Mellotronists

Hey hey...

All of a sudden I am becoming very interested in the Memotron...

It doesn't sound exactly like a Mellotron but sort of...
They probably wont make that many as the market is pretty small. They will 
fold pretty soon and in a ouple of years they will become collectors 
items...

Wait a minute...that sounds exactly like the Orchestron now doesn't it ?

// Mattias




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "jonesalley" <jonesalley@...>
To: "Mellotronists" <Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 10:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Mellotronists] Memotron, Shmemotron


> 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.
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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