Mellotronists

--- In Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com, "Bernie" <kornowicz@...> wrote:
>
> 
> For those of you who own an M400-type Tron (M400, Mark V, etc), which 3
> Violin sound do you prefer and why?
> 
>     * MkII 3 Violins    * M400 3 Violins
> 

MkII 3 Violins every time without fail. 

During the first 15 years of owning an M400 I had the M400 3 violins
and was never able to even approximate 'that sound', it didn't even
come close - in my experience it wasn't just because of the
differences in amplification and head impedance (wear on the tapes
notwithstanding)....but I have always maintained, and still do, that a
handful of the notes are actually *different recordings* on the M400
version, at least on the one I used to use - not very many, only about
4 notes that I can tell, but enough to make a big difference. I've got
both versions sampled here from my own machine so I'll post an A-B
comparison very shortly...

For anyone else who has both versions, have a listen to the lowest
C-sharp, then more notably the G-sharp and A in the second octave,
followed by the highest A. On the M400 version they sound (certainly
to my ears) like other adjacent notes re-tuned as well as re-EQ'd (for
instance I'm convinced that G#2 and A2 are simply the nearest G
re-tuned - the EQ may be different but the timbre and overall 'feel'
across all three notes is uncannily similar). That would also go a
long way to explaining why I always felt like there was something
missing on the M400 violins I used to have, no matter what I did to
the sound. The 'spaceyness' and 'Huge Jock McHuge'-ness of the MkII
versions just wasn't there.

After that, as soon as I was able, I got the MkII violins and have
never looked back since :) .

Regards,

Tony S
M400 #581