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Subject: Re: [newmellotrongroup] NAMM Report

From: djacques@csulb.edu
Date: 2010-01-16

Same here.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

From: fdoddy@aol.com
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:47:10 -0500
To: <newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [newmellotrongroup] NAMM Report

 

I've done the same with my tron Mike.  I sampled it all and didn't process the samples.  It's only one articulation, but it still sounds better than an M-tron or whatever.

fd



-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Dickson <mike.dickson@ gmail.com>
To: newmellotrongroup@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Sat, Jan 16, 2010 4:43 am
Subject: Re: [newmellotrongroup] NAMM Report

 
My keyboard action still feels okay too despite having been given acomplete battering over the last two years. I know it needs aservice, but the action feels okay to me. As for 'sponginess' , I'veplayed a MemoryMoog and found that had the weirdest action I've everfelt in a keyboard. There is the contact...and there is a bitmore afterwards that doesn't do anything. It's just a matter of gettingused to what you're dealing with. Mellotron keyboards run on wood,rubber and sprung metal. It's never going to rock-solid on that basis,but by no means is it as heavy as (say) a Birotron (which has keys thatfeel like they were weighted on leaf springs) or some of the morerevolting plasticky things that troubled us in the 1980s.

What I positively like about the touch on a Hammond or aMellotron or (direct action) pipe organ is the feeling that you are partof the machine. You can either feel the mechanics of the systemunder your fingertips. There is a bit of work involved there perhaps,but I don't mind it as much as I mind the feeling that I'm simplyplaying a series of rather dead digital switches.

As for samples and MIDI, they have their place. They make a lot ofthings a lot easier and have obviously opened doors to many many thingsthat were previously impossible to encompass, but to me they just playback with monotonous regularity. I've been messing about a little withthat RedTron plugin and frankly the Mk-V version (for some reason)sounds better, for some reason. The problem is that the samples arelousy and there is really no way round that. Okay, so Mellotrons havetheir off days too (as we all know) but they get better. With this,you're stuck with a picture of what someone else thoughtsounded great. It's like the difference between making an Airfix kitaeroplane model and a balsa model. With one you are tied to otherpeople's ideas and that (to me) is limiting.

Having said all that, I'll qualify it by saying that I've sampled3-violins myself and I'd defy anyone to A/B a scale of it and the M400whence it came and tell the difference. I just didn't treat the samplesat all. Someone might learn this trick one day. We'll see.

Mike


fdoddy@aol.com wrote:
 
MyStreetly refurb still feels pretty good after, what is it now, 7years?! I like the fight, the pushback of a tron.  It's like playing aguitar through a "gasp" real amplifier. Ya gotta work it.... Samplesand a MIDI keyboard are too forgiving.  Like the old Italian grandmassay about making risotto, "The rice must feel the pain"