Bernie wrote:
>
> Just stumbled across this link on Ken Leonard's website:
>
<http://reviews.harmony-
<http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Keyboard+And+MIDI/product/Mellotron/M4000/10/1>
Here's the text of the review:
Summer NAMM 2007 Coverage ยป (Austin, Texas: July 27 - 29, 2007)
Home > Synth > Keyboard And MIDI Reviews > Mellotron > M4000
Mellotron M4000
Summary
Ease of Use 10.0 (1 response)
Features 10.0 (1 response)
Expressiveness/Sounds 10.0 (1 response)
Reliability 10.0 (1 response)
Customer Support 10.0 (1 response)
Overall Rating 10.0 (1 response)
Submit a review for this product!
Product: Mellotron M4000
Price Paid: USD 4500
Submitted 07/13/2007 at 10:51am by david etheridge
Email: d dot etheridge1<at>ntlworld dot com
Ease of Use : 10
This is the classic Mellotron that we all know and love in a brand new
package (see below fot the full details. Switch on, select your sounds,
and play. Totally idiot proof.
Complete rcok history in a single instrument. Think Strawberry Fields,
Night in White Stain, Prog, Ambient German Electro, you name it, all the
classic sounds are here.
This review is based on a review I've done for magazines in the U.K. I
haven't got one, as yet, but I'm intending to!
Features : 10
Okay folks, let's set this straight: this is not a spelling error, this
is a NEW Mellotron in 2007, from the successors to the original company:
Streetly Electronics. What we have here is basically a cross between the
Mark II Melly, with it's height, fab keyboard action (very fast for
those Wakeman/Emerson moments), and tape banks mounted on rollers (more
anon), and the M400 with its relative portability and single 35 note
keyboard.
Hang on a minute, you're thinking: TAPES?
Isn't any serious manufacturer doing everything digitally? No, and there
are very good reasons why. Despite what the digital brigade will tell
you, you can't reproduce all the nuances of a Mellotron completely
accurately. Streetly tried: firstly with a VST, which sounded like all
other VSTs and would have been hacked in days (weeks at the most) and a
solid state replay machine that worked fine on single notes but fell
over on chords. Basically with tape technology there are
intermodulations and capacitances happening that change the
interrelationship of the sounds as you play. The very nature of the
technology is more chaos theory than predictable in the nuances.
So Streetly, having years of experience restoring the originals, decided
to make new ones, using traditional technology, but with a slight twist,
more of which anon.
The original Mark II had six banks of tapes. This one has eight: 24
sounds from a single keyboard (and thet said it couldn't be done with
60' of tape for each note!). What's 21st century in the tchnology is a
microprocessor card that controls the bank selection. Gone are the
mechanical Station Select control units with germanium transistors that
used to drift and cause aggro and the sync tape; in comes micrprocessor
control of the stepper motor so that bank select is failsafe and twit
proof. There's also a failsafe that if you touch the keyboard when
changing banks, the motors all stop. On the originals it would mash the
tapes!
Full 35 note polyphony with the improved torgue motor for the replay
mechanism. I used my forearm on the keys to try and get the motor to
slow-it just didn't happen.
Controls are the same: Volume, Tone and Varispeed (for those totally
cosmic moments) and the banks select, plud 'Inch".
Wassat? It's a feature that inches along the tapes to set alternate
start points, allowing soem envelope control on different sounds, and
the settings are storable and remembered on power off.
Lastly in the features: the Filtron: a powered blower that filters out
the grot from your smoke and dry ice machines (no prog band should be
without them!) and keeps the grot from your tapes and mechanism.
Ingenious and wonderful. How did Mellotronists ever get by without one.
By the way, the Filtron is available as a retrofit for other Mellys as well.
Expressiveness/Sounds : 10
Everybosy has an opinion on the sounds; wonderful to some, dull, dated
and cruddy to others. Part of the reason in part models were misaligned
heads and fourth generation tapes. Remastered sounds and properly
aligned heads solve this at a stroke. History in all it's sonic glory!
As for the sounds, youve got some classics:
Bank 1: MkII Flute/ MkII Violins/ Cello.
Bank 2: String Section/ 8 voice choir/ Church Organ.
Bank 3: MkII Brass/ MkII Tenor sax/ MkII Trombone.
Bank 4: Male Choir/ Female Choir/ Boys Choir.
Bank 5: M300A Violins/ Russian Choir/ Sad Strings.
Bank 6: MkII Church Organ/ Ian McDonald Flute/ MkI Clarinet.
Bank 7: Vibes/ 'Watcher' Mix/ Orchestra.
Bank 8: Bass Clarinet/ Cor Anglais-Oboe/ Mediaeval Woodwind.
Here you've got all the famous sounds, with a smattering of new guys.
The Ian (King Crimson) MacDonald flute is a gem, with delayed vibrato,
while the infamous St John's Wood organ will loosen bowels at fifty
paces. The Watcher Mix is the famous Genesis Mk II combination of brass
and strings, and the Orchestra is another massive texture that someone's
going to have a wonderful time with.
Three sounds per tape, but the track selector mechanism has been
smoothed out so combination settings are smooth and easy.
With the superbly responsive keyboard action, this is a delight to play.
Reliability : 10
Mellotrons were notorious for breaking down, right? Wrong.
Just as your car will give up without servicing and adjustment, so
ignorant owners of the past gave the Melly and unjustified reputation.
All the supposed faults of the past have been corrected by the facts,
and the components that did fail have been redesigned. Restored Mellys
run better than ever, and Streetly told me that the one they sold to
Radiohead many years ago just refuses to misbehave.
The tecvhnology is nearly fifty years old, tried and trusted. The M4000
is built (Some might say 'over engineered') specifically to keep going
for decades. Mellys will still be running when todays crop of synths,
PCs and VSTs are all in landfill or recycled: nuff said.
Customer Support : 10
When you want the best, so to the source. Streetly do it all,
personally. There's no box shifter mentality. They love the instruments
and want to keep them going. After all, who's mad enough to still use
tape technology in the 21st century? They are, and more power to their
replay heads!
Overall Rating : 10
This is not just another keyboard.
This has an influence out of all proportion to what it is. There are
keyboard fans, synth fans, and then there are Mellotron fans, and for
them (and I'm one) no other instrument will do.
As an example of this, Streetly told me that 20 people sent deposits on
the instrument as soon as it was announced, and before anything was
ready- just the IDEA of one was enough!
The M4000 is handbuilt from the ground up. Open the top and you can
marvel and the engineering feats and dedication inside. This is the sort
of thing that Britain used to do, but does no longer. The M4000 is going
to be built in small numbers by a cottage industry of guys who love them
machines for what they are, and aren't looking to make millions out of
it. What they are doing is making a musical icon. Play one and you hear
Rock History. It's an emotional experience playing one, no less. If you
think I've gone overboard on this, you're absolutely right. I love this
instrument, and as a previous owner of a MkII and an M400, the M4000 is
the instrument Melly owners have always wanted.
Oh, and here's a double manual version available (48 sounds) for ??8000
-which is STILL cheaper than Ebay prices!
--
Cheers,
SDM -- a 21st century schizoid man
Systems Theory internet music project links:
official site <www.systemstheory.net>
MySpace MP3s <www.myspace.com/systemstheory>
CDBaby <www.cdbaby.com/systemstheory>
"Soundtracks For Imaginary Movies" CD released Dec 2004
"Codetalkers" CD coming very soon
NP: nothing