Cheaper is not cheap, however. Think about how costly the dedicated Hammond
repro keyboards are today, and how much it costs to get a really good
digital piano. Let's say someone manufactured a digital Mark II. 37-note
keyboards that run G-F are not an off-the-shelf item, so that would have to
be instrument specific. I'd think that to really have the chance of
grabbing the real Mellotron maniacs, the keyboard would have to have a
custom designed "feel" to let Mellotronists use the technique they have
developed to their advantage, and that would take a fair amount of
engineering. Then you have to get all of the Mellotron library loaded,
which I'm guessing is going to take a fair amount of ROM. I'm not going to
bother with the math, but I'd be curious just how many Meg of memory a Mark
II would equate to, not to mention making the entire tape library
available - sound effects and rhythmic patterns and all. You'd have to have
custom software to interface with the custom controllers (presumably you'd
want to capture the design elements and placements of the Mark II panel as
closely as feasible) and to take advantage of all of the ROM you have in
place, it wouldn't take much more to be able to offer a front panel and
sound setup that worked as much as possible like a Mark II but would also be
able to play the sounds looped, transposed, filtered, and generally synth
controlled if desired, throw in some user RAM, pedals, and a dedicated FX
section with some amp-speaker simulators to reproduce the sound of
Wharfdales or a Marshall stack or a Fender Twin Reverb, and let's face it,
you're starting to come up into the upper end of keyboard prices, and let's
face it, there are a lot of people who don't like and never did like
Mellotrons (Mr. Emerson?) and would not be part of the demographic - not
that I wouldn't love to have such an instrument, and would work it into the
ground, but I just can't see a huge market out there. If anybody does make
one, please put me on your prospect sheet, I'm probably going to buy one.
Jon E Salley
MiloJohnson@...M400 #886
> > 2500 Mellotrons sold from the beginning until now? That's not a lot of
> > units. It would be difficult to persuade any company that is a good
> > idea, because if the real thing didn't sell any better, then why would
> > anyone imagine the repro would sell?
>
> The repro is likely to be a ∗lot∗ cheaper for a start.
>