Mellotronists

I'm astonished that so many ostensibly intelligent people erect straw men to 
debate.  You could easily say the exact same things about the inherent 
limitations of the Mellotron, yet nobody here beats up on the lack of 
Mellotron programmability.  Folks, these people obviously and with much 
deliberation tried to faithfully replicate the functions and functionality 
of a real instrument.  Yet, that is exactly what is being held against the 
instrument, that they didn't turn it into just another sampler.  Is that 
really so difficult to understand?  Do the people that have derided the 
Memotron for its designed-in limitations gripe about three-thousand dollar 
digital pianos because they don't have 32-track sequencers, and 200 Meg of 
ethnic instrument samples?  It is supposed to be LIKE a Mellotron, not like 
a Korg Oasys. As to price, $1995 for a limited-run, tightly-focused 
instrument that will only appeal to a small subset of keyboard players? 
Sounds sort of like a Mellotron, doesn't it?

>      What a great idea that totaly missed it's mark.
> No open architecture, again, no open architecture.
> Price is stupidly high. Great looks, great size.





Jimmy, I mean this in all courtesy, but you completely changed my argument 
to build your own straw man.  I specifically mentioned three incredibly rare 
and incredibly expensive vintage automobiles, the big-block Shelby Cobra, 
the big-block Yenko Camaro, and the Porsche Speedster from the 1950's. 
There were not many of these made.  Vintage Mustangs are a dime a dozen. 
You can get a perfectly nice daily driver Mustang for ten thousand dollars. 
These vehicles go a half-million at best.  Here's a closer example.  In 
1970, Ferrari made a bit less than 1500 Daytona GTB models.  They were not 
common to begin with, and many of them have been lost to time.  To use one 
as an everyday car, you would have to be incredibly wealthy to buy it, and 
if something happened to it, you would have to shell out a lot of money to 
get another one.  A vehicle that is worth five hundred thousand to begin 
with and appreciates at a hundred thousand a year or better is an 
investment, and to park it in the Wal-Mart lot, one would have to be either 
rich as Bill Gates, or an utter idiot.  Yes, you could drive it at special 
rallies occasionally, but taking it out on city streets would be a real 
anus-clencher.  Need I point out that there were 2500-odd Mellotrons 
produced, PERIOD?  We see, what, maybe fifteen per year on eBay?  They are 
not easy to replace, and I think it would be the height of disrespect for my 
most prized possession to be wasted in smoky little bars.  As far as other 
bands that use them on stage, the examples given are either professional 
touring acts which have road crews, or bands that perform extremely 
occasionally and are willing and able to spend twenty hours of prep time for 
a show.  When you go set up at 6PM to play at 9PM and go home after tearing 
down at 2PM and do the same thing at another club the next day, proper 
Mellotron care and maintenance is problematical at best.

> Well, as far as the car example, you can buy a vintage mustang and trailer 
> it to car shows, win awards, polish > it and then put it on the trailer 
> and drag it home......
> Nope, I would rather enjoy mine and use it as a "daily driver".
> It all boils down to preference.




Bernie, your argument is specious in that the same exact things were said 
about digital pianos. You can't get the sensitivity out of a digital 
instrument, it doesn't have the complex overtones of the real thing, you 
can't get the kind of sound with a digital damper pedal that you can with a 
real one, et cetera.  Today, digital pianos are common everywhere except in 
hard-core classical concertizing, and today they are, through multi-strike 
samples, through physical modeling, through enormous sample size, starting 
to get frightfully close to the real thing.  At least, enough to where the 
decision of trying to truck a nine-foot grand around the world and keeping 
it properly maintained for performances is balanced out by a small(ish) and 
reliable digital recreation of the real thing, that in rock and pop mixes is 
virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.  Do you really think that 
some randomness of attack and playback fidelity is impossible to reproduce? 
Do you think that polyphonic pressure keyboards are unable to change the 
sound on each key based upon the pressure on that key?  As far as "feeling" 
like a Mellotron, which Mellotron?  It even would be entirely possible to 
place a rotating dummy capstan under the keybed of a digital instrument to 
impart that vague vibration that comes through the keys of a Mellotron. 
Don't get me wrong, I'm STILL NOT SAYING that it would be the same thing, 
but it would be so close as to justify using it onstage instead of risking 
one of the maybe 1500 real Mellotrons left in the world in tiny bars.  Also, 
once again, a multi-function sample keyboard, while it would indeed be 
useful, would not be as faithful a reproduction of a Mellotron.

> With a sampler, you can press a key and sound comes out. You can even
> play with the envelope and get different attacks, every note with
> exactly the same attack. With a Mellotron, you can press a key in many
> different ways and change the attack. You can also change the sound by
> changing the pressure on the key while a note is playing. It isn't
> just the sound, it's the feel. There's no way a sampler can feel like
> a Mellotron, so there's no way you can put the same feeling into the
> music you're playing.

> On the other hand, Mellotrons are expensive and not everyone can
> afford one. But a multi-function sample keyboard loaded with decent
> Tron samples would be more useful than the Memotron, which can do only
> one thing; and it wouldn't necessarily be more expensive.




And finally, David.  I hope your post was not intended to be as 
condescending as it seemed.  I'm glad you have lots of toys.  Most real 
Mellotron owners seem to also have a lot of toys.  My Mellotron is one of 
the nineteen keyboards in my collection, which also includes some primo 
modern toys and some scarce old analog toys. I started playing piano 
forty-eight years ago, started programming synths thirty-five years ago, and 
I am well aware of the capabilities of modern instruments.  You want to talk 
functional, versatile, and reliable?  My sole stage keyboard for about eight 
years has been one tiny nine-and-a-half pound Korg X5D loaded only with my 
own custom programs, including painstaking Mellotron replications that are 
frightfully authentic, even to 8-second cutoff, randomness of attack, and 
tape rewind snick.  My entire stage rig is the X5D, a Presonus MP-20 that 
serves as mixer and direct box, a pair of Samson XP-200 powered monitors, a 
tall Quik-Lok keyboard stand and a couple of Quik-Lok's small keyboard 
stands on which to elevate my speakers.  I can carry my rig in two trips, by 
myself, and set it up in ten minutes.  As far as reliable goes, while the 
only problems I have ever had are mechanical ones like broken keys, my rig 
is small and inexpensive enough that I carry spares of everything to 
performances.  A meteor could obliterate my entire setup and I would simply 
go out to the car and get the backup rig and be ready to play again in 
fifteen minutes.  Functional and versatile?  Rather than giving you a list 
of what I can do with it (which happens to include some of your own 
examples, like "(K)Nights in White Satin") I'll be happy to put my money 
where my mouth is and let you hear some cuts for yourself, with no overdubs, 
no sequences, nothing other than what I make happen with my ten fingers:

http://www.wichitabandscene.com/bio.asp?showBandName=Jon#music
http://www.wichitabandscene.com/bio.asp?showBandName=ICT#music

So, please grant me the credibility that I have earned as a player and a 
programmer and don't talk down to me.




I still say the Memotron is a boon for people who want to have the familiar 
set of controls, the familiar set of sounds, a taste of the Mellotron 
experience, but who don't want to risk their genuine Mellotron, and who 
don't think that a garden-variety sampler will provide the right 
multi-sensory experience.  And I still wish that our two groups of Mellotron 
developers, restorers, preservers would have done this first, because, as 
neat a trick as I think this Memotron thing is, it would have likely been 
done a lot better by the guys that know it best.