Mellotronists

Coincidentally, I was talking to Tom Brislin this evening. Tom is the keys player, songwriter and singer in a band called Spiraling. He also toured with YES in place of Wakeman for their "Symphonic" tour, been the keys player for Meatloaf, Camel (American tour) and is now music director and keyboardist for Debbie Harry on her current tour. We have become friends over the years and he came to my home and recorded lots of Mellotron for Spiraling's soon to be released 3rd CD.

The subject of real vs. sampled Tron sounds, came up and even he stated that although he had tons of Tron samples, the organic feel that the Mellotron has cannot be duplicated by a sampler.

He mentioned that he had had a chance to play a Memotron at NAMM and did not like it at all. He mentioned that it had no fee or real personality. It kinda looked like a Mellotron, but he didn't think the samples were all that great and he was disappointed that every time you turn the machine off, it dumps its memory. Therefore, every time you turn it on, you have to go through the process of loading in samples from the CD. He called the Memotron, "underwhelming." and cheesy.

Frank