The Mellotron Group

OK you experts.  The unusual string synth parts on Quadraphenia...
What is it?  1973 so it can't be Solina.  Maybe a Freeman?

The guys on the prosoundweb forum asked 'the man' himself.  See page
13 and 14 for PT's detailed reply:

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/pdf.php?th=18558&0/

Four tracks with 6 violin sounds each.  Amazing.
I don't really understand what he did with the knitting needle.

Lowrey Berkshire, perhaps?

> OK you experts.  The unusual string synth parts on Quadraphenia...
> What is it?  1973 so it can't be Solina.  Maybe a Freeman?
>

--- In newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com, "jonesalley"
<jonesalley@...> wrote:
>
> Lowrey Berkshire, perhaps?

No.  Not a Lowrey Lincolnwood either.
It's ARP 2500, a knitting needle, a potentiometer, a ring modulator
and a violin.
See page 13:
http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/pdf.php?th=18558&0/

OK, the ring modulator trick is a very clever one.  If you feed a
signal into the x channel of a ring mod, and a static voltage into the
y, you get zero output.  If you have a changing voltage going through
the y, it passes audio.  you can use a ring modulator to shape the
volume of a sound using this trick - feed the audio through x, feed a
variable DC voltage through y, and when you turn the pot controlling
the level of the DC voltage, it kind of "bows" the sound, the qwhicker
you turn the pot, the more quickly the sound level rises.  Just
turning a pot is tricky, though, it's too small to get fine control,
attaching a knitting needle to the pot gives you a wider control arc
(?)  - easier to finely control the level and articulate it so it fits
with the track.

It's a very, very clever trick, Townshend's synth programming skills
are much underrated.

On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:57 PM, ceccles_ca <ecclesreinson@rogers.com> wrote:
> OK you experts.  The unusual string synth parts on Quadraphenia...
>  What is it?  1973 so it can't be Solina.  Maybe a Freeman?
>
>  The guys on the prosoundweb forum asked 'the man' himself.  See page
>  13 and 14 for PT's detailed reply:
>
>  http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/pdf.php?th=18558&0/
>
>  Four tracks with 6 violin sounds each.  Amazing.
>  I don't really understand what he did with the knitting needle.
>
>

In a message dated 25/03/2008 12:46:59 GMT Standard Time,  
vietgrove@gmail.com writes:

It's a  very, very clever trick,


That is in the user manual of the VCS3, well that is where I learnt it. The  
neatest use is the the hihat on Floyd's "On the run" - a combination of white  
noise and the sequencer pitch voltage, the octave jump in the sequence gives 
the  downbeat. Very very very clever...
 
Norm
(who is just underrated...)