oh the mellotron !

makes me cry every time i hear one, even after all those years !

http://www.mellotron.com/

http://www.mellotron.com/mellolis.htm

Genesis :
opening of watcher of the skies (foxtrot) a master mix of brass/strings
silent sorrow in empty boats (the lamb lies down on Broadway) choir
Broadway melody (the lamb lies down on Broadway) cello/string
end of Entangled (trick of the tail) choir

prog band Anketoden and Porcupine Tree use them a lot

A Mellotron polluted lovely gem is also
Edgar Froese's Epsilon in Malaysian Pale
make sure u hear the old original one not the new horrible re-mixed one !
Tangerine Dream till the end of 70s used them a lot too
early Klaus Schulze too
all King Crimson album till Red are also polluted

most popular tapes for the mellotron were flutes strings and choir
but many different weird and exotic ones were made
I have tried many Cds and samples in the end it seems that G-media Mtron
has all the ever made tapes

http://www.gmediamusic.com/gforce/m-tron/M-Tron.html

this is also quite good

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110062777487

Both are IMHO THE reference sample set for all mellotron fan
and both are based on the super set of Mr. Klaus Hoffmann-Hoock.
i didn't like at all the so-praised Mike Pinder collection !

Realistic Mellotron on an xl1 mmmm ? ... quite a challenge i would say.

Waves to start with

88 89 90 for choir

496 522 for strings

107 471 for flute

the pitch was fluctuating all over the 8 sec
since the tape was rolling and read by a magnetic head
i would try a random slow/fast LFO with MWheel on pitch

Filter wasn't really part of the Mello sound
best would be a parametric or graphic EQ to cut off the over 10 khz harmonics
Maybe the VOW family will give a kind of vocoder effect on the choir ones

A very slow random panning LFO too in the VCA stage.
the Mello was mono but this will increase the new taste i guess.

Let us know or hear some examples if u ever dig in.

Regards
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> 1a. Re: mellotron emulation
> Posted by: "steve_the_composer" smw-mail@... steve_the_composer
> Thu Dec 7, 2006 3:30 am (PST)
> Thanks for breaking down the Mellowtron features!! I may want to try
> myself. I am trying to recall examples of Mellotron. I think the
> following are examples (can anyone confirm?):
>
> --Heavy opening chords from "In the Court of the Crimson King" (Or
> whatever the title of it was.)
> --little filler in between verses of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"
> (starting at lower octave and more up each time.
>
> Any others examples?
>
> Question was the ever-so-slight pitch/filter oscillation consistent
> or did it have variation possibly from from the wearing/stretching of
> the tape?
>
> Also, I am wondering which of the filter types and specific settings
> would give the best results?
>
> --Steve