Mellotronists

> The MicroKorg has the same guts as the MS2000.  It would be nice to
> try processing tron sounds through the filters and vocoder!

I tried that nonsense earlier today.

   Q: How do you make a Mellotron stay in tune?
   A: Play it through a Vocoder.

I only tried it on the one frame - Boys Choir, GC3 Brass and Sad
Strings. I messed about with a bunch of settings, but the strings always
sounded thin and horrid, whereas the GC3 brass was very gritty and
thunderous - sort of like the kind of vast and trumpeting wind that you
might blow off after eating gravel and drinking Guinness.

One novel feature is that you can drone into the attached microphone and
preserve the modulated signal so you can play pads (or whatever) without
going purple in the face.

In many ways the Vocoder is one of the least interesting things about
this unit. The synth capabilities are simply -huge-. The down side is
that it's all built on Korg's 'why use six knobs when one and six
modifers will do' principle which makes it quite hard to get 'into' as
far as programming it is concerned. I used to own a Korg M1 and sold it
quickly simply because it was *impossible* to understand.

The only down side I have found so far (and it may seem minor) is that
the range of presets are selected via one large dial which has them
grouped by genre. Titles like 'hip hop', 'trance' and 'd n b' are going
to date this thing in short order.

Mike Dickson (tron@...) M400 #996
The Official Cynic of Streetly Electronics
Streetly Sample Library http://www.blackcat.demon.co.uk/tron/