In a message dated 6/20/2007 6:58:13 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, g-colin.crawford@... writes:
Initial thoughts? Well, as a whole it's quite interesting, but the
Mellotron is a bit of a let-down. It's sampled every two notes, so the
cello frame had an extra not of double bass in it, and is generally
quite lacklustre. There's also bugger-all to verify that the machine
used has anything at all to do with Abbey Road, it's just stuck on the
selection because it ought to be there.
The pianos are good simply because nobody has ever bothered commecially
to sample ropey old uprights before, preferring Bosendorfer Imperials
and Steinway Ds. The Celesta's actually rather lovely, but the Hammond
is a bit of a let-down. All the samples are rather 'polite' and of
course the transition between Leslie off and on is very abrupt, with no
acceleration effect. The only way to get a realistic effect would be to
record to audio then stick the track through a software rotary
emulation program or a G4 simulator or similar.
The worst thing by far are the notes by Mark Vail, who should really
know better before spouting off with utter crap such as "The 1905
Steinway upright was built before the term 'upright' had been coined
for a piano with a vertical harp" and "There are two types of
harmonium, one which blows, the other sucks....ours sucks" Well of
COURSE it fuggin' sucks, because ALL harmoniums suck. Those which blow
are reed-organs. TWAT.
The Mellotron chapter is guff from start to finish.
Anyhow, we'll keep trying the software and report further.
Wotcher Cocks!
Colin, perhaps we can learn more about the Mellotron from the video. Is has a label saying it was restored by Streetly, and it shows the serial number. You can see it when they show the inside of the machine. I was amused that the label is pealed half-way off. You would think they would have at least stuck it back.
Frank