Mellotronists

I hope I'm not getting "sacriligeous" here, but to state the obvious: 
if it is the 35 "tapes" inside the machine that give the mellotron its 
sound... then one should be able to "sample/record" those very tapes on 
a state of the art poly-synthesizer/sampler and get virtually the same 
sound that is on those 35 tapes. I'm basically a guitar player, and I 
don't have a mellotron now, but a band I was in (circa '72) did use 
one. If my memory is correct, we ran the machine through a reverb unit 
into a Marshall amp. No audio "tweaking" or "Hi-Fi stuff" there...
Given that "live" environment, it's hard for me to imagine that the 
tapes inside that "real" mellotron would sound a whole heck-of-a-lot 
better "live" than those same tapes sampled by poly-synthesizer would 
sound "live".
If this premise is correct, then the recording studio is where the 
difference between a real mellotron and a synthesizer/sampler should be 
most noticeable; i.e., one has not lost a generation, and one is able 
to "tweak" the audio coming out of a "real" mellotron for richer sound. 
(I don't know this for a fact, but I bet that mellotron on "Epitaph" 
had the hell tweaked out of it in the studio.)

Anyhow, I really like the sound of those real mellotrons!

Thanks,
Galen Niles

I don't know how much studio tweaking was available in 1969, but ITCOTCK
sure sounds like they used a lot of reverb on the trons. Also, double
tracking probably helped too... Would love to hear from some people who
were really there at the time.
 
For live performances, Ian McDonald used to run his Mark II though a
reverb unit that sat on top of the Mellotron. I know this because I
remember him slamming it down on the case during "Mars"...

-----Original Message-----
From: thriftyn78412 [mailto:thriftyn@...] 
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2003 12:07 PM
To: Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Mellotronists] Re: "Live" Drawbacks


I hope I'm not getting "sacriligeous" here, but to state the obvious: 
if it is the 35 "tapes" inside the machine that give the mellotron its 
sound... then one should be able to "sample/record" those very tapes on 
a state of the art poly-synthesizer/sampler and get virtually the same 
sound that is on those 35 tapes. I'm basically a guitar player, and I 
don't have a mellotron now, but a band I was in (circa '72) did use 
one. If my memory is correct, we ran the machine through a reverb unit 
into a Marshall amp. No audio "tweaking" or "Hi-Fi stuff" there...
Given that "live" environment, it's hard for me to imagine that the 
tapes inside that "real" mellotron would sound a whole heck-of-a-lot 
better "live" than those same tapes sampled by poly-synthesizer would 
sound "live".
If this premise is correct, then the recording studio is where the 
difference between a real mellotron and a synthesizer/sampler should be 
most noticeable; i.e., one has not lost a generation, and one is able 
to "tweak" the audio coming out of a "real" mellotron for richer sound. 
(I don't know this for a fact, but I bet that mellotron on "Epitaph" 
had the hell tweaked out of it in the studio.)

Anyhow, I really like the sound of those real mellotrons!

Thanks,
Galen Niles

Er-uh...
I mean "sacreligeous"...
not "sacriligeous"!!!

Sorry,
G. Niles