The Moody Blues did play with the London Symphony Orchestra at one point. They did also use a mellotron, but I don't think anyone mistook one for the other.
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Why is the Mellotron still popular?
- Thread starter Felken
- Start date
Depends whether you were listening on AM radio, as I usually was. Fine definition of sounds is not AM's strength.
The same reason people still buy fender Rhodes and p basses. They have what Is considered a classic sound. And keyboard instruments can be a black hole with all the options. Lot of the modern keybords are rediculous with way too many options. They’ll have hundreds of sounds and then you can add sequencers, arpeggiators and all kinds of effects and a lot of them are a pain to figure how to setup user patches. I’m a big fan of the newest electric pianos that have maybe a dozen good sounds (acoustic piano and strings sound good on most of the new ones) and the original microkorg if you want to get synthy for its simplicity and it’s easy to program your patches and switch from one to the other.
There are many options for those of us who love the Mellotron.....
Honestly, nothing in the world sounds like a Mellotron....
There's a lot of synths that are close. But, they just can't pull it off...
I love mine!
Alkali Ike
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I think you probably mean the London Festival Orchestra. It was composed of a group of freelance studio musicians who worked as the Decca (and Deram) house orchestra. It didn’t really exist as an “entity”. Someone will correct me if I’m wrong.
London Festival Orchestra - Wikipedia
EDIT: Appartently the Moody Blues did in fact perform with the actual London Symphony Orchestra, at least while touring (in the 80s-90s?). Consider myself corrected.
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Rhodes is another along with Wurlitzer who in their design to compete with the Fender Rhodes, came up with its own distinctive sound. It also by design is a much bigger pain in the butt to tune. We're talking solder and filing to get the mass to intimate correctly.
kinda reminds me of those apps that add 'record surface noise' onto a sound file. sounds convincing, but not quite the same.
Alkali Ike
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That, and “film artifacts” like dirt and scratches that are added to videos to make them look kind of vintage.
Well this is some syncronicity. I just watched a YT vid of a mellotron rehab and all it's inner workings. It was fascinating how they work.
I always thought that it used tape loops, but they're tape strips.
Emulation plug ins are getting better every day, but there will always be some that prefer the real deal. Old cars, vintage instruments, vinyl records, analog gear, it's a sub set that will probably never go away.
I always thought that it used tape loops, but they're tape strips.
Emulation plug ins are getting better every day, but there will always be some that prefer the real deal. Old cars, vintage instruments, vinyl records, analog gear, it's a sub set that will probably never go away.
By the same token, if I'm seeing a Doors' cover band...I would hope it's a Fender Piano Bass onstage & not a synth/sampler.
I know there is film of their keyboard player, playing a Moog bass. Not sure if Moog or nit but it was a single string with a sliding foot pedal like a high hat pedal that "hit" the string. Limited range. Never understood why he didn't use traditional bass pedal system from a Hammond?
Yeah I feel that way with a lot of stuff. Like the analog tape type recording plug ins. They can sound good but it’s not exactly the same as actually recording to tape. There’s a reason bands like Tool buy up and store tape for their future albums. Some of my favorite sounding albums came out in the mid to late 90s before computers really took over. I do think sample based keyboards are getting pretty darn close though. The newest sample based electric pianos are way beyond where they used to be because you’re basically triggering samples of a real piano recorded in a good studio. Unlike the almost toy like synthesized piano sound of older electric pianos.
Why are the P-bass and Jazz bass still so popular, with so many newer, better built, better engineered instruments out there? That's old, 1950s technology! My Ibanez even has more frets than either of those!!!
Joking, of course...
Joking, of course...
And a Gibson G101 organ - also old and quirky, but very much in demand, often commanding north of $2,000 for one in decent condition. How much do Mellotrons go for? (considerably more, I would think)By the same token, if I'm seeing a Doors' cover band...I would hope it's a Fender Piano Bass onstage & not a synth/sampler.
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ever see the inter workings of a Mellotron,? its crude but it works and its totally analog so it provides that organic type sound digital just cant produce. I would think its not terribly practical for the average musician to own one being they are very much a mechanical machine ( no chips, not a single one) and that there probably aren't a lot of shops that know how to fix and restore one anymore. I watched a show awhile back about one of the few places that actually do restoration and repair of these antiquated machines, they went through the whole inter workings of the thing, it was quite ingenius for its day.
Alkali Ike
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The Mellotron faded from popularity by the late 1970s when polyphonic synthesizers became available. They were cheaper and far more reliable. By the late 1980s it was possible to find used Trons for a few hundred bucks, most needing TLC. Then the instrument was rediscovered, much as analog synths were and became common in hipster rock recordings in the late 90s.
Not everything you hear these days is an actual Mellotron, because it is so easily sampled. I've been using Tron samples in my home recordings for almost 15 years now. Electro Harmonix even makes a stomp box that does Tron sounds.
This may have been the shop they featured in the show I saw, I kind of remember them having a brit accent
I believe our 'former' guitarist used this for our rendition of 'Luminol', really making it sing... very expressive...
... both he, and the device, left for another band, recently opening for Brad Paisley, when he was in Columbus...
... I''ll be going to my counseling session, now.
