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

Hi, it’s Ben here (moderator),

Seeing the recent discussion about the purpose of this group, I wanted to chime in a bit. I’ve only been moderator here since a short time (september last year), but I’ve been reading this list since 2009. (And the other ‘tron group before that.)

When I came on as a moderator, the description of this group was (and still is): "This group is for anybody interested in the Mellotron.” Now, this doesn’t imply to me that we shouldn’t discuss anything that doesn’t have tapes and rollers. But I’m more than willing to change the description. After all, it’s not my group, I’m only looking after it. But looking back through the group’s archive, I see all kinds of tangents (sample sets, VST’s, ARP 2500). Why not?

My personal opinion is, it’s all good. We all know that there’s the real thing, and then there are all kinds of digital recreations. In a way, it’s fun to read people’s opinions on how these compare to an actual mellotron/chamberlin/novatron/etc, as long as everything stays respectful of course. My M400 has only one tape frame, and I’ve always found that limiting. For others this might be the other way around, I can see that. But I can’t go out and buy 3-4 or so other tape sets, just because I want to play around with some sounds. So that’s where I find sample sets or plugins very useful. And even though my M400 is not in a very good shape, playing it always much more satisfying than playing a midi keyboard. (Maybe the M4000D’s keyboard fills a good niche here.) At some point I really must get a new tape frame, so I probably would buy something like M-Tron with the Streetly add-ons first to help my decision. But really, my whole M400 should be refurbished first.

Anyways, discuss. :)

Best regards,
Ben