[linux-audio-user] RE: Re: Mellotron sounds

[philicorda]

> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 18:45:36 +0300
> From: Juhana Sadeharju <kouhia at nic.funet.fi>
> Subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: Mellotron sounds
> To: linux-audio-user at music.columbia.edu
> Message-ID: <S20634AbVGNPpg/20050714154536Z+29075 at nic.funet.fi>
> 
> >From: "Greg Wilder" <greg at gregwilder.com>
> >
> >I'd be very interested in reading the research papers.
> 
> Good to hear more people are interested in the matter.
> 
> It looks like the legal way to have the Mellotron samples
> is to re-create the sounds. Remember that the particular tapes
> were re-mastered. The copyright is as new as the re-masters.
> (But Project Gutenberg list had a posting on a recent court
> case which could indicate different.)
> 
> BTW, we already could create a nice set of similar sounds using
> physical modeling and the like. Nord Modular has good patches
> freely available.

Personally, the appeal of the Mellotron is that each key is an
individual recording of an arrangement of real instruments. This gives
the sound a complexity and warmth that I think would be difficult to
synthesize.

It's also worth noting that the arrangement of the instruments changes
over the keyboard on some ensemble sounds to keep the it sounding
natural as you play in different octaves.

For example, from "Chamber Woodwinds" (Taken from the link below)
"The lower octave and a half is English horn and alto flute, the
remainder being oboe with C flute. The split point between horn/oboe is
offset from the split point between Alto/c flute to give a smoother
transition."

> 
> How important it is to have the original Mellotron sounds? Mellotron
> is well known from songs like White Satin (by who?) but the guy
> recorded his own violin sounds. Why would we be happy with the
> factory sounds if he was not?

It's not important to me that they are identical to the originals,
merely created in somewhat the same way. I reackon the best way would be
to recreate the recordings, cleanly, in stereo, with real instruments
and let the user grunge them up if they feel the need. 

Here is a great site with loads about the sounds:
http://www.blackcat.demon.co.uk/tron/right.htm

I would be happy to have a bash at recording some sounds as I have the
facilities to do so, and can probably find enough tame musos to help me
out.

--
Frank. Ty Drwg.

> 
> I will put together a collection of papers after the summer heat
> has cooled down.
> 
> Juhana
> -- 
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>   for developers of open source graphics software