Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[tekrytor]

This is a first go at a flute/strings mellotron like patch to emulate the Strawberry Fields intro. My ears got tired, so I'm sure it can be improved. Try the chords with just a few notes, not the whole barre forms, and play sparse chops for the right effect.

[Kenmac]

Thanks tekrytor. The funny thing is I also made a mellotron flute patch last week but I haven't gotten around to posting it yet. I'll try yours out tonight.

[paulweg]

Thanks sounds great!!  got any Tron strings patches?

[tekrytor]

Thanks sounds great!!  got any Tron strings patches?

By ”Tron”, do you mean the movie soundtrack, a song, or the band?

[aliensporebomb]

By ”Tron”, do you mean the movie soundtrack, a song, or the band?

I think by "Tron" he means "Mellotron".

[A to the T]

He's referring to the Mellotron that the Beatles used for a lot of their music.  The flute sound in Strawberry Fields came from a Mellotron.  It is the world's first known "sampler" so to speak.  Basically, its an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard.


Haha, while I was typing, alien beat me to it.

[germanicus]

I may be mistaken, but I believe the Chamberlin preceeded the mellotron as the first "sampler".


For fans of the mellotron, I highly recommned Gmedia's M-Tron Pro soft synth/sampler. It uses many original mellotron banks that are quite rare, as well as banks from other similar tape bank instruments of the time (optigan).

[tekrytor]

DOH! I should have caught that. Sleep deprivation!
Ok, for TRON strings, or any TRON sound...the main thing that differentiates it from modern ”digital” samplers is the tape loop warble, which you can simulate with two out-of-sync oscillators, like phase shifters. A little lo-fi or slight distortion might also simulate aging tape or magnetized recording heads. So just find some PCM strings and add a little phase, a bit of distortion more reverb and/or echo. With a little patience, it can be done. I hope to get some GR time this weekend and will try to make one then, if you gents have not already. Maybe a Mellotron thread under patches is a good idea? You might be able to just take this patch a swap the PCM tones to strings, keeping the FX. HMMM....

UPDATE:
Roland cleverly put in two PCM samples called "TapeStrings1" and "TapeStrings2", which are probably supposed to be Melotron strings, but sound rather mmmmuddy to me. Perhaps some EQ, pitch-shift or something could fix them. Could be my crappy little bookshelf speakers at the moment too. You can also swap some of the string sounds for ones you like better and play with the attack times. 

ALSO, in the factory Crims-o-Tron patch, Roland cleverly uses the LFOs to oscillate for the "tape" effect. I played with those settings and if you use two similar patches and offset the LFO rates by a few digits (52 and 54 say), it does emulate that tape warble fairly well. Herewith a patch that I tweaked and renamed for Court of the..."Crimson King". Tweak the controls and PCMs to taste. Yeah, this is loosely modeled after the second stage King Crimson Mellotron sound, love that version of the band immensely (Robert Fripp, John Wetton, Bill Brufford, and David Cross on violin). I caught them live at Winterland in Fall 1973. I also left the COSM analog synth and added NORMAL PUs, so I could camp fire the song with Em C (x4), Am F (x3), Am D, C D (x3), B-C(fast x5), lather-rinse-repeat. Apris cosmic etat' is the name of a killer bootleg version of this band configuration recorded in Belguim (I think) around that time.

I know it can be improved, but I'm passing the torch herewith, for tonight anyway. This patch demonstrates one way it can be done though. See what you think.

[A to the T]

I may be mistaken, but I believe the Chamberlin preceeded the mellotron as the first "sampler".
For fans of the mellotron, I highly recommned Gmedia's M-Tron Pro soft synth/sampler. It uses many original mellotron banks that are quite rare, as well as banks from other similar tape bank instruments of the time (optigan).

I second that MTron is awesome!  I do think you may be mistaken.  Pretty sure it was mello but its probably just another thing up for debate.

[paulweg]

Thanks for the Crimson King patch sounds great, it has that dark mysterious scratchy mellotron sound !!