Today I turned loose # 740 and #1072 back to their owners. God I was sad to see them go! I have been working on restoring these machines since August. Normally I would have been done 8 weeks ago, but with the wife's health and other issues I was slowed a bit.
I want to issue special thanks to Martin Smith at Streetly, who demonstrated once again that when deadlines have to be met, they will be.
I also want to thank Markus Resch for his help and support along with a couple of SMS-5s.
We are lucky to have such good resources. Because of Mellotron Archives and Streetly, two more pieces of shit have been resurrected and returned to playability.
I am happy to let you all know that these two Trons will not be secluded in someone's living room or basement, "studio," but will be actively be played to the public, as both will be used in touring bands in the US northeast.
If you want to make your Trons sound the best that they can, send your headblock to Streetly and have them reset the azimuths on your tape playback heads. This is a most important, "must do," and will substantially improve the sound of you machine.
I am also a big fan of the SMS-5 sold by Markus Resch of Mellotron Archives. It is rock solid and offers the ability to, with the throw of a switch, change the pitch to an alternate predetermined other setting (think half speed brass). This card, or the SMS-2 sold by Streetly are the only way to go if you have a Tron with one of those crappy old CMC-10 cards. Either one will give you rock-solid pitch stability.
Lastly, if anyone wants to see some photos of the resurrections, let me know.
Happy New Year,
Frank