Mellotronists

Just wondering why Martin or Dave Kean never followed up on this
concept with the usual wooden cabinet instead of the aluminum
"Maytag".Seems like a cool idea...no moving heads,individual track
volumes,eq,panning,outputs.Or what about using 8 or 16 tracks ala
Chamberlin/Jtron? Why not offer a tron with these improvements(since
no one seems to want a digital one)?
I have read the 4 track had some problems with sound quality but Dave
Kean thought it would be corrected with better tapes.Anyone ever hear
or play one in person? How did it compare to a 400?

Daer All,

I saw and played the 4-track while it was at John and Martin's and it was much better than I expected it to be.

One surprise was that the 'kitchen white goods' assembly techniques had been applied to some of the innards as well as the case. The tape frame and the keyboard metalwork were made from aluminium pressings rather than the extrusions we are all used to.

The thing that probably stuffed this was the cost, 4 track heads were not cheap so 35 of them soon mount up plus there were four complete sets of playback electronics. However it was good to be able to mix any combination of tracks. Quality of sound seemed OK as well although I can't remember if the tapes were the J + M set.

One dodgy bit was the motor controller was mounted horizontally which does not aid cooling!

All the best,
Norm

> I saw and played the 4-track while it was at John and Martin's and it was
> much better than I expected it to be.

Likewise. I thought it was very well built and sounded great, although
one of the tracks was duff when I played it. My only criticism was that
I thought the action on the keys was *very* hard and 'springy', but mind
you, compared to the Birotron that they had in at the same time, it was
a dream.

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

--- In Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com, "David Jacques" <djacques@...>
wrote:

>
> Craters and Freighters.. They packed and shipped my tron from Texas.

No

Why all the bizzarre replies ? Question notwithstanding.

g

--- In Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com, "gino wong" <wonggster@...>
wrote: