Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Mellotronists

Hey Mattias,
Although you do occassionally hear the rhythms...and in the
strangest places! I've heard...I think it was the Bossa on an advert
for Taco' or rice or something. Last month we visited the National
Space Centre in Leicester ('cause my step daughter wants to do
something spacey at Univ next year) and they have a fancy
planetarium there where they show (surround-vision??) films about
interplanetary exploration. They came to this bit about the
proposed Mars robots and rovers crawling all over the landscape
accompanied by.....the MKII Dixieland Jazz rhythm with a MkII sax
melody line...complete with Bill Fransen's YEAH!! at the end. I'm
sure these are all off virtual tron samples now they are more widely
available and not a real MkII - although you never know!
Wierd!.
John





Hey hey,
\u000e
Had the weird experience to record percussion on a recording of
ALWs\u000eJesus Christ superstar that a friend of mine is doing and
they had almost entirely used Mellotron and Chamberlin sounds for
Strings, Oboes some voices but it really sounded flat and weird.
Still had that weird ambience to it but didn´t have the right
Kapaooww feeling. I think for instance the sampled Chamberlin
stuff sounds great due to Harry Chamberlins great recordings of the
instruments but when they are so clean and Hifi they just turn into
weird Cellos sounds with the vibrato in the wrong places. Couldn´t
help putting on some Fiona Apple when I got back home just to
check that I wasn't all wrong and all of a sudden all the
spinetingling came back.
\u000e
I think the most important thing is when you\u000euse Mellotron samples
is to get some of the original grittiness in there...pull it through an
amp and mike it so it has some sonic framing to it. I do that a lot
with my 400 pulling it through a Guitar amp with just a bit of Spring
(no...not the band) reverb and it just sounds...right at least to my
ears.\u000eIf you doubletrack it ( if it is strings for instance)\u000eand pan hard
lef/right and then add root notes on the Cello....you are home.
\u000e
Slight sidestep...I once used a Optigan drum loop on a pop track
and when\u000eI showed up at the studio the next day...the exhausted
engineer proclaimed proudly that he had spent the previous
night\u000ecleaning up the loop getting all the scatchiness and clicks
and cracks out...A difficult discussion followed.
\u000e
I don´t want to be lengthy about this but another thing is...If you are
using samples. One should try to play the sample in a original-
sound manner. If you listen to the big Mellotron players it sounds
great because they are adapting the playing to the instrument.
Some notes are out of tune...so don´t play em et.c et.c Big
massive chords didn´t always work out so you break it\u000edown\u000einto
parts. John Paul Jones talked about approaching recording
Mellotron parts as in viewing it as a String section. Everyone plays
more or less one note interacting with the others creating chords
and melodies.
\u000e
What I am trying to get at is I think the samples are pretty decent.
But the Mellotron isn´t a perfect instrument. If you play incredibly
fast runs on a sample of the 3 violins it won´t sound like Tony
Banks,\u000eKing Crimson\u000eor Rick Wakeman. And it won´t have
anything to do with the sample.
\u000e
An interesting thing is also the fact that all of a sudden there must
thousands upon thousands of people with samples of the weirdest
Mellotron sounds available and I\u000ehave so far (to my knowledge)
never heard anyone use any of the Mark II organs or the electric
guitar. It is still the same old strings and choirs...\u000eSeems like a
terrible waste of opportunities.
\u000e
Best regards,
\u000e
Mattias Olsson\u000f
Roth Händle Studios, Stockholm\u000f
www.roth-handle.nu