It was actually hilarious to record. Louise found it downright unnatural to play a cello like that and kept moving into vibrato almost without thinking. That particular sound was
way off in the end and had to be tuned up all over the place, not least because she had to do about six takes of every tone to learn to hold off the vibrato, by which time the idea of the note had left her mind.
Of course, like singing, the reason one uses vibrato is because you're on an analogue system and might not exactly hit the note, so if you wobble around where it's likely to be you give the impression of the note, not the actual note itself. So that was another reason why the recording was miles off.
I also think there was wine involved.
Louise has since given up playing the cello entirely and works as a photographer of pet cats and dogs. I am assuming it got to her in the end.
On 2 February 2012 23:02, Bruce Daily
<pocotron@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi all-
I just discovered that Mike D. has blessed the Mellotron sounds library samples with the Louise Davis 'Cello without vibrato. What a weird sound! It must have been a real pain to get it in tune. The sample chords somehow sound like an accordion.