AW: Mellotron question.

[Haible Juergen]

	>what makes mellotron so great sounding?

Its imperfections. Really.
When mellotrons were the only way to play sampled sounds
on the stage, people were happy to have "real" sounds,
and either ignored, or more often complained about, the
severe imperfections, like pitch instability, every note sounding
different than the other, tuning going flat when several notes
were played at once, the limited duration of tapes (no loops ...),
and so on. If we can believe certain documents from that area,
people *cursed* their mellotrons for that.
Klaus Schulze complained that he had to use two mellotrons
and a pedal to crossfade between them, in order to produce
its long sustained choirs on "X". 
Robert Fripp pointedly said "tuning a mellotron is not."
There's a famous King Crimson live recording where the mellotron
broke down in the middle of a breathtaking performance.
You would be able to tell a mellotron sound from an original 
(or sampled) sound from a distance - because of its typical
imperfections.

The point is, people start to love what they grow familiar with.
(At least there is the potential to do so.) We learned to appreciate
distorted guitar sounds, hammond organs (which were imperfect
simulations of pipe organs - and Hammond spent a lot of effort
to get rid of the key click ...) - and some of us learned to love
mellotron sounds.

Thinking of it, from a modern point of view, it's no mystery that
we tend to love instruments that have character, rather than being
perfect. (Isn't it the same thing with people, too ?)

I have to add that loving a certain sound is not the same as loving
the instrument. From what I've heard, I doubt I would like to have
a mellotron in my house. (I even hesitate with a Hammond.)
So: still dreaming of a good emulation. And still in doubt if a
goud emulation would be possible with today's technology
(and my limited budget).

	JH.