Mellotronists

Gee Don,INSULT? Don't you think that's akin to saying that a tron is
insulting to real violinists?
There are always going to be die hards who prefer the "real thing" to
something new.But how many of you here use digital pianos in your gigs
as opposed to carting around a real grand?I am talking about making an
instrument that would be reliable for transporting in a live/concert
situation without broken tapes,motor speed problems,hums,etc.Keep your
"real" treasured tron at home and use the digital onstage for the
same sounds.
I personally LOVE playing Hammond B3s and Steinway Grands but would
much rather,at age 50,deal with a Korg CX3 to move around or a digital
piano rackmount.This is the point I was going for...as well as
something for those of us who aren't so firmly single mindedly
obsessed that only the REAL thing is a valid instrument.I had an M400
for 25 years.Now I use the E4K with the Pinder CD Rom disc and I love
it.The average listener could not tell the difference so what's the
big deal? Regards Charles

> From: "charel196" <charel196@...>
> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 21:22:45 -0000
>
> Gee Don,INSULT? Don't you think that's akin to saying that a tron
> is insulting to real violinists?

It sure would be if you played it with a bow and called it a
"Violin Mk 7"!

Actually the 'Tron probably did insult a lot of violinists before
folks realized it had a voice of it's own.

Ever played a Yamaha Clavinova? Is there any argument that it's an
insult to acoustic pianos?

> There are always going to be die hards who prefer the "real thing" to
> something new.

It has nothing to do with die hards, it's more about the very act of
playing a musical instrument. I mean, why do you play a musical
instrument at all? Do you just like hitting buttons? Do you like to
hear sounds? 'Doubtful. More likely it's the visceral joy of
interacting with an interesting and wonderful noise-making process,
exploring and discovering it's capabilities, being able to use it as a
form of personal expression, and being inspired by the noise-making
process to make great music. Now y'r talking.

But you don't interact with digital emulations. Digital samplers
arguably don't even have a "process" so there's no process to interact
with. And so they're missing the fundamental point of being a musical
instrument.

Ie., you can't play the blues on a computer.

If you claim that only diehards can tell the difference, howcum it's
so difficult to find many truly memorable solos, riffs or themes
played on digital emulations?

What's worse, digital emulations are particular bad at responding to
the subtleties of personal expression. Thus, it's really, really
difficult to recognize who's playing a digitial emulation; whether it
be Fripp, Wakeman, Pinder, heck even myself, or a computer. In my
book that would disqualify them from being Musical Instruments.

Instead of coming up with yet another cheesy emulation, the noble
thing is to take the basic Mellotron mechanism and improve it. And
hey, that's exactly what Dave/Markus's Mk VI does.

-- Don

--
Don Tillman
Palo Alto, California, USA
don@...
http://www.till.com

At 09:22 PM 11/22/2002 +0000, charel196 wrote:

In a message dated 11/22/2002 5:50:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, MAinPsych writes:

In a message dated 11/22/02 6:17:11 PM Eastern Standard Time, bdubbe@... writes: