a little more on the Strawberry fields synth sound?
2001-03-12 by leo
Hey guys, I love the programing way to achive the sound but there are some other aspects to the 'sound' of the "Strawberry Fields Mellotron Mark II" 1st thing you've got to realize is that it is not enough to have a Mellotron Mark II in front of you in order to get this wonderful sound. My ex partner had one ( Mellotron Mark II) and he never got the exact same sound as the album. the reason is this, The Beatles use to experiment with sound recording, they speed up and slow down tapes and tracks. the did use 'microphones and placement' tricks and don't forget the tube pre-amps, Eq's and compressors. all these parameters and more made the sound different. after all that, they recorded this song, The Mellotron Mark II was one of the first tracks. it was recorded with the rest of the songs of Sgt Pepper album using a 2" 4 track 30 ips Studer tube tape recorder machine. they actualy got to use another same machine synced up via a custom device that their producer build up out of 'scrapes' in the studio... imagine the instability of this primitive sync. then, they started to ping-pong the 4 tracks into 2 track, add 2 more tracks and dubed it back to the 1st machine and so on... If you counted the times this "Mellotron Mark II" had to be dubbed it will be around 15-30 times !!! every time with a little different speed (realy small veriations of pitch up&down) and more tube compression, that explain the detuning of the sound and the lushness of the tube and analog recording saturations. just for this they should of got the recording award as the noise level is almost invisible compared with what they had to work with. but this situation created the magical sound of these recordings. in the 80's, We tried to recreate some tracks using the same mics,pre-amps compressors and tube recording machines, I can tell you that we did do it right. we even came up with unique original sounds that only tube and analog processors can create. one more thing, Lennon played the 'Mellotron Mark II' and he wasn't the greatest piano/keyboard player so they spliced different cuts together and compressed them to sound even. I read somewhere that George Martin played some of it too. some poeple say that there is another layer, very subtle of the same track played backward by laying down the 2" tape on the 'wrong' side and copying it to the next tape, therefore, creating this 'reverse' effect. It might be true, as the Beatles explored every inch of creativity with their recording tools. Leo Bruce Wahler wrote:
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> > Jim, > > >I thought the old synth the Beatles used on the intro to "Strawberry > >fields" is interesting, how would you go about getting that sound? (was it > >a mellotron, or even older synth?..I think I've seen pictures of it) > > > >I would love to hear the thought process you would go through to get in > >the ballpark and how you would plan to get that sound. > > Boy, you could have found an easier first attempt! :^) This is a > deceptive sound, appearing easy to duplicate, but actually possessing a lot > of subtleties. > > The sound on the intro to "Strawberry Fields" is a Mellotron Mark II, using > the flute recording that was part of the standard tape set. What makes > this simulation difficult is the fact that the Mellotron is a sort of > sampling synthesizer, so you are trying to simulate a synth with another > synth. Also, the Mellotron had its own dominant timbre which permeated > every sound, from violins to choirs to flutes. And finally, the Mellotron > was not a chromatically-tuned instrument; the recordings were > just-intonated, mostly in the key of A major. In any other key, they tend > to sound a little off key on one or more of the notes. The following is > the way I would approach the sound on ANY synth, AN1x or otherwise -- > > I would start off by trying to simulate a flute sound, which is mostly a > sine wave, except for the initial attack, which has a lot of high harmonic > content, both tonal and atonal in nature. Start with a 50% duty pulse with > the Edge at about 115, and set the FEG to a fast attack, fast decay, and a > relatively low sustain level -- low enough to filter out most of the > harmonics, but not so low as to mute the sound. Set the AEG to a similar > shape, but set the sustain very high, maybe 118 or so. After some tweaking > by ear, you should have a flute timbre that sounds good for mellow solos -- > think soft jazz, not Jethro Tull. You may find that adding a little noise > to the mix improves the illusion, but use it sparingly. One VCO may be > enough to create the sound; if you want to use the second one, set it to > the same waveform, make it an octave above the first, about 25% of the > original volume, with only a very slight fine pitch detune. > > Now, you need to "Mellotron-ize" the sound. First, as you already noted, > the attack on the Mellotron was never very quick, owing to the nature of > the tape system used in the instrument. Back the attack of both the FEG > and AEG until you have a more calliope-like sound. If you want a good > example -- Strawberry Fields is not the best one I can think of -- use the > Dance of the Puppets section of King Crimson's "The Court of the Crimson > King," which is actually the same sound on the same instrument. After > that, you need to EQ the result to give it that hollow sound that the > Mellotron was famous for -- add a little boost at 125Hz and 3.8kHz, and > drop the 1kHz a little. The effect you're looking for is that of an old > movie soundtrack. Then add a little slow flange to the mix, and a little > PMOD using the same LFO speed, to simulate the wow and flutter that the > tape drive caused. Use the pitch modulation sparingly, as the detuning was > not all that noticeable. > > Finally, a little (mis-)tuning simulation is probably in order. Use one of > the matrix controls to add a little fine pitch decrease based on key > tracking, and if the end result causes the whole patch to go flat, > compensate with the fine pitch controls on the VCOs. > > Regards, > > -BW > > -- > Bruce Wahler > Design Consultant > Ashby Solutions" > www.ashbysolutions.com > CloneWheel Support Group moderator > 978.386.7389 voice > 978.776.0096 fax > bruce@... > > > Community email addresses: > Post message: AN1x-list@yahoogroups.com > Subscribe: AN1x-list-subscribe@yahoogroups.com > Unsubscribe: AN1x-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com > List owner: AN1x-list-owner@yahoogroups.com > > Shortcut URL to this page: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AN1x-list > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/