tales from orchestrally manoeuvring mellotrons in the dark
2003-05-14 by David Davis
Yes but I was asking Andy McCluskey about the melltrons Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark used to use (on his website forum at http://www.omd.uk.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/topic.cgi?forum=9&topic=63 ) and here's what he had to say... "OK feline1 here are a few answers. We used a mellotron Mk1 on "architecture + morality" [album] but were advised that if we were going on the road to get a Novatron. The Mk1 had a very bad whine created by the power supply. Streetly told us it was a design fault. I still own the Novatron and OMD tapes for it. "Romance of the Telescope" [famous B-side] is actually a Prophet five factory preset for the out of tune brass sound but the choir is mellotron. Streetly made us some special tape sets for live so that we could use only the sounds that we needed without changing tape sets during the gig. As you probably know it takes about 5 mins to change the tapes.. also we had other things sat on the mellotron on stage, so opening the top was not an option. Our only real problem that we ever had on stage with the Novatron was in Italy at a gig in a large tent. All the power was from a small generator and everytime the lights got really bright on stage the power supply to equipment reduced making the Novatron flywheel slow down so the notes went very flat. Once our lighting guy realised the problem we did the rest of the show with reduced lights to keep the Novatron in tune. We had many more problems later on with the instruments that replaced the Novatron...The bloody Emulator Mk2.. " ===== ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.felinedream.co.uk __________________________________________________ Yahoo! Plus For a better Internet experience http://www.yahoo.co.uk/btoffer