Mellotronists

On Apr 16, 2005, at 2:24 PM, Mattias wrote:

> BTW do you streetly boys know history about the Mellotron Viola. Who 
> played it et.c...I use it a lot and it would be great to know more 
> about it...

I'd like to know, too. It has so many possibilities. It could have been 
recorded better, though. I remember someone referring to it as boxy and 
I think that's true. Viola has a really wonderful sound. I've fooled 
around with a bit of recording using solo violin, viola and cello and 
it can be quite something. On my FX Console I can also split the 
keyboard with cello on the bottom (or top) viola on the other half of 
the LH keyboard and then use solo violin on the RH keyboard. With two 
people playing you can get some very nice string quartet effects. The 
present viola track doesn't really do justice to the instrument, 
though. As mentioned, the sound is 'boxy and there's a C (I think the 
first one) that's really badly out of tune. I can't play it with 
certain musicians or they go berserk (I'm thinking of Devotion's sax 
player here--so of course I play it at EVERY opportunity!).

How many of you would be interested in a new recording of this 
instrument? The Principal Viola for the National Ballet in Toronto is a 
friend AND a huge prog fan. He'd do the recording in a heartbeat.

If the interest is there, I'll ask him and could take the DAT to 
Streetly personally when I'm there in June. That way I can write off 
the trip, too...

Rick