Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: The Mellotron Group

An interesting discussion! It was inevitable that with digital sampling technology getting as good and accurate as it is now, these questions would arise, AND that Streetly would have to enter that realm just to stay competitive, while maintaining the original tape-based instruments for which we're all so passionate.

I must admit, I bridge the gap a little, between "Purist" and "using what works," with the M-Tron Pro program. I have my M400 (#1485), but it's been disabled for all-too-long now, so the M-tron has indeed supplied the most-beloved and very necessary Mellotron sounds on my recordings. It does have a huge, categorized library of authentic Mellotron (& other related instruments) sounds of which my l'il 400 can only dream, but playing it, with the great expression one can get with a real Mellotron, is really not the same at all. So I'd rather use the 400 for the sounds it does have, but that'll have to be for another day, with a new motor, maybe tapes... whatever it'll need to get back up & running properly.

At any rate, as I see it, if it's manufactured or even licensed by Streetly, if it's powered by cats chasing mice it doesn't matter, they have every right to put the Mellotron name on the instrument. (And other manufacturers really do NOT. There are lots of tissues, usually called "Kleenex," but only Kimberly-Clark has the right to use the name.)  A "true" Mellotron IS and has always been a "sample player," but originating long before any digital technology existed. If it had existed in the early '60s, I suspect that's exactly what they'd have produced, using the best technology currently available. Foolish not to, right? It could've been that tape-based Mellotrons would never have existed; they'd all have been digital!

So we move up several decades, to a far more digital age. Mellotrons in their "true" form are still being made, thank God (& Streetly!), but the useful variations for convenience, flexibility and accessibility are available, too - FROM them. Caterpillar Inc. makes bulldozers & high-lifts, but they also make a whole variety of other related construction equipment, and who faults them for that? A "Cat" is still a "Cat."

So is a 4000D a Mellotron? Well, it rightly has the name on it... it produces the sounds, and then some. It's not a tape-player, but it's the next logical step, both in practicality and marketing. "Keeping up." Those who aren't busy living, are busy dying. We wouldn't want that to happen to one of our most beloved and revered instruments, nor to the company who thankfully still builds them. If the 4000D makes them competitive, and keeps them in business, GOOD SHOW!  I'd love one myself!  One day!

Keep on keepin' on! And yeah, keep the passion in it!

Cheers!