Ed,
>Bruce, where did you learn that the mellotron used just intonation
>(shudder)? Was it some sort of cruel joke or mistake or what? I never had
>the money (back in the day) to own one, but I've heard plenty of them live
>and they did have a weird out-of-tuneness that was unique.
Actually, I hope I'm using the correct term; what I mean to say is that the
Mellotron recordings were created in a specific key, using exact intervals
between notes. The Mellotron used (up to) 8 sec. taped recordings of
instruments playing each of the notes -- violins, cellos, flutes,
etc. Let's take the violin as an example: When playing an A, both the
violin and the keyboard agree, right? But, what about A#/Bb? To us
chromatically-tuned junkies, they're the same note, but not to a
violinist. If the mathematical intervals are compared during a half-step
run from say, D3 to D4 and F3 to F4, there will be a slight difference in
the pitch of A#3 and Bb3. Not much, but it is there, and a violinist will
compensate, based on the key of the tune. In fact, my first "given" is not
always true: The violinist will play a slightly different A in a C scale
from the root note in an A scale. To get around this problem, the
Mellotron engineers simply picked one key -- I think it was A major -- for
all 37 notes, and then added a pitch control to compensate for the
inaccuracies in other keys. Many players never quite got the hang of the
pitch control -- and it was worthless for chords -- so there was always a
bit of an off-key tint to most Mellotron performances.
Regards,
-BW
--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions"
www.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group moderator
978.386.7389 voice
978.776.0096 fax
bruce@...