The M-Tron is modeled on the legendary British instrument, the Mellotron.
This instrument was manufactured in various guises between 1963 and 1986
and was used by artists including The Beatles, The Moody Blues' Mike Pinder,
Black Sabbath, Rick Wakeman and Genesis' Tony Banks. The instrument faded
into semi-obscurity during the 80's and early 90's, but due, in part, to its
evocative and unique nostalgic sound, it was rediscovered and used by artists
including Oasis, Radiohead, Kasabian and countless others.
The principle of the Mellotron³ was simple - take a 35 note keyboard and have
a piece of tape for each note containing real recordings of real players. In
this way it was arguably the world's first sampler, with recordings varying
from single notes (as in the Flutes sound used on the legendary Strawberry
Fields Forever) or entire musical motifs (as in The Beatles' Bungalow Bill).
Each sound lasted a maximum of eight seconds before they had to release the
note, allowing the tape to rewind. This forced the player to adopt a different
technique (often referred to as 'a spider crawling up the keys') and, in turn,
this allowed the music to truly breathe.
However, while the sound was undoubtedly magnificent, because of the huge array
of moving parts, the instrument's reliability was questionable and the price was
expensive. Rick Wakeman regularly recounts a story of becoming so fed up with
the unreliability of the instrument, he unceremoniously burned his at the end of
a Yes tour.
Purchasing an original M400 now would cost several thousand dollars and would
probably only come with the default three sounds, Cello, Flutes and Violins.
The M-Tron, on the other hand, costs a fraction of this price and now comes with
over 2Gb of sounds that don't require the instrument to be dismantled in order
to hear them.
The M-Tron captures all of the character of the original instrument by sampling
every note of every key and adhering to the eight second limit of each note.
This way, not only do the resultant sounds ebb and flow, all the inherent and
nostalgic magic of each sound is closely observed - minor imperfections and all.
http://www.gforcesoftware.com/ins_mtron.php
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