ckk@cmu-cs-g.ARPA (Chris Koenigsberg) (04/21/85)
Someone mentioned the Mirage, the Emulator, and then the mellotron all in one breath. The first two are digital sampling devices, but the mellotron is really just a bunch of little analog 1/2" magnetic tape playback heads. Every key on a mellotron, when depressed, starts its own piece of magnetic tape rolling over its own playback head. When the tape runs out, the sound stops....you can't sustain a mellotron note for more than about ten seconds. You have to wait for the tape to rewind before repeating the same note, which takes a second or two. If you listen carefully you'll notice that no mellotron notes are sustained for very long, they keep pressing new ones. The choir sounds used by Genesis on their mellotron are pre-recorded tapes, one for each different note. To retune the mellotron, one changes the playback speed, which raises or lowers the pitch but also change the timbre a bit. Mellotron tapes have three tracks on them, so you can choose three different sounds with a knob on the console. You can use the pre-recorded ones, or you can record your own if you are careful and adventurous. The standard mellotron tapes come with flutes, violins and celli, and the choir voices. (the violin/cello tracks have violins for the high notes and celli for the low ones.) Changing the tapes, which yields a new set of three recorded sounds on each key, is a pain in the ass. Each key's tape must be changed individually, unless you want a strange combination of sounds available over the keyboard. At the studio where I used a mellotron, Linden Studio in Ambler, Pa., they had the standard tapes of flute, violin/cello, voice, but they also had their own custom tapes of random cat meows, doors slamming, and other strange noises. You could press a key and be extremely surprised at the result, as these are actual high-fidelity audio recordings of obnoxious noises! We had to wait while they replaced the strange sounds with the standard ones before recording our rock music, but the sound of the mellotron can't be beat by digital sampling, at least not by cheap devices commonly available. The mellotron is bulky, cranky, goes out of tune on every song, is incredibly heavy, and is very old-fashioned, so there aren't too many of them still in use. But the full choir sound at the touch of a keyboard is fantastic. Digital technology has a long way to go before catching up to analog in the fullness of sound available. Of course, analog has its own limitations and distortion problems, too. I hope this is informative, I'm just writing quickly out of memory. Chris Koenigsberg ckk@cmu-cs-g.arpa seismo!cmu-cs-pt!cmu-cs-g!ckk (412)362-6422 1025 Murray Hill Ave. Pgh., Pa. 15217 MORPHIC RESONANCE, a foundation for contemporary music
nebula@sftig.UUCP (nebula) (04/23/85)
> From: ckk@cmu-cs-g.ARPA (Chris Koenigsberg) > Subject: mellotrons are ANALOG > Digital technology has a long way to go before catching up to analog in the > fullness of sound available. Of course, analog has its own limitations and > distortion problems, too. > Chris Koenigsberg > 1025 Murray Hill Ave. > Pgh., Pa. 15217 > MORPHIC RESONANCE, a foundation for contemporary music Come on chris! What sort of myths are being perpetrated at MORPHIC RESONANCE anyway? Maybe I missed your point a bit, I'm not sure. In any case, in reference to your comment, I do hope that the analog that you referred to were referrences to LIVE sorts of analog! Digital, or any other sort of technology for that matter, may not be able to totally compete with live analog from a sound generation point of view. However, from a reproduction/manipulation point of view, I certainly hope that you realize the awesome advantages of digital technology. Even at that, there are quite a few "enthusiasts" throughout the world working on narrowing the gap between "natural" analog generation mechanisms and digital generation methods. I've heard quite a sampling of the results of such efforts. The best results are very close to "perfect". In view of these results, I must disagree with you about your comment that "digital technology has a long way to go before catching up to analog in the fullness of sound available". Actually, digital technology has in fact almost nearly duplicated the results of analog sound generation methods. The problems with digital technology are not those of inherent limitations in the types results of sounds that can be produced, they are UNLIMITED. The problems with QUALITY digital sound generation are those problems associated with the relatively high price of computational engines, software development time, d/a & a/d conversion gear and the cost of educating people in the theories and intricacies associated with digital sound generation/composition. Doug Donahue AT&T Bell Labs attunix!dr_d 201 522 6175