Mellotronists

That $0.99 "phantom" flap over at Amazon last weekend...JEEZ!! That
was the wildest roller coaster ride I *ever* embarked upon.

Kind of reminded me of the story of a little old lady who went to Reno
or Vegas>>some gambling casino in Nevada and started pulling the
nickel one-armed bandits. Nickels turned into dollars, and dollars
into thousands and thousands of dollars after a marathon two-day
workout. However, she didn't know when to quit, and the next two days
her winnings disappeared back into those slot machines. A TV camera
crew caught up with her boarding a bus with her calloused hand wrapped
in bandages...and asked "was it all worth it?". She nodded, smiled,
and climbed on in.

Is the new Systems Theory a colection of all the mp3's offered on the
soundclick site? I spent a lot of time over there sampling the dozens
of offerings. The music and overall affect is similar to what we
create in the projects I'm involved with. I'm with a handful of
musicians that occasionally get together and make a lot of free form
spontanious creations as sort of the soundtrack to our main member,
who is a videographer/projectionist. A lot of it is a light show, and
a lot of it is a collection of home movies and still scenes of
interesting photographs. During our last show, we assembled a stack of
television sets piled into a large pyramid, and loaded up a bunch of
VCR's w/various tapes hooked up to them all. It was crazy, but we
achieved our goal of being totally misunderstood. In fact, our next
show we're thinking of paying people to come. We want to induce
rolling power blackouts next time we play. I bring along the
Mellotron, an Optigan, Farfisa, and a handful of toy chord organs and
other keyboards, and my bandmate brings in all these synths, mixers,
amps and speakers. Sometimes we can be very ambient and flowing and
sound like we have actually rehearsed something--other times it can
sound quite abrasive and far flung. Very therapeutic indeed (at least
for us). I sort of want to be more percussive next time (we actually
use the rocker switch rhythm tracks from the Optigan to achieve most
of this), but I'd like to convey more of a Organisation "Tone
Float"/Ibliss "Supernova"/Jade Warrior "(early Antilles label era)"
effect.

I recently got a MicroKorg Vocoder, and was wondering if anyone ran
any vintage/analog keyboards through it...and if so: are there any
mp3's available I can listen to?

mellotrongirl wrote:
> 
> That $0.99 "phantom" flap over at Amazon last weekend...JEEZ!! That
> was the wildest roller coaster ride I *ever* embarked upon.

I ordered 26 albums.  As of Tuesday they'd all vanished into thin air.
Oh well!  I didn't really expect that I'd get any of them at that 
absurdly cheap used CD firesale clearance price.

> Kind of reminded me of the story of a little old lady who went to Reno
> or Vegas>>some gambling casino in Nevada and started pulling the
> nickel one-armed bandits. Nickels turned into dollars, and dollars
> into thousands and thousands of dollars after a marathon two-day
> workout. However, she didn't know when to quit, and the next two days
> her winnings disappeared back into those slot machines. A TV camera
> crew caught up with her boarding a bus with her calloused hand wrapped
> in bandages...and asked "was it all worth it?". She nodded, smiled,
> and climbed on in.

That's a good story.

> Is the new Systems Theory a colection of all the mp3's offered on the
> soundclick site?

No.  Some of the album tracks are represented on soundclick in earlier 
demo or alternative mix versions.  "Soundtracks For Imaginary Movies" 
is very much an album of new material.

1) Green Miata Baja Bound.  There's a shorter, fairly early, demo mix 
on soundclick that has a Hammond organ instead of spanish guitar 
mid-section.

2) The Cool Vibe Of Asia C.  A fairly complete arrangement (sans 
violin) demo mix is on soundclick.

3) Four Piece Suit.  No version on soundclick.

4) Silent Service.  A shorter arrangement of this is on soundclick.
Quite complete in form and structure.

5) A Lifeboat, Tallulah And Me.  No version on soundclick.

6) Water Through Fingers.  A much shorter demo version exists on 
soundclick. In fact this might be the version I presented to Greg and 
Mike.  Or it's the version after Greg fiddled with the synth parts. 
Anyway, it's a lot shorter and more to the point, this being the safe 
haven for tronhounds, it has no Mellotron on it.

