Making a Mellotron Library in 2021
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- The Mellotron is a wonderful and bizarre instrument from the 1960s, so how and why would someone make new material for it in 2021?
The answer is shown in the video and the end result can be purchased here: www.gforcesoft...
Huge thanks to GForce and Streetly Electronics.
The link: www.gforcesoftware.com/products/alex-ball-artist-expansion/
looks like a decent sale on the collection. i'm in.
Nice work if you can get it! :)
Today I realized a Mellotron was a giant version of Kontakt with lo-fi effects built in to every key. Mind blown.
It truly is so crazy to hear modern recordings being tron'd. It really goes to show how the processing makes "that" sound happen. Congrats on this partnership, Alex!
On a personal note, it's handy to have samples of my own instruments that have been processed like this. Not easy to do with digital effects and EQ.
@@AlexBallMusic I'm sure that having the abilty to A-B them could be useful to reverse engineer a process to do so!
All the content Alex Ball creates is pure platinum
Thank you!
@@AlexBallMusic thank you for creating videos not only informative but also entertaining. You have excellent tracks, I love to listen those short songs you include in your videos
@@yotest3697 Much appreciated!
@@yotest3697 This.☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻
A little known secret is that some of the material is authored by other contributors ... for example Geert Van Schlänger
The fuzzy and warm distortions of the recorded acoustic samples give me life.
Beautiful aren't they! Sound totally and utterly different to the originals.
I trust you were wearing a white lab coat when doing the recording. This is the too often forgotten but absolutely essential component of any sixties record.
Lab coat, thick rimmed spectacles, clipboard.
@@AlexBallMusic coffee cup and one leaky pen poking through the pocket protector
And a pipe. You must have a pipe.
@@Death_By_Media And a pen behind your ear.
What about those buff colored lab coat that tradesmen wore?
Finally something new. I love my M-Tron but typically it's for that King Crimson string sound. But this is the first time I've heard of anyone recording unique sounds. Amazing job Alex, now I'll go get my wallet! (...to the sound of me running upstairs to "WAY OUT WEST") 😂
Haha! Picturing you with your spurs on running up the stairs. 🤠
Bloody hell. Mate, you’ve blown my mind. This is flippin’ excellent and if you were already in high regard now you’re in orbit!! Nice work. What a channel 👍🏻
Cheers Alistair!
I love every thing about the melllotron. My new favourite instrument.
That funk track really shines with the raw melotron vibe. It make the analogue synth sound even more analogue.
You, Alex, are the sonic hero in my books!
Thanks!
Am I the only one who absolutely loves the bits of wow and flutter presented?
Got to love some wobbly wibble!
Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues actually worked at the Mellotron factory for a year before joing the band. He knew the inner workings and knew how to fix the problems when they popped up. The Moodies put out 7 platinum albums with their famous etheric sounding tunes.
Given the mechanical quirkyness of the Mellotron I am always surprised how good it works.
It's a mad thing, yeah.
An immense amount of work must have gone into this video, but the sound you produce makes it so worth it. Great work Alex.
Alex this is top tier information as always but I must say this is some of your best music to date. Really good compositions and I hope they're on streaming services!
Thanks Jack!
Superb script that feels exactly like an organic stream of answers to the “what if I…” questions that always happen when meeting a new instrument.
I had just begun daydreaming about split keyboard parts when the rhythm/accompaniment part came up. I’d love to see a hurdy gurdy’s low drones and melody tones make their way to the Mellotron!
Great idea!
The mind boggles at the possible things that could be tron'd. I enjoyed the DX7 as it's such a bizarre culture clash.
@@AlexBallMusic I agree! It made me happy to see the DX7 made it in 😂🤘 The mind boggles, indeed! We both need SkeleTrons. That's my dream sampler rig!
It’s almost uncanny the relationship between this Mellotron and say the very collected Casio SK-1, or a sampler that doesn’t ‘time-stretch’ like an Akai S-20. The ‘multi-Timbre-alaty’ of these samples and their constant pitch and speed per key, along with the exponential relationships of those motors, as up one octave gives you likely double the tape speed, so up one octave pitch-wise plays in half the time. It has an effect on the samples similar to how a slide rule treats numbers and that’s really fun.
YES!! My favorite vintage synth UA-camr not only owns a mellotron, but is making a library with it?!
