Show us your keys

In my living room...

It's a Yamaha U1.  Great upright piano.

In my basement...

The Korg MicroKONTROL.  A fairly inexpensive and very small MIDI controller from KORG.

Also in my basement...

Sorry about the small picture.  This is a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-840.  It's a more than decent digital concert piano that I practiced on before I got the U1.  I still love it because it has eight really good voices (Yamaha knocks Roland out of the ball park!). 

Also also in my basement...

My first keyboard.  A very inexpensive Lowrey Micro Genie V100.  It has ten very unrealistic voices, and isn't touch sensitive, let alone weighted!  However, if I route the audio from my Clavinova into here, and turn them both up to full volume, I get some killer distortion without having to buy a fancy pedal!

On my computer in my basement...

Arturia's Minimoog V.  Great soft-synth simulation of the origianal.  So says Bob Moog himself.

In my laundry room...

An old unassembled church organ which doesn't make a sound anymore.

No, really.

yesman72 wrote: Does anyone know af a keyboard that can reproduce classic sounds like Hammonds or Mellotrons along with the basic stuff like pianos and electric pianos? Just curious .

As mentioned above, the Nord Electro/2 "Virtual Electromechanical" kicks ass in terms of simulating Hammonds/Rhodes/Wurlys/Clavinets/CP70s.  I use the 73-key model as my master keyboard, it's there hiding underneath the Karma.  As for Melloton?  I swear by the M-Tron soft-synth - built from over 2 gigs of Mellotron samples from assorted revs. of the Mighty 'Tron...it blows away any Mellotron samples I have on assorted romplers.

I have a Moog Opus 3. I still have the receipt too. It cost me £550 in 1981. Nice minimoog sounds, but it's a bit basic.

Jim Garten wrote: I've considered getting a 2nd hand one of these for a while, as they tend to come up on Ebay quite often; they got good reviews when first released, but has anyone actually used one? I'd be interested in knowing exactly how good the Mellotron samples are...

Jim - I've got an Emu Vintage Pro rompler (the latest rev. of the Vintage keys module), and although the Mellotron samples are tasty - they don't come CLOSE to the MTron softsynth for realism.  The MTron costs less than $100.00, and has the BEST Mellotron samples I've ever heard -

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

Two GIGs+ of Mellotron samples - a veritable "history of the instrument" with 70+ presets from different revs. of the instrument.  I've been listening to a lot of Spock's Beard & Porcupine Tree lately, and it's been carrying over into my composing...I've been using a LOT of Mellotron in my arrangements!  MTron is the best $100.00 I've spent for my studio in a while! 

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I totally agreed with you.the MTron is a lot better than the Vintage keys,who I think is the worst Mellotron replacement tool available on the market.I've tried all Mellotron softwares and personally,I think the best is the CD-ROM of Mike Pinder interactive Mellotron that you can buy in the Mellotron Archives website(www.mellotron.com). You must had an Akai sampler to run it.The M-Tron is a lot more user friendly and contains a lot of the classic sounds.A friend got it on his computer and tried it and was very surprised but (sorry to be such a purist) it will never replace a real mellotron,never in a life.I explain myself....

The MTron can be very good for live playing but the BIG difference came when you record with it.When you record with a real mellotron,you double-tracked it and play two different performances for each track.When you are finished with one track, the pinch rollers on a real mellotron stop at a random place so when you start doing your second performance for your second track,the pinch rollers is not at the same place when you begin the first performance of the first track.When the two tracks are put together,it create a delay that can't be done by any mellotron plug-in available right now on the market.When you record with an MTron and any others plug-in,when you double tracked it,it's always the same note,the same performance and the natural delay created by a real machine is not there.

I know I am a purist but dealing with mellotron(s) since ten years made me think that way.I own an M400 s/n 719 since 1996 (10 years already!) and will never replace it with any kind of plug-in on the market.When you played a real mellotron, you can return back and all the plug-ins and Mtron of the world sound thin in comparaison.When a plug-in with a random pinch-rollers algorithm will comes out(it surely will come out one day),it will be a different story and will surely buy it.But for now,I stick with a real one.

Jaydubz wrote: Pierre, you lucky man!  You are so correct in that nothing short of a Mellotron will get you 100% authenticity.  I've only had the pleasure of playing "the real thing" once - at the New England Synthesizer Museum (another bizarre story in itself!), and I wish I had the room (and mechanical ability to keep it up & running!) for one myself. There's also a new German hardware device that was introduced in the past year - the Memotron http://www.manikin-electronic.com/en/index.html I wonder how it stacks up on the Mellotron-emulation wars?

Thanks Jaydubz,

I was a little afraid to post my comment and be considered a b*****d that have taken his hands on a real mellotron and said that all mellotron emulations are piece of sh*t.The truth is that I tried a good majority of them and was very open minded about them.The lack of physical randomness in the pinch rollers makes those mellotron plug-ins not very credible.Like I said in my previous post,when it's played live and in real time,it's OK but when double-tracking in recording is involved, that's when it lack in veracity and sound nothing like a real mellotron.When a plug-in that take consideration of the randomness of the pinch rollers will be released, I will be the first to brought it.

Like you said,Jaydubz you have played a mellotron only once but that's all it takes to know the differences between the real thing and samples.In fact, I am a little tired of all who said that the MTron and others emulations can replace a mellotron,that's wrong!Like the Flower Kings,who used an MTron or other samples and writes "Mellotron" on their albums credits.We have the same problems with pop artists here in Quebec with tons of albums that came out lately and contains mellotron sounds.They surely uses MTron or other samples since I never get called for those sessions(we are maybe 4 mellotron owners here in Quebec) but they continue to write "Mellotron" in their credits.The only time I rented my mellotron was for an American jazz band called Medeski,Martin and Wood who need one for a concert here in Montreal jazz festival in 2002.At least, those guys wanted to be "authentic".

Like you said Jaydubz,the "Memotron" was released this year.I must say that the Memotron is nothing more than a midi controller that emulates the mellotron keyboard action with the MTron as a samples source.So, nothing more than an MTron,I'm afraid.

Jaydubz wrote: Pierre - do you have any music online that features your "real deal"?  I'd love to hear that you're doing with it!  Again, kudos for going for 100% authenticity...I'm primarily a woodwind player, and always chuckle when I hear anything less than a real woodwind!

Unfortunately, no.

I don't have the material to put recordings into computer and frankly never made tapes of me playing my mellotron.I do, otherwise play with a band and uses my mellotron a lot.I have photos, but I'm not able to put them on a computer(don't own a scanner).I would like to put some audio links.Last week, I learned all the mellotron parts from "Si on Avait besoin d'une Cinquième Saison" by Harmonium (what a wonderful album,the mellotron sound perfect on that album,I really recommanded it!) and will be very happy if I recorded those parts.