Slouching Raymond
Well-known member
The samples have a nice lo-fi character to them.
DiodeMcRoy
New member
Thanks! I was hoping to get that kind of sound from the start. I wasn’t sure if cassette would sound lo-fi enough, but recording each sample onto some old tape seems to do the job for that “Mellotron” vibe — even though, from what I can hear, a real Mellotron has a bit more high-end presence.
I'm already thinking about another patch I could make using the same process, but based on a sound that’s never been used on a Mellotron before. Wine glasses maybe? Or something weirder... Let me know if you have any ideas.
Papanate
Well-known member
For playing samples use Kontakt - and if you are after a specific tone - like tape wow and flutter and semi decreased frequency response - just build it into your samples.
TalismanRich
Well-known member
I don't think the chorus added much to the samples. The bare samples with just a touch of reverb would be the way to go. The samples already have enough wow and flutter that they don't need any more. The Mellotron was never a "Hi Fi" sounding instrument. It was an easy way to add some "orchestra" texture without paying a bunch of studio musicians.
DiodeMcRoy
New member
Thanks, I've been using DirectWave from FL Studio, I should look into Kontakt. Is it free? Would you prefer this over the one I used? Also before making it in DirectWave, I wanted to make in in DecentSampler I discovered through David Hilowitz YouTube Channel (I warmly recommend its channel), but I still have to figure how to use it.
Papanate
Well-known member
Kontakt Player is free - But you can’t create or manipulate samples with it - Are you wanting to create Mellotron type sounds? It’s a bit hard to emulate a Mellotron - part of the sound is the mechanics involved - tape playback - worn out tape after a bunch of playback - Limited Frequency Reponse - Tape Wow and Flutter - all sorts of things - when it was first used the Mellotron were mostly in optimal shape and didn’t experience those sort of things - The Beatles Strawberry Fields be a classic example - Brand new tapes and the machine was tweaked out by John Pinder - but if they ever went on the road …..
Playing the sounds is rather easy - I use the Arturia Mellotron V and my Arturia Keylab Controller - the sound is there and works everytime - everywhere -
DiodeMcRoy
New member
Thanks, the whole thread was me documenting my journey creating a DIY mellotron with a cassette recorder. I tried to make a violin today following the same process i did for the flute (a 3Violin preset), but it's quite bad. It probably helps to know how to actually play a violin (playing 3 squeeqy violons in unisson here was quite tedious to do) . Here's a short example of what I've recorded today.
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I guess you can't get more lofi than that lol
TalismanRich
Well-known member
Nah, that wasn't lofi. That was bloody awful! The sound is just "wobbely". Not like vibrato that a real violinist would make. It's just completely off pitch. If that's function of the pitch stability of your cassette deck, you need to take it in for service!
DiodeMcRoy
New member
Yeah I know it's awful. The flute one didn't end up too bad (altough not great), this one is really terrible. The vibrato was just me adding a LFO on the notes before sending them on the cassette recorder (i can't play a vibrato on the violin, I just own one, I never really played it). My casette deck is fine although very noisy (But I mean, isn't that the charm of it?). For anyone curious, here's the samples as I got them :
https://gofile.io/d/w4ESXs (flute)
https://gofile.io/d/PwJ3zS (violin)
Anyway, this was just an fun little experiment . Not sure I'll ever use any of that in the future, but I was curious about the process and how it would sound.