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

I agree.  Still waiting for that new album though

Bernie

--- In newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com, "James Parthun" <james.parthun@...> wrote:
>
> As Fritz' music is finely crafted, wonderfully composed and arranged,
> performed and recorded beautifully, I would take his advice!
>
>
>
> partune
>
> M400 #872
>
> _____
>
> From: newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of fdoddy@...
> Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:18 AM
> To: newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [newmellotrongroup] Hello to all. Questions about mixing.
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Sean,
>
> Well.....as the Amish say "God is in the details", as compared to the more
> secular phrase, "the devil is in the details". Sadly, you don't have a tron
> or even, more importantly, the beautiful old tube equipment that was
> probably used on the recordings you referenced. Also remember you are
> referencing a tron sound mixed in a recording so I guarantee you your ear is
> being tricked by the rest of the recording.
>
> My advice? Bag trying to nail the exact sound and EQ, compress and effect
> your sound in the mix of what you are working on whether it be live or in a
> recording enviroment. Try some more oddball methods like outputting the dry
> tron signal to a bass amp, guitar amp or your own monitoring system and
> rerecord it. I just happened upon a leslie 145 and that really does wonders
> to a tron, or most anything for that matter.
>
> I have found that negative EQ works best. Go drastic to start and then spend
> some time really nailing the sweet spot. Subtle tweaks of the EQ bandwidth,
> Q, can do magic once you are in the ballpark of the frequencies you want.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
>
> fritz
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fourtytwominds fourtytwominds@...
> To: newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Mon, Jul 20, 2009 5:26 pm
> Subject: [newmellotrongroup] Hello to all. Questions about mixing.
>
>
>
> Hello all.
>
> My name is Sean Lowrie. Sadly I do not own a 'tron, just the M-Tron samples;
> a
> MkVI is on my wish list. I've asked this question at the "Mellotronists"
> group and a member there suggested I should ask this group as well.
>
> I've had the samples for about a year and a half and I'm still trying to
> come up
> with the correct signal handling and mixing to get the megalithic Moody
> Blues
> and King Crimson sounds I'm used to.
>
> Last week I made a breakthrough. I'm currently splitting the output and
> taking
> that into to separate unbalanced inputs on my small multitrack mixer. First
> channel I leave dry, cut the low and high, and boost the mid range. The
> second
> channel I send all the signal to the internal effects unit on this board for
> reverb. (It's an Alesis board and I'm fairly happy with their electronic
> reverb
> circuitry, which even creates slightly different results for left and right
> channels) I have this signal boosted in lows and highs but scooped in the
> mid
> range: an approximate mirror of the dry channel settings. On my board L is
> 80Hz,
> M is 2.5kHz, and H is 12kHz. I'm getting fairly close to the sound I want,
> fairly close indeed, but I'm not there. I finally have the presence and in
> general a megalithic quality in sound.
>
> What I don't have is the chocolate-smooth sound that I'm used to out of King
> Crimson. I'm thinking specifically the studio tracks "Lament" and "The Night
> Watch" from the 1974 album Starless and Bible Black. When I listen to these
> tracks I notice that the sound has more... for lack of a better term
> "breath."
> The sound seems to be of much higher fidelity than I'm used to out of the
> Mellotron while still retaining the distinctive Mellotron sound.
>
> Through research on the internet I'm sure these tracks were studio recorded
> on
> two well maintained M400s. I've tried every sort of search I can imagine in
> Google, I've been hitting the King Crimson fan sites hoping for information.
> I've learned that RF scuttled an entire 2009 KC West Coast USA tour, that's
> where I live, over some hurt feelings or something, it's not clear what, but
> nothing on their mixing techniques.
>
> I'm listening to The Night Watch as I'm writing this long question. The
> sound is
> not any more present, and actually less megalithic than what I have, but it
> has
> time-CLARITY (not just a boost in the 4kHz area) that I cannot seem to
> achieve,
> along with a slight bit of chorus type phasing I think.
>
> On the front of the Moody Blues sound, I can't seem to get my sound as
> sleepy as
> Mike Pinder can. I understand his MkII he modified himself, but to my
> understanding he only removed the pre-amp circuit that boosted the signal at
> 10kHz. The "tone" knob on M-Tron, as on the real deal (to my understanding)
> is
> also at 10kHz and so I keep that real low, around 9'o'clock...
>
> The sound still isn't there. Infact, it seems too dull and smeared. I pulled
> out
> Days of Future Passed and listened to Tuesday Afternoon. I'm fairly sure the
> lead is "Trumpets and Trombones" doubled with "MkII Violins" and the harmony
> is
> "MkII Brass" again doubled with the violins. However, I'm noticing that the
> note
> attacks on the record have more of a harsh garbled attack, and my samples
> actually sound more like the instruments sampled than Mr. Pinder's MkII
> does. If
> it's a matter of tape cutting I'm sure I can't do anything about it.
>
> But still that's not entirely the whole problem. I'm still not getting the
> chocolate-smooth sound that is also hollow and graceful. I asked Mr. Pinder
> on
> his own forum, but that was nearly a year ago and I don't think he's logged
> in
> to the forum in all this time. His right certainly to do so. Doesn't solve
> my
> ignorance though...
>
> Is it a matter of compression technique? Using a haphazard collection of all
> digital equipment I don't have access to real-time compression, only after
> the
> fact in Audacity and so I tend to avoid compression as it becomes too much
> of
> guess-and-check work. Is there something else I'm missing out on? When it
> comes
> to the violin sound I've taken the care to exclusively use what M-Tron names
> "MkII Vintage Violins" which is by far the highest fidelity version of that
> tape
> set the sample set has. It's REALLY good. Still, I know I'm missing out on
> something.
>
> So, after 3 chapters worth of ranting (damn this is a loooooong question
> I've
> got) I ask you all, you who are lucky enough to have and use a real
> Mellotron
> (or those who have gotten really good at using the sample software), for
> your
> expert opinions and advice. I've been banging my head into a wall on this
> one
> and I've lost confidence that I'll get any further than this on my own.
>
> Thanks to you all so much, you deserve a cookie or dinner or something for
> even
> reading through what has got to be one of the longest emails in the last
> decade.
>
> -Sean Lowrie
> fourtytwominds@ <mailto:fourtytwominds%40yahoo.com> yahoo.com
>
>
>
> _____
>
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