Recording my DIY mellotron : Any Advices?

  • Thread starter Thread starter DiodeMcRoy
  • Start date Start date
The samples have a nice lo-fi character to them.
 
Slouching Raymond said:
The samples have a nice lo-fi character to them.
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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.
 
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.
 
Papanate said:
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.
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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.
 
DiodeMcRoy said:
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.
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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 -
 
Papanate said:
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 -
Click to expand...
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
 
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!
 
TalismanRich said:
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!
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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.
 
If you're really trying to emulate the Mellotron, then you don't need to muck up the sound with vibrato or other effects. That's not something that anyone would do with the original instrument. The pitch control was a means to tune the instrument.
 
As an interesting experiment, you have probably learned a lot. Sound wise, the big players in sampling would actually sell this and call it super mangled-tron and people would find a use for it. Is it a mellotron? No, of course not. Its an effected instrument, and some people make music that loves this kind of sound.
 
rob aylestone said:
As an interesting experiment, you have probably learned a lot. Sound wise, the big players in sampling would actually sell this and call it super mangled-tron and people would find a use for it. Is it a mellotron? No, of course not. Its an effected instrument, and some people make music that loves this kind of sound.
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Thanks , yeah it was tedious but fun in the end. Although I'm not sure I will ever use them for anything, we'll see. Today I recorded some Wine Glass to make some kind of Glass harp midi instrument think, we'll see how it goes too.
 
DiodeMcRoy said:
Thanks , yeah it was tedious but fun in the end. Although I'm not sure I will ever use them for anything, we'll see. Today I recorded some Wine Glass to make some kind of Glass harp midi instrument think, we'll see how it goes too.
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Sorry if I missed it, but what software do you use to make MIDI sample sets?
 
Serendipity Records said:
Sorry if I missed it, but what software do you use to make MIDI sample sets?
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To use the sample and attributing each one for a keys (or several keys)? I use DirectWave in FLStudio. Some people here said Kontact was good too, haven't tested it yet. There's also DecentSampler that is great but you need to figure how to code it, it's not just Drag&Drop (although that doesn't seem that hard to understand, but i prefered to use DirectWave)
 
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