Now that I've the time to show back up here, this digital Melly certainly has my attention.
I've certainly experienced a lot of frustration with M-Tron, though lots of enjoyment too. I get the sound for cheap, however I get some dodgy bits too. I hate that varying the pitch control gives me digital quantization noise: it's a sample so even the random noise is pitchbent which ends up sounding like garbly ass. I'd assume on a real Melly the random noise is consistent while the tape noise would bend.
It seems that most all the M-Tron sounds (with exceptions like the cello) have much poorer signal to noise ratio than the real deal. I don't recall the Moodies or Crimson Mellotrons sounding hissy in unflattering ways. Mr. Dickson's recordings certainly don't sound that way.
The wow and flutter, and tape droupouts are in the same spot every time, of course.
And I don't have a convenient half-speed switch. I would if I upgrade to the "pro" version, but that's low on my limited money list. (Still in college, 1 more semester)
It's also awkward to have the sounds start from the beginning of the tape every time I so much as slip. That would have been easy to have a little counter upon release of the note to know where the imaginary tape would be during the short rewind. Though, I've never played the real deal, maybe this is, well, not that big of a deal.
And I can't get the samples to "spit" if that is what I want. They're all so polite.
So I'm interested in this digital Melly because I'll get all the sounds in one unit, and only spend 1-2K on the thing as opposed to 7K for a MkVI (and only 3 sounds at a time) or 12K for the M4000. (It's 12K right?)
However it wouldn't be so cool for my own fascination with the things. I still want the tapes, even if that unit sits in my living room and the digital version goes gigging.
Perhaps what I should really be looking at is, over this next decade, saving and purchasing a digital one and a M4000? I'd ask that the M4000 get a half-speed switch.
Not that even having the real deal will help me figure out how to treat the signal to get those classic sounds.
Has anyone else figured out how to coax pleasant sounds out of M-Tron? Squonk06 on Youtube has some good stuff, but it doesn't seem to do it entirely. The hardest to nail is the classic MkII violins and M400 violins. My adventures working on my last recording were frustrating, no matter what I didn't the violins didn't have classic atmosphere, and I couldn't get rid of the jaggy 12kHz+ noise without deadening the sound and putting the Melly further in the background than I wanted.
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Hey just thought of this. What tapes are on your wishlist? Mine would be (if I could afford the Melly and tapes of course)
MkII violins
M400 violins
MkII trombone
MkII church organ
MkII flute
clarinet (whichever M-Tron sampled)
orchestra
MkII brass
trumpets and trombones
MkII tenor sax
St. John's Wood organ
french horn
cello
cello viola mix
MkII organ #2 (does this have a different name? The one that sounds at home with the Lawrence Welk bubble machine)
-Sean
--- In newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com, fdoddy@... wrote:
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> 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.
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> fd
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