The Mellotron Group

Hi Sean,

Well.....as the Amish say "God is in the details", as compared to the more secular phrase, "the devil is in the details".? Sadly, you don't have a tron or even, more importantly, the beautiful old tube equipment that was probably used on the recordings you referenced. Also remember you are referencing a tron sound mixed in a recording so I guarantee you your ear is being tricked by the rest of the recording. 

?My advice? Bag trying to nail the exact sound and EQ, compress and effect your sound in the mix of what you are working on whether it be live or in a recording enviroment.? Try some more oddball methods like outputting the dry tron signal to a bass amp, guitar amp or your own monitoring system and rerecord it.? I just happened upon a leslie 145 and that really does wonders to a tron, or most anything for that matter. 

I have found that negative EQ works best. Go drastic to start and then spend some time really nailing the sweet spot.? Subtle tweaks of the EQ bandwidth, Q, can do magic once you are in the ballpark of the frequencies you want. 

Hope this helps.


fritz


 


 

-----Original Message-----
From: fourtytwominds <fourtytwominds@yahoo.com>
To: newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, Jul 20, 2009 5:26 pm
Subject: [newmellotrongroup] Hello to all. Questions about mixing.






















    

                  
Hello all.



My name is Sean Lowrie. Sadly I do not own a 'tron, just the M-Tron samples; a

MkVI is on my wish list. I've asked this question at the "Mellotronists" group and a member there suggested I should ask this group as well.



I've had the samples for about a year and a half and I'm still trying to come up

with the correct signal handling and mixing to get the megalithic Moody Blues

and King Crimson sounds I'm used to.



Last week I made a breakthrough. I'm currently splitting the output and taking

that into to separate unbalanced inputs on my small multitrack mixer. First

channel I leave dry, cut the low and high, and boost the mid range. The second

channel I send all the signal to the internal effects unit on this board for

reverb. (It's an Alesis board and I'm fairly happy with their electronic reverb

circuitry, which even creates slightly different results for left and right

channels) I have this signal boosted in lows and highs but scooped in the mid

range: an approximate mirror of the dry channel settings. On my board L is 80Hz,

M is 2.5kHz, and H is 12kHz. I'm getting fairly close to the sound I want,

fairly close indeed, but I'm not there. I finally have the presence and in

general a megalithic quality in sound.



What I don't have is the chocolate-smooth sound that I'm used to out of King

Crimson. I'm thinking specifically the studio tracks "Lament" and "The Night

Watch" from the 1974 album Starless and Bible Black. When I listen to these

tracks I notice that the sound has more... for lack of a better term "breath."

The sound seems to be of much higher fidelity than I'm used to out of the

Mellotron while still retaining the distinctive Mellotron sound.



Through research on the internet I'm sure these tracks were studio recorded on

two well maintained M400s. I've tried every sort of search I can imagine in

Google, I've been hitting the King Crimson fan sites hoping for information.

I've learned that RF scuttled an entire 2009 KC West Coast USA tour, that's

where I live, over some hurt feelings or something, it's not clear what, but

nothing on their mixing techniques.



I'm listening to The Night Watch as I'm writing this long question. The sound is

not any more present, and actually less megalithic than what I have, but it has

time-CLARITY (not just a boost in the 4kHz area) that I cannot seem to achieve,

along with a slight bit of chorus type phasing I think.



On the front of the Moody Blues sound, I can't seem to get my sound as sleepy as

Mike Pinder can. I understand his MkII he modified himself, but to my

understanding he only removed the pre-amp circuit that boosted the signal at

10kHz. The "tone" knob on M-Tron, as on the real deal (to my understanding) is

also at 10kHz and so I keep that real low, around 9'o'clock...



The sound still isn't there. Infact, it seems too dull and smeared. I pulled out

Days of Future Passed and listened to Tuesday Afternoon. I'm fairly sure the

lead is "Trumpets and Trombones" doubled with "MkII Violins" and the harmony is

"MkII Brass" again doubled with the violins. However, I'm noticing that the note

attacks on the record have more of a harsh garbled attack, and my samples

actually sound more like the instruments sampled than Mr. Pinder's MkII does. If

it's a matter of tape cutting I'm sure I can't do anything about it.



But still that's not entirely the whole problem. I'm still not getting the

chocolate-smooth sound that is also hollow and graceful. I asked Mr. Pinder on

his own forum, but that was nearly a year ago and I don't think he's logged in

to the forum in all this time. His right certainly to do so. Doesn't solve my

ignorance though...



Is it a matter of compression technique? Using a haphazard collection of all

digital equipment I don't have access to real-time compression, only after the

fact in Audacity and so I tend to avoid compression as it becomes too much of

guess-and-check work. Is there something else I'm missing out on? When it comes

to the violin sound I've taken the care to exclusively use what M-Tron names

"MkII Vintage Violins" which is by far the highest fidelity version of that tape

set the sample set has. It's REALLY good. Still, I know I'm missing out on

something.



So, after 3 chapters worth of ranting (damn this is a loooooong question I've

got) I ask you all, you who are lucky enough to have and use a real Mellotron

(or those who have gotten really good at using the sample software), for your

expert opinions and advice. I've been banging my head into a wall on this one

and I've lost confidence that I'll get any further than this on my own.



Thanks to you all so much, you deserve a cookie or dinner or something for even

reading through what has got to be one of the longest emails in the last decade.



-Sean Lowrie

fourtytwominds@yahoo.com