The mellotron isn't at my studio, but it was a must to film some stuff with it.
We absolutely LOVE Mellotron! We use a vintage M400 (with 4 different tape frames) on our recordings. Along with 3 digital Mellotrons (with 5 different sound cards) many Mellotron apps. You can never have too much Mellotron.
I am completely blown away with a sounds from melotron, an instrument I have not even heard of. What an awesome invention which has a charm to this day.
Alex, your videos are such a credit to the world of music exploration on UA-cam.
Thanks for all the amazing work you do in bringing these brilliant presentations to the rest of us.
7:22 love that little piano riff. makes me want to listen to 70s ballads.
I liked the sounds in isolation with no processing best, they sound like intros to 70s records as is! I'd love to someday play a Mellotron, actually the whole Emerson/Wakeman set up at once would be mandatory, Moog, B3 and Mellotron
Mellotron not really an Emerson thing... but I agree with the sentiment. Rachel Flowers did Emo's modular/B3 and I was a little envious!
@@har234908234 I could have sworn Jerusalem had trumpets and strings, but I'm listening to it now and sounds like just Moog and organ I think? Credit to him I guess!
This is in my opinion the best MTron expansion. Keep these coming
Thanks very much!
Wonderful Hill Street Bluesy piano at 7:24! Thanks as always, Alex!
That was what I was hoping for!
The M-Tron is still the only VST "soft synth" I've ever owned! Bought it in 2008.
Must have!
Fascinating episode. I never saw those "rhythms" coming having imagined the Mellotron as essentially 30+ "samples" of the same single sound, pitched. But sure, makes sense to record more complex stuff on each tape as well. Neat.
You really make a difference to the musical day
Ah thanks!
This is so pretty to listen to. Spectacular work on this, Alex.
That TRon’d Fast Funk fit the vibe just right. Congratulations on that collaboration mane!
Cheers!
Amazing work!! Sounds beautiful! Well done Alex and G-Force!
Absolutely sublime Alex!
🙌👂🤠😎🧐😃
These are the sounds that take me to all of my happy places! 😎
Talking about Mellotron I absolutely adore that choir sound. It has that really epic and huge quality to it that when used in a right context is really effective.
I think the choir sound was used on OMD's Maid or Orleans.
These sound so rad! As a long time M-Tron user, getting these just made me love it even more. This rules.
Cheers!
Just ordered your expansion pack. Love this!
Awesome! Thanks so much.
Footastic! Foot has several GF products starting with the original ImpOSCar (ver1) VST back in 2005. Mistakenly thought GF stood for Great Foot. Nevertheless, always solid software. Glad you're part of the team. Your samples are a toe-riffic accessory and this video nailed the process.
Phalanx very much, nice of you to talus.
I can’t even lie, ball this is your best demonstration track of all time (besides the movie score era stuff)
Thank you!
Your new sound library sounds beauts!! Somehow very un-mellotron-y but very much in its tradition.
Congrats on 100k subscribers!!
Love the acoustics and strings. Being a fiddle player, they’re Lo-fi-tastic. Well done.
Congrats on 100,000 subs!
Notoriously delicate and temperamental instruments, Mellotrons. But that's part of their charm.
Not at all. They're very reliable and require very little maintenance.
As a gear tech Ive always wanted to see inside a mellotron, closest I got was the one at the R&R Hall of fame..... Great channel, Thanks!
Quite the mad contraption. Great to get that footage back from Streetly.
Lucky You!! What a fun and amazing project!! Great work as always!!
funking funky at the end
Congratulations on this. It was interesting to hear this week on Sonic Talk Dave Spiers say how much he really loves you and we can see why.
More importantly congratulations on 100k subscribers. Brilliant and totally deserved. Keep on keeping on!!
Superb Alex, dude your work is immortal!
also, cheers to 100k subs!
Thanks John-Henry, much appreciated.
The Pathe film featuring David Nixon demonstrating it is a hoot
The original thought was to do a spoof of that but I'd need a mkI Mellotron with the rhythms for the gags.
Brilliantly mental. Staggering amount of dedication. Despite what must have been super-humanly challenging, I think you may have hit upon the perfect retro modern hybrid solution to every gear cave nerd’s endlessly insatiable dreams. Too awesome for there not to be a volume 2?
