fri, 09 May 2008 20:40 |
RSettee
Messages: 3635
Registered: November 2006
Location: Winnipeg, MB |
Platinum Member |
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I rented a Yamaha S90ES keyboard....it has some great sounds. One is "tape orchestra", and it does a Mellotron thing pretty cool. I got an old Farfisa, and (despite the fact that one key, E flat doesn't work...in any octave), it has it's own really cool, really fake orchestra sounds, especially with the vibrato. It's all crackly and a bit hissy, I get the impression that like an old person, it's either reached the age of absolute maturity for how good it will be, or it's on it's final, last legs of it's former glory, but not without one final burst of brilliance or "get the hell off my lawn", waving a cane in utter audio brilliance.
I have a crappy Radio Shack keyboard, and in tandem with a Leslie simulator, I get the best organ sound possible, not achieved with actual organ or MicroKorg or Triton LE or S90ES or anything else--the sound, itself, has the best sustain and the best slightly attack-less organ sound that i've heard (I don't tend to like percussive organ sounds). It's totally unique. Even the closest that I get on the MicroKorg (in which there is one patch that has a million organ sounds....if you tinker with it to find it), you still have to fiddle around with the attack and EG and resonance and sustain for hours just to get something similar.
Another trick I do is run a wind ensemble section from the same crappy Radio Shack keyboard, into a defretter effect, which knocks down the attack and creates this almost Mellotron sound, that's very distant....it has no attack or presence, whatsoever. It's like it's there, but not--transparent and invisible, even when it's being heard.
In all the high end workstations that i've rented, none have been able to get me to throw out the crappy Radio Shack keyboard in a music instrument room that space is quite vital in. Real is real, but sometimes the best stuff done faked has a totally unintended brilliance to it. To most people, 1+1= 2, but 1+1= infinity in my world....I love those combinations of equipment that shouldn't probably be working together. They might not be right to others, but I like it.
This is a track that I put out 8 years ago....when I look back on the stuff, this is one that still has that haunting beauty. It was based alot on the intro to Leon Russell's "This Masquerade", where I didn't know he meant it to be a fake orchestra or whatever....it just sounded cool, either way. That's the crappy Radio Shack defretter wind ensemble there....it's so totally invisible, but still there. Either way, melodies are melodies and they're either good or they're not.
http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/11/30/443059/%20-%20someti mes.mp3
Ryan Settee,
Instrospection Records
http://www.myspace.com/highwattelectrocutions
"Wickedly pulsing washes and acoustic jangles lead to gorgeous clean tones and winsome noodling. The denoument feels indefinite, woozy, like waking up from a strange dream."--Cosmo Lee, All Music Guide
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