Mellotron question.

[Joachim Verghese]

Ingo wrote:

> When using Mellotron samples with a sampler and most of the
> imperfections are no longer there, there's still a lot of magic
> in the sound.

There are several sources of imperfection in the Mellotron sound
-- those that arise in the playback process, and those that are
in the recordings themselves.

IMO, a lot of the "magic" is in the latter category. There's so
much natural movement, or animation, in those sounds because the
recordings were performed by humans, not a synthesis algorithm.
Each recording constantly evolves throughout the eight-second
duration -- there's always slight variation in pitch, tone, volume,
etc, which is why Mellotron sounds often benefit from a slight
amount of room ambience or reverb to bring out the richness.

> Mellotron string samples are completely different from any
> other string samples. The same with wind instrument sounds. Maybe
> they did more effort when recording the instruments back then than
> today.

I think the opposite is true -- they didn't make much effort in
matching adjacent recordings so that the notes in a chord would
sound reasonably similar. Also, the relative tuning of notes is
often rather sloppy, all of which adds character. After all, the
Mellotron was originally meant to be no more than a home entertainment
keyboard.

As Riccardo and others have pointed out, there are several Mellotron
sample CDs available. The Mike Pinder CD-ROM is very good -- it has
a very comprehensive selection of sounds -- from the classic flutes,
strings and choirs, to the hilarious rhythm accompaniments of the
Mellotron Mk II. They've also programmed alternative patches which
fix the tuning imperfections of the original recordings, but
personally I prefer the raw, unfixed ones.

An other CD worth checking out is Propeller Island's "Legendary M400",
which has somewhat brighter samples (recorded at 44.1 as opposed to
22.05kHz), but made from a M400 with rather worn tapes. Still good
because of the extra brightness.

Some related links:

http://www.mellotron.com
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Studio/7846/mtron.html
http://www.ilio.com/propeller/m400/index.html


cheers,

-joachim