Thanks! Yes, was too good an opportunity to miss.
Volume 2 - maybe...
Wow, that MTRON might just nail the tape sound better than any plugin out there! Awesome demo as always btw, makes me want to break out the MTRON tonight. :)
Right there for that wobbly old sound, yeah!
great work as usual - I can't wait to get this M-Tron Pro pack, I have the rest of the set already :-)
Great! Thank you.
I loved this video! Thanks for sharing it. I've seen one of these before but had no idea what was going on under the hood.
I'm glad to see your expansion included in M-Tron Pro Complete! Congrats, Alex! I'm very happy for you!
I've wanted a melotron for so long.
Very creative, Alex! Thanks for using your talents to keep these iconic instruments in the public consciousness while innovating new styles with them. Top shelf work...
You forgot Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson too! Trent Reznor actually owns the Mellotron that John Lennon once owned. It was gifted to him from Jimmy Iovine. Reznor used that same exact Mellotron while recording at the old Sharon Tate house (Le Pig Studios) in LA during the early 90s. Things really came full circle here when you think about it. Considering the Beatles (and that mellotron's) influence on Charles Manson, which led to the murders that occurred at that same very house. 🗡☠🤔 Btw this video was really awesome, I liked what you had done! I use G-force too for my Mellotron sounds!
Yeah, I said "and goodness knows how many others" which covered all the many artists who have used it, but Trent's story is a weirdly specific (and spooky) one. Good point.
Congratulations Alex - a wonderful experience, I imagine. The results are stunning 😊...
Thanks Michael.
Amazing how that tron’d sound takes the vibe right back to the 70’s, or was it the 60’s 🤔. In any case, another fascinating video, Alex - thank you!
Space oddity and calling occupants of interplanetary craft are some of my favorite uses of the mellotron.
Is that Wakeman's handiwork?
You mean Rick Wakeman? I love his work but I’m not sure who plays mellotron on those two songs. Space oddity is David Bowie and calling occupants is klaatu :) if you haven’t heard that song by klaatu, I highly recommend it!
Yes, I vaguely recall Rick Wakeman being brought in to play Mellotron for David Bowie, so I was asking if it was him on Space Oddity.
Klaatu - thanks for the tip.
@@AlexBallMusic I had no idea! Whaaa….??? I just looked it up! Mind blown! :) thanks for passing that on!
Just looked it up too. My memory was right!
Yes, weird fact.
Wow Well Done!!!!! You can see the Mellotron and 2600 Arp being used by Ronald Bell on the song Summer Madness by Kool and the Gang on Soul Train. It’s an Awesome Song, they were just kids. I run M-Tron, I love the strings, it a Must to have an Mellotron, if you go to the preset sounds on the GF Oddity 2, page down, or go to, “Bite The Hand Duo”, this will give you the Arp sound for the song. Thank You Again Sitrukain……..
and thats how 80's movies got the intro tracks
This was an instant buy, before watching the video. 😅 Incredible work, Alex. Stunning work on all of these tapes.
Awesome! Of course the tron'd versions still sound kinda pristine, which is good in this case. Over time the tapes misalign and drift in and out, you get funny attack noises caused by scrape flutter (that's how it's actually called LOL) and pitch issues, drop outs etc. and all this is part of the 'Tron magic. I can't quite put my finger on it why, but there is a sweet spot between lo fi and a total mess, where the 'Tron sounds absolutely mesmerizing. Great video as always and top notch work as always!
I've never had any of those problems with any of my Mellotrons.
@@hamstring6792 that means they were/are of good quality and you didn't beat them to death on the road. Tony Banks for example had a lot of problems with his M400s, namely during the 1978 tour, so I read.
@@truefilm6991 That's exactly right. There was a lot of Mellotron abuse back in those days. You can bet guitarists didn't treat their guitars like keyboardists and roadies treated Mellotrons.
@@hamstring6792 yeah unfortunately... Well I always treat my keyboards very carefully.
Congrats on 100k subs. Was about time. Thank you for all that outstanding, briliantly schlenging content.
Cheers! An overnight success after just five solid years of uploading. 😉
Stonking! This is so very cool! I always wondered about the logistics of making tapes for the Mellotron. I can't wait to mess about with this on the M-Tron
segments around 5:40 onwards legitimately sound like the books
8:42 Night Like This - I recognise this from a song used in the film Mirrormask!
