The Mellotron Group

My keyboard action still feels okay too despite having been given a 
complete /battering /over the last two years. I know it needs a service, 
but the action feels okay to me. As for 'sponginess', I've played a 
MemoryMoog and found that had the weirdest action I've ever felt in a 
keyboard. There is the contact...and /there /is a bit more afterwards 
that doesn't do anything. It's just a matter of getting used to what 
you're dealing with. Mellotron keyboards run on wood, rubber and sprung 
metal. It's never going to rock-solid on that basis, but by no means is 
it as heavy as (say) a Birotron (which has keys that feel like they were 
weighted on leaf springs) or some of the more revolting plasticky things 
that troubled us in the 1980s.

What I positively /like /about the touch on a Hammond or a Mellotron or 
(direct action) pipe organ is the feeling that you are /part of the 
machine/. You can either feel the mechanics of the system under your 
fingertips. There is a bit of work involved there perhaps, but I don't 
mind it as much as I mind the feeling that I'm simply playing a series 
of rather dead digital switches.

As for samples and MIDI, they have their place. They make a lot of 
things a lot easier and have obviously opened doors to many many things 
that were previously impossible to encompass, but to me they just play 
back with monotonous regularity. I've been messing about a little with 
that RedTron plugin and frankly the Mk-V version (for some reason) 
sounds better, for some reason. The problem is that the samples are 
lousy and there is really no way round that. Okay, so Mellotrons have 
their off days too (as we all know) but they get better. With this, 
you're stuck with a picture of what someone /else /thought sounded 
great. It's like the difference between making an Airfix kit aeroplane 
model and a balsa model. With one you are tied to other people's ideas 
and that (to me) is limiting.

Having said all that, I'll qualify it by saying that I've sampled 
3-violins myself and I'd defy anyone to A/B a scale of it and the M400 
whence it came and tell the difference. I just didn't treat the samples 
at all. Someone might learn this trick one day. We'll see.

Mike


fdoddy@aol.com wrote:
>  
>
> My Streetly refurb still feels pretty good after, what is it now, 7 
> years?! I like the fight, the pushback of a tron.  It's like playing a 
> guitar through a "gasp" real amplifier. Ya gotta work it.... Samples 
> and a MIDI keyboard are too forgiving.  Like the old Italian grandmas 
> say about making risotto, "The rice must feel the pain"
>