Mellotronists

In a message dated 6/20/2007 6:58:13 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
g-colin.crawford@... writes:

Initial  thoughts? Well, as a whole it's quite interesting, but the 
Mellotron is a  bit of a let-down. It's sampled every two notes, so the 
cello frame had an  extra not of double bass in it, and is generally 
quite lacklustre. There's  also bugger-all to verify that the machine 
used has anything at all to do  with Abbey Road, it's just stuck on the 
selection because it ought to be  there.

The pianos are good simply because nobody has ever bothered  commecially 
to sample ropey old uprights before, preferring Bosendorfer  Imperials 
and Steinway Ds. The Celesta's actually rather lovely, but the  Hammond 
is a bit of a let-down. All the samples are rather 'polite' and of  
course the transition between Leslie off and on is very abrupt, with no  
acceleration effect. The only way to get a realistic effect would be to  
record to audio then stick the track through a software rotary  
emulation program or a G4 simulator or similar.

The worst thing by  far are the notes by Mark Vail, who should really 
know better before  spouting off with utter crap such as "The 1905 
Steinway upright was built  before the term 'upright' had been coined 
for a piano with a vertical  harp" and "There are two types of 
harmonium, one which blows, the other  sucks....ours sucks" Well of 
COURSE it fuggin' sucks, because ALL  harmoniums suck. Those which blow 
are reed-organs. TWAT.

The  Mellotron chapter is guff from start to finish.

Anyhow, we'll keep  trying the software and report further.

Wotcher  Cocks!




Colin, perhaps we can learn more about the Mellotron from the video. Is has  
a label saying it was restored by Streetly, and it shows the serial number. 
You  can see it when they show the inside of the machine. I was amused that the 
label  is pealed half-way off. You would think they would have at least stuck 
it  back.
 
Frank



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