Mellotronists

Mark Pring wrote:
> It's a shame that sampling doesn't work

I would really like to knock this one on the head once and for all. 
Sampling a Mellotron most certainly works; I've done it with #996 on 
3-violins and I will guarantee you that no one will ever be able to tell 
the difference betwen one sound and the other. I'm not saying that they 
are close - I'm saying that they are completely identical. How do you do 
it?

   1. Get one Mellotron
   2. Make sure it works and that all the sounds are playing well
   3. Record every note in full
   4. Er
   5. That's it.


Where the use of samples falls over is in the *tinkering* that goes on 
after the event. Hmm. Slightly ugly timbre on that one. Let's just 
re-tune one of the adjacent notes instead. Bit of a pop on the master 
there. Edit that bit out. Oooh. White noise all over that one. Let's 
noise reduce it. In fact, let's variably noise reduce the lot. And 
tuning? Wow. Isn't that what Antares is for?

And *that* is if they are feeling charitable and give you a full 
complement of 35 notes in uncompressed format, as opposed to (say) 15 
interpolated notes resampled at 128kb/s or so.

It's not true to say that you cannot sample a Mellotron and get a good 
result. However, it's more than accurate to say that you cannot /buy/ 
such a thing right now because it simply doesn't exist.

-- 

Mike Dickson - M400 #996
The Official Cynic of Streetly Electronics
Streetly Sample Library http://www.mikedickson.org.uk/tron