This is really interesting, Alex. M-Tron is on my list of things to get at some point. I love GeForce's products!
0:09 I thought he started singing. 😂
me too
I've always like the idea of the one with the spinning magnetic (bakelite? with iron filings?) disks better. Thought it should come with blank "grind your own sounds" disks.
Oh my goodness, I was reading up on how to ‘Tron-ify sounds just this morning, and Alex came to the rescue!
Small world!
Fantastic work as usual Alex. That funk tune was something I'm sure Geert would have been proud of.
Geert was a ghost writer.
Lars Fredrik Frøislie is probably my favorite "modern" Mellotron player.
What's better than checking the latest cool thing Alex is doing? That Alex is getting PAID for doing the cool thing! Congrats on your expansion pack, Alex!
Yes!!! A VIDEO ABOUT MY FAVOURITE INSTRUMENT
Best kind of Ad 😋
If you're gonna do it, do it right!
Congrats Alex, this is excellent! Enjoyed watching that and nice to see spreading your wings :)
Thanks Ian. Nice to do different things and this was a no brainer. What an opportunity!
Nice
Captures the tone and artifacts of the instrument like warble, wow flutter, hiss, etc.
Trivial for digital playback to change tracks, speed, tone on the fly from the captures.
Make a Library of captures of the same tapes played on different mellotron models
Ah the tron ... true magical vintage . It and the OB 8 voice are the pinnacle of vintage instruments .
Lol. You never know what you're going to get next. Cheers Alex, the Mellotron is a classic.
More surprises in the works too. 😃
@@AlexBallMusic we can't wait 🤓
There is also something called the "Vox Humana" which was used on one of James Taylor's albums. It was a vocal chorus voicing machine.
With wringing hands of fawning groveldom, I humbly beg to correct a pronunciation.
The tapes pass over a Capstan, but given that Strymon have called their digital modelling tape delay pedal 'El Capistan' it's easy to have a lip slip.
( backs out, bowing)
Great informative video, as per.
I totally mispronounced it by habit. Too much time on the old Strymon.
I also spelt balalaika incorrectly. Or should that be balalalalalalaika?
@@AlexBallMusic I balalaika that reply
It says on the lid "don't operate with the lid open".
OMG Alex, you're risking your life for us. On a Mellotron. Crazy times.
Taking risks to show the inner workings. 🙂
Wow! Amazing!
8:10 is sick
You're a genius, you are... dunno how you do it! Love you loads, Alex! Thanks so much for your amazing videos!
Thanks Andrew! PS - I think I poked your Pro~One the other week. Glad it's back to you now.
This is so cool - and nuts! Thanks for sharing this!
Cheers!
The patches in isolation with no processing sound like interstitial music from 'Look Around You'
🤣
Wow! Fantastic alex. Love the way Brian Jones used this on We Love You
Hey Martyn!
Yeah, so many classic recordings feature old Mr Mellotron. The way they swell it in with the vocals on that track really adds to the psychedelic vibes.
@@AlexBallMusic it would be wonderful to hit the sweet spot of Brians relaxed attitude at work in this promo...ua-cam.com/video/GiUdkt7GNPs/v-deo.html
Groovy, man!
Fantastic
Is there any device you can’t make sound excellent Alex?! Excellent video!
Bro the Music you casually play slap so hard my man holy shit.
Thank you!
I don’t know what that means, but me too.
@@AlexBallMusic no thank you
awesome idea!
Alex conveniently ignoring the giant warning sign about having the lid open.
Always an interesting journey with lots of musical skill and theory...and history. ty
I once tried to start a band whose credo was "Moogs and Mellotrons." Things happened. I still stand by the credo though!
Oh, and it turned out Grandaddy already existed. Oh well!
You're a gem, sir! Nice choices you've made. What an amazing, unique opportunity! I need this expansion :)
I grabbed the IK Sampletron last weekend because it lets you load user samples, and processes them through their virtual (fake) Tron hardware, and I've been having fun feeding that with my mountain of hardware synths, but I prefer your solution!! 🔥✋💛🏆🥂 Ace indeed!!
Wow! These sounds are incredible! Strange how they're new but still sound like a Mellotron.
What reverb did you use? It sounds great too!