7) Zero Sum Equation.  A very early pre-'tron demo mix exists on 
soundclick.  This is the last but one version that Greg and I worked 
on before taking it to Mike.

8) One Step To Freefall.  The version on soundclick is the version 
that was on the ProgWest 2001 sampler disc.  The album version has 
come a long way. baby.

9) Last Letters From Stalingrad.  No version on soundclick.

I recommend highly that anyone thinking about buying the album go to
our soundclick page and listen to "Concentrate #1". It can be streamed
in either lo-fi mono (good for dialup) or hi-fi stereo. Or it can be
d/l and listened to offline. "Concentrate #1" gives a very good idea
of what the album is about. Then go online with your pal Mr. Visa and
buy 10 copies... ;-)

> I spent a lot of time over there sampling the dozens
> of offerings. The music and overall affect is similar to what we
> create in the projects I'm involved with. I'm with a handful of
> musicians that occasionally get together and make a lot of free form
> spontanious creations as sort of the soundtrack to our main member,
> who is a videographer/projectionist. A lot of it is a light show, and
> a lot of it is a collection of home movies and still scenes of
> interesting photographs. During our last show, we assembled a stack of
> television sets piled into a large pyramid, and loaded up a bunch of
> VCR's w/various tapes hooked up to them all. It was crazy, but we
> achieved our goal of being totally misunderstood. In fact, our next
> show we're thinking of paying people to come. We want to induce
> rolling power blackouts next time we play. I bring along the
> Mellotron, an Optigan, Farfisa, and a handful of toy chord organs and
> other keyboards, and my bandmate brings in all these synths, mixers,
> amps and speakers. Sometimes we can be very ambient and flowing and
> sound like we have actually rehearsed something--other times it can
> sound quite abrasive and far flung. Very therapeutic indeed (at least
> for us). I sort of want to be more percussive next time (we actually
> use the rocker switch rhythm tracks from the Optigan to achieve most
> of this), but I'd like to convey more of a Organisation "Tone
> Float"/Ibliss "Supernova"/Jade Warrior "(early Antilles label era)"
> effect.

Sounds cool.

> I recently got a MicroKorg Vocoder, and was wondering if anyone ran
> any vintage/analog keyboards through it...and if so: are there any
> mp3's available I can listen to?

<paging Mike Dickson>
-- 
Cheers,
SDM -- a 21st century schizoid man
Systems Theory internet music project links:
soundclick <www.soundclick.com/systemstheory>
garageband <http://www.garageband.com/artist/systemstheory>
"Soundtracks For Imaginary Movies" CD released Dec 2004
"Codetalkers" CD coming late fall 2005
NP: nothing

> > I recently got a MicroKorg Vocoder, and was wondering if anyone ran
> > any vintage/analog keyboards through it...and if so: are there any
> > mp3's available I can listen to?
>
> <paging Mike Dickson>

I haven't run much through it apart from a Boss drum machine, and I
thought it sounded *fairly good* but you have to dick about with the
phaser and delays to make it sound very good. I've had this unit about
three months now and I'm only now getting to grips with it. It reminds
me somewhat of my bad experiences with an M1 - it was absolutely
impossible to program it at all.

Mike Dickson (tron@...) M400 #996
The Official Cynic of Streetly Electronics
Streetly Sample Library http://www.blackcat.demon.co.uk/tron/

I have the bigger brother MS2000 and it would be near worthless without the knobs. As it is, I use it quite a bit.  I have a yamaha cs2x as a controller (only to stay compatible with my studio at work) and while its sounds are decent to good, the designer of the UI should be spanked severely as it is also a bear to program.



Fritz

In a message dated 04/02/2005 22:19:53 GMT Standard Time,  
tron@... writes:

I  haven't run much through it apart from a Boss drum machine, and I
thought  it sounded *fairly good* but you have to dick about with the
phaser and  delays to make it sound very good. I've had this unit about
three months  now and I'm only now getting to grips with it. It reminds
me somewhat of my  bad experiences with an M1 - it was absolutely
impossible to program it at  all.


Dear All,
 
The MS2000 is a better bet for programming as it fits the "mental model" of  
an analogue synth much better with a one knob per function approach most of 
the  time. Saves me taking out a Minimoog and it can play up to 4 notes (useful 
for  some pads). Vocoded 8-voice choir is recommended...
 
Norm