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a couple of pennies

2002-11-24 by JS

Is there any truth to the rumor that the way you can tell the new choir is Russian is that they sing "da" instead of "ah?"

A dedicated, digital Mellotron reproduction? While a fun idea to be able to bring our choice sounds onstage, there's a lot of problems. 2500 Mellotrons sold from the beginning until now? That's not a lot of units. It would be difficult to persuade any company that is a good idea, because if the real thing didn't sell any better, then why would anyone imagine the repro would sell?

Seems to me it would take a pretty good chunk of ROM to be able to put the extant Mellotron library at full fidelity and full length. It would also be difficult to persuade a company today to not "improve" the sounds and take out the chair squeaks and bow thunks and giggles and farts and other phantom sounds that undoubtedly exist sprinkled through the library. It would be interesting to see if it passes the "that sound" test, because I think the translation from live to tape to digital might lose some of the "tape-y" sound of the instrument.

I notice on my electronic keyboards that the upper notes of string sounds always sound a bit tremoloed from the shorter length of the loops used due to the nature of the transposition of multi-samples and that playing octaves always leads to a certain amount of phase cancellation, things that just don't happen with the Mellotron. That full eight-second "sampling time" per note gives each note its own individual character, something that just doesn't happen in the digital world at this time, and you never get that sense of "whee-ooo whee-ooo whee-ooo" of sustained loops beating against each other.

So unless you can give me something that really sounds, acts, and looks authentic, I'm probably not going to be very interested. I admit, I'd sure love to have something that felt, sounded and looked like a Mark II to use, but I'm just not sure that there would be enough of a market to convince a major manufacturer to get involved. However, maybe there are some financial angels that our existing Mellotron gurus might bump into to be able to start developing such an instrument - hmmm, Mellotron Mark 2002, perhaps?

Jon E Salley
MiloJohnson@...
M400 #886

[Mellotronists] a couple of pennies

2002-11-25 by tron@blackcat.demon.co.uk

> 2500 Mellotrons sold from the beginning until now? That's not a lot of
> units. It would be difficult to persuade any company that is a good
> idea, because if the real thing didn't sell any better, then why would
> anyone imagine the repro would sell?

The repro is likely to be a *lot* cheaper for a start.

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

Re: [Mellotronists] a couple of pennies

2002-11-26 by JS

Cheaper is not cheap, however. Think about how costly the dedicated Hammond
repro keyboards are today, and how much it costs to get a really good
digital piano. Let's say someone manufactured a digital Mark II. 37-note
keyboards that run G-F are not an off-the-shelf item, so that would have to
be instrument specific. I'd think that to really have the chance of
grabbing the real Mellotron maniacs, the keyboard would have to have a
custom designed "feel" to let Mellotronists use the technique they have
developed to their advantage, and that would take a fair amount of
engineering. Then you have to get all of the Mellotron library loaded,
which I'm guessing is going to take a fair amount of ROM. I'm not going to
bother with the math, but I'd be curious just how many Meg of memory a Mark
II would equate to, not to mention making the entire tape library
available - sound effects and rhythmic patterns and all. You'd have to have
custom software to interface with the custom controllers (presumably you'd
want to capture the design elements and placements of the Mark II panel as
closely as feasible) and to take advantage of all of the ROM you have in
place, it wouldn't take much more to be able to offer a front panel and
sound setup that worked as much as possible like a Mark II but would also be
able to play the sounds looped, transposed, filtered, and generally synth
controlled if desired, throw in some user RAM, pedals, and a dedicated FX
section with some amp-speaker simulators to reproduce the sound of
Wharfdales or a Marshall stack or a Fender Twin Reverb, and let's face it,
you're starting to come up into the upper end of keyboard prices, and let's
face it, there are a lot of people who don't like and never did like
Mellotrons (Mr. Emerson?) and would not be part of the demographic - not
that I wouldn't love to have such an instrument, and would work it into the
ground, but I just can't see a huge market out there. If anybody does make
one, please put me on your prospect sheet, I'm probably going to buy one.

Jon E Salley
MiloJohnson@...
M400 #886

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> > 2500 Mellotrons sold from the beginning until now? That's not a lot of
> > units. It would be difficult to persuade any company that is a good
> > idea, because if the real thing didn't sell any better, then why would
> > anyone imagine the repro would sell?
>
> The repro is likely to be a *lot* cheaper for a start.

>