Further differences become apparent when you look at the effects offered by the M2D. Early Mellotrons contained valve amplification, so a tiny bit of crunch is often beneficial.
Meanwhile, the ability to combine, say, phasing and delay is an important factor in recreating many classic Mellotron sounds, especially when you step into the sphere of German avant garde and electronic bands. Unfortunately, the order of the effects is wrong. Also, the rotary speaker effect has been lost, which is disappointing.
Yet more changes are to be found in the Sound Settings menus, to which three useful functions have been added. The first is a bipolar Velocity parameter that makes any selected sound velocity sensitive.
As you may be aware, genuine Mellotrons allow you to slide the playback heads from tracks A to B to C, so you can create mixes of adjacent tracks. In contrast, the M2D allows you place your sounds freely on any of the virtual tracks you choose. So if you want, for example, to place organ, strings and a choir on a single track, you can now do so, mixing them in any proportions using the Volume parameter.
In the past you needed two Mellotrons or a dual—manual Mellotron to play three sounds, and the results could be hit—or—miss to say the least. Now, it takes just moments to set this up on the M2D, and without fear of tuning problems and unreliable mixing.
You can also create narrower ranges of notes for certain sounds, or even overlap ranges of sounds if you choose. Of course, these extra functions necessitate a larger menu structure, but everything has remained easy and intuitive.
To test the M2D, I placed it on top of the Arturia KeyLab 88 keyboard that I was reviewing at the same time you can read that review elsewhere in this issue , and was stunned by how good the two looked together. As an aficionado of the Fairlight IIx, I like white keyboards in the studio!
It was then simple to set up the knobs and faders on the keyboard to send the appropriate MIDI CCs to control every aspect of the M2D, and I was very happy with the combination of the two. Or, indeed, any USB input at all! The integrated effects-section possesses numerous, adjustable effects like: Distortion, Phaser, Flanger, Chorus, Tremolo, Echo and Delay. Soundspeicher ca. Diese Webseite verwendet Cookies, um Besuchern ein optimales Nutzererlebnis zu bieten.
Bestimmte Inhalte von Drittanbietern werden nur angezeigt, wenn "Drittanbieter-Inhalte" aktiviert sind. Bedienhandbuch OS V1. User Manual OS V1. Sadly in no way to try out the keyboard versions in my situation.
Many thanks. John Bradley of Streetly Electronics is a 2nd generation builder of mellotrons. As a young man, he built mellotrons with his father, Les. Streetly's current model is the M, from which the Swedish company stole the model name for their MD. In fact, when Streetly first announced their M dual manual model with 8 stations of 24 sounds for each keyboard, the Swedish company attempted to one-up Streetly by announcing a MkIIx model with 10 stations and 30 sounds for each keyboard, which of course never happened.
Obviously, there is a lot of competition between the original company that continues the Bradley lineage and the Johnny-come-lately Swedish company. As you can tell, I'm not at all a fan of the Swedish company. To me, lineage is key. Both companies sell analog mellotrons, but the Streetly M is more advanced than the Swedish trons.
They are based on the MkII, but are superior in several ways. For instance, the tape system of changing stations has been replaced by a digital system. The M also comes with an air filter system.
And the keyboard action is as fast as a Hammond. The M is 4 inches taller and 4 inches deeper than an M, but has 24 sounds instead of just 3.
But Streetly will build an M for you if you want. Streetly continues to expand their tape library with new recordings while the Swedish company only rehashes the old recordings. I've owned 2 M's in the past and now own 2 Streetly M's. If I were to buy a hardware clone, which cannot be rightfully called a mellotron because by definition a mellotron is tape-based, it would be a Memotron with the Streetly 50th Anniversary collection.
It's not perfect because I think there are some key sounds missing from the Streetly collection that are not going to be available because Manikin feels their samples cover those bases, but they're not quite as good as the Streetly samples.
For software, M-Tron Pro is the best. There are several Streetly sample sets available for it and include several of the newer recordings. I recently saw Steve Hackett and that's what his keyboard player was using. You will never see a British prog band using the MD.
The Swedish company claims to use samples directly from their master tapes in their MD, but that's exactly why it doesn't sound like a mellotron. To my fairly experienced ears 43 years as a mellotron owner , the MD sounds very sterile.
It's not the tapes that give the mellotron its sound, it's the electronics. Manikin and M-Tron Pro use samples directly from the outputs of mellotrons, so they have "that sound". Also, the Swedish company doctored their samples as they freely admit on their website. Why is it so that the Swedish Company own the 'Mellotron' name then and not the original lineage from Streetly Electronics?
The MD looks great and seems to be build very nice. But I think it's still very pricy for what it actually is. The build quality is great, but not sure about the sounds and it's longevity. They always defend their products with it's a 'real' mellotron, even though it's not tape based and actually is an emulation of an original mellotron. It seems they certainly capitalize on the Mellotron's legacy. My Studio. You mentioned the low output level twice now and I don't recall it being an issue with the rack nor now with the M2d.
I run a mono out from it to the Toft mixer and its been fine. I'll check my line input trim knob, but it's likely not any different than the rest of my synths. Usually I only notice if a piece of gear is extremely hot and I have to turn it down. I couldn't find a manual of the Mellotron: MD. Or can you fine tune pitch and other settings within each A and B Slot?
I saw on a youtube video it has this emulation of the motor of the tape, where it wobbles a bit. Kind of like the slop parameter of the DSI Synths. The GUI and control layout is a billion times better than the Memotron stuff. The wow and flutter and EQ settings on the mD are global and not per slot.
To add a bit of 'slop' you make a digital sound slightly less predictable.
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