I'm skeptical as to whether there will be a huge market for it. I am curious to hear it, though I imagine it sounds great. I just wonder what the attraction is? If all of the same sounds are now offered by Clavia ( I think you can get them uncompressed now) and the Clavia machines can play those samples and a jillion other sounds, then all you are buying is cosmetics.
The 2 Clavia keyboards that are compatible with their sample library, do not have enough memory in either keyboard to store all the Chamberlin / Mellotron samples not to mention the other other samples from their library. All the samples from the library are looped and neither the Wave or Electro 3 have an interface as similar to a real mellotron as the NDM. From what I understand, sometime in the future Markus will be releasing a new sound card with 200 additional samples that can be inserted into the back of the NDM. The keyboardist will have 300 sounds available; some of these additional sounds may be looped duplicates of the 1st 100 sounds.
I guess it really is attractive to all of the people that really would like to have the real thing but don't have the money.
There is more to it (to the average person) than the initial cost of a brand new or completely renovated REAL mellotron. Speaking for myself, before buying the real thing, I would like to see and hear a perfect working one (without having to travel out of town) to determine whether it was right for me. There is the risk of shipping and having the know how to make any necessary adjustments when it arrives and to properly service the mellotron or find a competent technician who is capable of doing so. Then there is the issue of the number of sounds, the cost of new tape frames, and the storage space required if somebody requires greater than 3 sounds.
It would be interesting to know how many people purchased a Clavia keyboard just to get the Mellotron sounds.
In speaking with a few people in the group about the Memotron, it was kindly suggested that I check out Clavia keyboards. IMO, Clavia keyboards have a better "build quality" than the keyboards by other major manufactures that I've seen. If they stocked the Wave and the Electro 3 with all the Chamberlin / Mellotron samples, I would be more tempted to buy either or both of them.
Robert