I'll probably regret weighing in on this contentious issue, but here
goes.
Let's talk about cars. Many people in this country would like to own a
big-block Shelby Cobra, a 1969 Chevrolet Yenko Camaro, or a Porsche Speedster
like the one James Dean died in. Top-notch examples of these three cars
are today going for averages of a half-million dollars or more, and most of the
people who pay that kind of money for them either hermetically seal them as
museum exhibits and investments that they hope to reap profits from later
on, or drive them a mile or two a month and spend the rest of the time polishing
them in masturbatory ecstasy.
You can now buy incredibly accurate and authentic replicas of all three of
these vehicles for the price of a normal luxury car, sixty to eighty
thousand dollars. The replicas are not the real thing, but they provide
the looks, a lot of the feel and sensual ;experience of the real items, and
you can drive them to the grocery store without worrying that some clown is
going to ruin your irreplaceable half-million dollar investment with a
door ding, and without having to spend a thousand dollars or more on a detailing
if you happen to get rained on. A lot of them are purchased by people who
actually do own the real things, but love them and respect them so much that
they couldn't bear seeing them come to harm.
Is this a reason to denigrate the replica cars? They are
different. They serve a different purpose. They are not meant to
replace or supplant the real thing. They are meant to be useable in a
real-world scenario. I play two to three nights a week on small
stages in small venues. I have no roadies. I schlep my own
gear. ;I could not bear watching my prized M400 deteriorate by bits
and pieces, night after night, just for the measly pay and lack of recognition
that musicians get at the local level. The biggest sorrow would be that
even if I did, probably nobody in the club but me would know I was
practically playing a Stradivarius. For the average lout in the audience,
it would just be a funny-looking white box that sounded like fiddles.
I'd be happy driving a replica Shelby Cobra. I'd be happy with
something that gave me a lot of the Mellotron experience, but that I could move
by myself with ease, was playable out of the box night after night with no
maintenance, and could replace with minimal shedding of tears. Sex with a
condom isn't quite the same, either, but people still do it. I see
the Memotron as "safe Mellotroning" for the 21st century. I think that the
Memotron is also going to inadvertently HELP the real ones, too. I've long
wished that our Mellotron friends on either side of the Atlantic would either
singly or together do a PROPER digital recreation just to make "that sound," or
at least a reasonable approximation of it, accessible to everyone and more
prominent in the music world again. Let's face it, if you want one that's
done right, go to the people that do it right in the first place.
Yes, it may just bite into the sales of the real thing for a while.
However, in the long run, I can't help but see it as one more step in the
promotion, history, preservation, and development of this unique and marvelous
instrument that we all love so much.
Let the flaming begin...