[HN Gopher] The Mellotron, an electronic keyboard of recorded sa...
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The Mellotron, an electronic keyboard of recorded samples, changed
pop music
Author : samizdis
Score : 84 points
Date : 2023-06-22 17:54 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (daily.jstor.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (daily.jstor.org)
| tricky wrote:
| I'm a terrible hobby musician and I love using the Mellotron
| that's in GarageBand or Logic. I had no idea what it really was
| before today (thanks for sharing the article) but it somehow
| always adds some sort of perfect, whimsical ambiance to whatever
| I'm trying to make. Give it a try with some reverb under a good
| beat. Can't go wrong.
| metal13 wrote:
| Picked a good day to wear my Opeth hoodie...
| volfied wrote:
| Isn't it all Steven Wilson playing the mellotron on Opeth
| records? Damnation is one of those albums where if you hear a
| song from it, the whole thing is getting played.
| niccl wrote:
| I think the BBC used a version of the mellotron with sound
| effects instead of instruments, so they could quickly access
| effects during a radio show
| sitkack wrote:
| This whole comment section is a beautiful example of what makes
| hn nice. All the interested folks, sharing their links, not
| posturing about how smart they are or how stupid the post is.
| Just wonderful exploration and learning.
| Lio wrote:
| An article about the Mellotron that doesn't mention King
| Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King? Disgraceful! :P
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ukgraQ-xkp4&pp=ygUta2luZyBjcml...
| hondo77 wrote:
| Or Michael Pinder from The Moody Blues. You know, the guy who
| also introduced the Mellotron to The Beatles?
| Applejinx wrote:
| One could also mention the Birotron. It was a mellotron-type
| instrument that Rick Wakeman had in the mid-seventies, but
| instead of the Mellotron strips of rewindable tape, it used
| 8-track tape housings to hold its tape.
|
| The members of Yes are said to have pranked Rick one day, by
| swapping out all the tapes for commercial 8-tracks, so when he
| began to play it was a cacophony of pop songs overlaid onto
| each other, rather than the appropriate sounds. It's said that
| Wakeman was quite cross :)
|
| (the instrument is heard on Tangerine Dream's album Force
| Majeure: strings and male choir
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afqgm3CzzQY )
| devnull255 wrote:
| Right? And King Crimson sold one of theirs to Tony Banks of
| Genesis. At least that's a claim here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellotron I loved its use on The
| Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
| joemi wrote:
| There's a group called Mellotron Variations (led by a great
| organist, John Medeski) where all four members play Mellotrons.
| It's very interesting, and much more varied than you might expect
| if you're familiar with the typical Mellotron uses. There are
| some videos of their live performances on youtube, including an
| NPR Tiny Desk concert.
| rwmj wrote:
| I'm thinking about the MTBF of Mellotrons, and thinking it's a
| miracle all 4 band members were able to play together ...
| noizejoy wrote:
| There's a fantastic free collection of samples recorded from real
| Mellotrons, which is worth knowing about for anyone desiring to
| experiment with creating their own virtual Mellotron.
|
| "Tajiguy mellotron samples" in your favourite search engine,
| should hopefully get you to the right place.
| Kye wrote:
| I have an emulated version through Arturia's V Collection. It's
| fun to play around with even if newer sampler VSTs are more
| featureful. It's an easy way to get a specific sound of the era
| it came from.
| retrac wrote:
| Conceptually similar, there was also the ANS synthesizer [1]
| designed by the Soviet engineer Evgeny Murzin. Unlike the
| Mellotron, it was opto-electronic, giving the composer more
| direct access and control over the "samples". Waveforms were
| drawn on glass plates, and pressing one of the keys would scan
| across the associated plate, feeding the generated signal through
| various filters, etc.
|
| It features prominently in the soundtrack by Eduard Artemyev, for
| the historical film _Siberiade_ from 1979. [2]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANS_synthesizer
|
| [2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=sJj9y4t9UnU
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| I remember my dad telling me years and years ago about an
| arbitrary function generator that they used at university,
| where you had an oscilloscope with a cardboard mask
| representing the function's graph in front of the screen, and a
| light sensor in a light-tight funnel that controlled the spot
| height. When light shone on the sensor it would reduce the
| input voltage, and so the spot would trace the top of the
| cardboard mask.
|
| This actually works quite well!
| ano-ther wrote:
| Very clever!
| joezydeco wrote:
| A somewhat distant cousin to that is the Mattel Optigan, which
| used waveforms printed on a transparent sheet of plastic and
| spun over a photocell.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optigan
| epcoa wrote:
| That's how sound movies worked for years.
| cadr wrote:
| There is a cool app that emulates it -
| https://www.warmplace.ru/soft/ans/
| rodgerd wrote:
| > Waveforms were drawn on glass plates
|
| Interestingly enough the documentary "Sisters with Transistors"
| show some British pioneers adopt a similar approach, but
| drawing on film rather than glass plates, in the 40s and 50s.
