A movie about The Mellotron

[tele52]

Crank up your Moody Blues. This is a new movie about the Mellotron. One of my friends is involved in it. He's one of the Guys from the Moog Cookbook. It really looks great. I got it from Amazon, I'll post a review after I've seen it.
MELLODRAMA: The Mellotron Movie DVD, by Dianna Dilworth | Bazillion Points Books

[StrangerNY]

Originally Posted by tele52

Crank up your Moody Blues. This is a new movie about the Mellotron. One of my friends is involved in it. He's one of the Guys from the Moog Cookbook. It really looks great. I got it from Amazon, I'll post a review after I've seen it.
MELLODRAMA: The Mellotron Movie DVD, by Dianna Dilworth | Bazillion Points Books

Very cool! The Mellotron is far and away my favorite keyboard. Wish I could afford one.

- D

[PraXis]

Originally Posted by StrangerNY

Very cool! The Mellotron is far and away my favorite keyboard. Wish I could afford one.

- D

I got a melloton VST.. good enough

[planks]

Very cool.

[Engel]

Do they even make them anymore? I thought I read that they didn't. I know there's the classic tone arguement but you can pretty much do all the orchestral stuff with a good keyboard nowadays.

[StrangerNY]

Originally Posted by Pwozzie

I got a melloton VST.. good enough

Does it have an 8-second limit on the notes, or does it just sustain as long as you hold down the keys?

Part of the trick of playing a Mellotron was working round the notes running out of sustain.

- D

[geochem1st]

Originally Posted by StrangerNY

Part of the trick of playing a Mellotron was working round the notes running out of sustain.

- D

.....and stretched tapes. I have always been a huge Moody Blues fan. JPJ plays mellotron on a few zep tunes as well.

[Engel]

Originally Posted by StrangerNY

Does it have an 8-second limit on the notes, or does it just sustain as long as you hold down the keys?

Part of the trick of playing a Mellotron was working round the notes running out of sustain.

- D

I don't see that as a good thing.

[StrangerNY]

Originally Posted by geochem1st

.....and stretched tapes. I have always been a huge Moody Blues fan. JPJ plays mellotron on a few zep tunes as well.

And the early versions of King Crimson made the thing sound absolutely scary.

- D

[geochem1st]

Originally Posted by StrangerNY

And the early versions of King Crimson made the thing sound absolutely scary.

- D

In the Court of the Crimson King: great stuff, yes scary too. Maybe thats why this was the cover

[Hamtone]

I never thought I would see the day that a piece or music equipment from the past (rock era) that i had never ever heard of..lol

[StrangerNY]

Originally Posted by Engel

I don't see that as a good thing.

Call me a purist, but if you don't play it within its own limitations you might as well use a string synth.

- D

[BMS]

Thanks for the post! I first heard of the Mellotron from a Cheap Trick record and always was intrigued by it. I always said to myself that if I was ever to build a real studio ( A life long dream ) the Mellotron would have to be an essential part of it.

[StrangerNY]

Originally Posted by BMS

Thanks for the post! I first heard of the Mellotron from a Cheap Trick record and always was intrigued by it. I always said to myself that if I was ever to build a real studio ( A life long dream ) the Mellotron would have to be an essential part of it.

If you can find one, it's a must-have for a studio.

But they are extremely temperamental, by nature of being a mechanical box with lots of moving parts. A friend bought one back in the day intending to use it live with his band, and he found that simply moving it would shake things loose to the point where it was unplayable a good amount of the time.

The keyboard techs for Crimso and The Moodies must have gone nuts maintaining theirs on the road.

Add to that the maintenance aspect of the tape heads (alignment, de-mag, cleaning, etc.), and it becomes a little nightmare.

Having said all that - even with just the stock tape rack (strings, flutes, saxes), it's a recording monster. If you can find the extra tapes for it, the sky is the limit.

- D

[PraXis]

Opeth uses Mellotron sounds A LOT, but it's all digital sampling.. good enough.. the real thing was big, heavy, and always broke!

[BMS]

Originally Posted by StrangerNY

If you can find one, it's a must-have for a studio.

But they are extremely temperamental, by nature of being a mechanical box with lots of moving parts. A friend bought one back in the day intending to use it live with his band, and he found that simply moving it would shake things loose to the point where it was unplayable a good amount of the time.

The keyboard techs for Crimso and The Moodies must have gone nuts maintaining theirs on the road.

Add to that the maintenance aspect of the tape heads (alignment, de-mag, cleaning, etc.), and it becomes a little nightmare.

Having said all that - even with just the stock tape rack (strings, flutes, saxes), it's a recording monster. If you can find the extra tapes for it, the sky is the limit.

- D

So basically great as a fixed piece of equipment in a studio setting.

[StrangerNY]

Originally Posted by Pwozzie

Opeth uses Mellotron sounds A LOT, but it's all digital sampling.. good enough.. the real thing was big, heavy, and always broke!

Oh, man, I heard horror stories in the day...

The metal housing that held the tape racks was cast aluminum, which was extremely brittle and prone to breakage. And Dallas Music (the manufacturer) was based in the UK with a distribution point in Jersey, and getting any replacement parts was painfully slow.

Here's a quote from John Paul Jones:

"To walk up to the Mellotron, not knowing if it was going to be in tune or what it was going to do; you might expect violins and get trumpets instead. It was a terrifying experience!"

- D

[last.train.home]

I love the mellotron, such a great sound, and instant Beatles, I might try and get our keyboard player to try a vst one

[Engel]

Originally Posted by StrangerNY

Call me a purist, but if you don't play it within its own limitations you might as well use a string synth.

- D

Purist!

I was just saying that being limited isn't so always so great. Imagine if the great bands that used it didn't have to put so much time into the upkeep for it and the music they could have created with unlimited note lengths. Everything happens for a reason I guess.

[geochem1st]

Here is a guy who made a DIY mellotron from walkman tapes!

Melloman: the DIY Walkman cassette Mellotron -- Engadget

http://mysterycircuits.com/melloman/melloman.html

[tele52]

Here's a taste, my friend Brian collects and repairs them. He's all over the movie and did a Mellotron demo at the movie premiere. He also wrote this incredibly detailed book about the Beatles equipment.

YouTube - MELLODRAMA: Mellotron/Chamberlin Documentary Trailer

YouTube - MELLODRAMA: Mellotron/Chamberlin Documentary Trailer

[tele52]

This is the book he wrote, the guy's a genius. We go back to the "Black Market Music" a guitar shop in LA in the nineties.
Recording The Beatles

[tele52]

I just finished watching the movie, it's wonderful. There are two competing machines, history, intrigue, and loads of interesting people. I got mine from Amazon, once I start lending it to friends, I'm sure it will be gone for awhile.

[benjammin420]

they may have been hard to maintain on the road, but damn do they sound good

YouTube - Moody Blues - Melancholy Man (From "Threshold of a Dream" DVD)

YouTube - Moody Blues - Melancholy Man (From "Threshold of a Dream" DVD)

[StrangerNY]

Just a quick note about how these things worked, for those who are interested...

The tape racks that produced the sounds were lengths of half-inch magnetic tape that each had three instruments recorded on them. In order to switch from one instrument sound to another, there was a switch that actually moved the entire rack of tapes inside the machine so that a different 'slice' of the tape would line up over the playback heads.

It was possible to 'cheat' the switch and play back two instruments at once, but the sound of both would suffer because you wouldn't be playing back the full with of tape for either instrument.

- D

[loneguitar]

Strawberry Fields