| TheHideout wrote:
| Tangentially related, Melotron is the name of a fantastic
| synthpop band.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melotron
| alecfreudenberg wrote:
| John Medeski is a legendary jazz keyboardist who experimentally
| uses the tape speed to get extraordinary texture out of his OG
| mellotron.
|
| He recently put out a great record called 'Mellotron Variations'
| with a few other artists that gives you a deep dive into its
| tonal qualities.
|
| The modern digital mellotrons are so satisfying to play,
| especially with the instrument layering and mixing. Truly feels
| like like scoring an orchestra at your fingertips.
| w0mbat wrote:
| The original article is wrong to use the term "samples". That
| only applies when making a digital representation of an analog
| signal by "sampling" the amplitude thousands of times a second.
| These are recordings.
|
| The Mellotron is still alive and well, both as a mechanical
| instrument still supported and made by Streetly Electronics, and
| in digital form by the official plug-in versions from GForce
| Software like https://www.gforcesoftware.com/products/m-tron-pro/
| . I suppose with the plug-in virtual Mellotron the sounds really
| are samples.
| roblh wrote:
| I don't think sample really implies it has to be digital at
| all. "Sampling" can mean what you said, but I think a mellotron
| is very much a sampler by most definitions. It plays back a
| chunk of a pre-existing recording.
| Applejinx wrote:
| More than that, it plays back a particular snippet of audio
| recording, over and over, upon pressing a particular key.
| Play a different key and you get a different recording, and
| they're not meant to be heard once, they're meant to map to
| the sounding of a particular note, whether that be played
| staccato (playing only from the attack) or legato (playing
| the full length of the sample).
|
| The Mellotron is an analog multi-sample sample-playing
| instrument. It's just that working in analog makes everything
| way more cumbersome.
| whstl wrote:
| I'd say the part of a sample being "a digital representation"
| is correct, however there's a fun exception to that rule:
| circuits called bucket-brigade delays that perform "analog
| sampling", using capacitors. They're still used a lot in
| musical contexts.
|
| Those are traditionally regarded as being analog, although in
| recent times I've seen people claiming they're not, since they
| use discrete instead of continuous signals. So they're kind of
| halfway.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| A as musician, technologist, and sample user of many years I
| disagree.
|
| Your usage of sample is correct, but there are other usages of
| the word which are alos correct, and the term "sampler" isn't
| specific to the literal digital signal sampling.
|
| I have bought and made plenty of sample packs, to be played
| back by various sample players, over the last 25 years. A
| "sampler" refers to how the device works with recordings, not
| the individual digital samples that it makes up- as far as I
| understand it anything that allows you to recontextualuze short
| recordings is a sampler,
|
| A mellotron very much is a mechanical sampler, though very
| limited compared to its current digital counterparts.
|
| I am open to being wrong. But your claim is a bit odd. While
| I'd be stoked to see some evidence in the philology of the term
| that says I'm wrong, I just don't think that is something you'd
| find.
| epcoa wrote:
| The term sampling is used in DJing and music production for a
| short "sample" of a whole, long before digital recording
| technologies were used. You're too ridgid in your definition.
| (I am also surprised why this specific "well akshully" comes up
| - it's not like DJ sampling or hip hop sampling is obscure.)
| burnte wrote:
| Sampling in the analog world happened for millennia before
| computers. It's a perfectly good use of the word here. It does
| not in anyway only apply to digital.
| nohankyou wrote:
| Why does it have to be digital? A sample is a small portion of
| a whole, digital, analog, regardless of the medium.
|
| These are recordings of a sample of parts from instruments.
| stuartmemo wrote:
| I made a little online version if anyone's interested -
| https://sodaphonic.com/instruments/mellotron
| weinzierl wrote:
| Vulfpeck's Woody Goss has a short but excellent video about
| vintage keyboard instruments, one of them being the Mellotron.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rK8FhHt0iO4
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _The Mellotron In Action [video]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17939204 - Sept 2018 (44
| comments)
| MontgomeryPi2 wrote:
| Obligatory Moody Blues song link:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlMebMCru9s
| rwmj wrote:
| Or most Van Der Graaf Generator songs. eg
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDDf_SuAlBA
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Plague_of_Lighthouse_Keepers)
| beders wrote:
| Or Genesis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2agWXrNJGjg
| jim-jim-jim wrote:
| They bought their mellotron used from King Crimson, who
| must have upgraded to a different model. I'm not dedicated
| enough to know the differences in the makes, but Genesis'
| would break down with enough regularity that Gabriel and
| Collins had a little story and drum routine they'd distract
| the audience with whenever it needed to be repaired.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The intro to Strawberry fields is a Mellotron:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUH9z_Oey8
| squigg wrote:
| If the Panoptigon playing Kraftwerk "Uranium" does not send a
| shiver up the spine of anyone in tech, then you my friend should
| have a good hard look in the mirror.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6uvpd38msA
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(page generated 2023-06-22 23:00 UTC)