mellotron

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The Legendary MELLOTRON

OVER 1,450!!! PERFECT MULTI-LAYER SAMPLES on CD

Top-studio recorded and mastered, mapped, ready for download and work
LEGENDARY MELLOTRON ANALOG STRINGS, BRASS, BASS, ANALOG PADS, SYNTH BASS, VOX, FX, WAVES AND MORE...

$20.00

One of the most unique electronic instruments ever made and a trademark sound of '70s prog-rock bands such as Genesis, Yes, the Moody Blues, King Crimson, England as well as artists such as Isao Tomita and many, many more - the list of users reads like a who's who of the music industry.
It's enjoying something of revival these days with Paul Weller, Radiohead, Nelly Futada, Oasis, Stereophonics and many others appreciating its totally unique sound.

The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music. The concept of the Chamberlin was itself modeled after the Laff Box invented by engineer Charlie Douglass in order to insert prerecorded laughs into TV and radio programs more easily in the then-developing field of post-production.

?Arguably the original multi-sampler, each key on the Mellotron had recordings of real instruments on a piece of magnetic tape under each note of the 3-octave keyboard and each key had its own pinch roller and playhead. When a key was pressed, the pinch roller enaged with a master capstan wheel and dragged the key's tape over a playhead.

The Mellotron was widely used to provide backing keyboard accompaniment by many of the progressive rock and hard rock groups of the 1970s and, alongside the Hammond organ, it was crucial to shaping the sound of the genre. Notable examples include: Never Argue with a German If You're Tired or European Song by Jefferson Airplane, "Tuesday's Gone" and "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Turn the Page" by Bob Seger, 10000 Anos Depois Entre Venus e Marte by Jose Cid, Once Again by Barclay James Harvest, Music in a Doll's House by Family, Grave New World and Bursting at the Seams by The Strawbs, seven albums from In the Court of the Crimson King through Red by King Crimson, "Stairway to Heaven", "The Rain Song" and "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin, Catch the Rainbow by Rainbow, 2112 by Rush, I Robot by The Alan Parsons Project, Fragile, Close to the Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans, Relayer (along with Orchestron), Going For The One, Tormato (Birotron), and Drama by Yes, Trespass through …And Then There Were Three… by Genesis, all of Greenslade's albums, Hawkwind's Space Ritual, and Hall of the Mountain Grill, "Rainbow Song" by America, In Search of Space by Hawkwind and The Pillory by Jasun Martz as well as various works by Barnstorm (band).

The Mellotron was also used extensively by pioneering German electronic band Tangerine Dream through their prime, including solo work by Edgar Froese. Their albums Phaedra, Rubycon, Ricochet, and Encore as well as Froese's Epsilon in Malaysian Pale provide archetypal examples of Mellotron playing.

One of the few UK post-punk bands to utilise the Mellotron was Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, who featured it heavily on their platinum-selling 1981 album Architecture & Morality. Joy Division used its haunting quality to great effect on Decades from their seminal 1980 album Closer. It was also used by British bands XTC, Cardiacs, Nightwing, and IQ, but these were in a minority. It was also used by Talk Talk (Life Is What You Make It), Wang Chung (Novatron string swells in Dance Hall Days), and in New Order's song Run 2 from Technique. In the U.S., Los Angeles avant-garde/art rock band The Fibonaccis made frequent use of a Mellotron, as did Los Angeles film/TV score and session musician Berington Van Campen. Marillion also used the Mellotron during their tours in the early 1980s.

The Legendary MELLOTRON voice

Nostalgia Demo created by Joe Hogan for ZeroG©2005

Bands using either the actual instrument (usually rented) or samples include:

Michael Penn,
Guns N' Roses (on Chinese Democracy),
The Mars Volta,
Tears for Fears (on Everybody Loves a Happy Ending),
Black Moth Super Rainbow,
Zechs Marquise,
Sigur Rós,
Dinosaur Jr,
Sleepy Hollow,
Katatonia,
Pulp,
Marillion,
U2,
Radio Massacre International,
Primus,
The Smashing Pumpkins,
Marilyn Manson,
Counting Crows,
Copeland,
Oasis,
Barenaked Ladies,
Sheryl Crow,
Tori Amos,
Spock's Beard,
Lenny Kravitz,
Kevin Gilbert,
The Flower Kings,
Nine Inch Nails,
Stone Temple Pilots (in the song "Army Ants" from their 1994 album Purple.),
Modest Mouse,
Ayreon, Muse,
Pearl Jam,
R.E.M.,
Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Soundgarden,
Screaming Trees,
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,
Prick, Grandaddy,
The Brian Jonestown Massacre,
The Charlatans,
Paul Weller,
Radiohead

- their song Exit Music (For a Film) is a good example, using the 8 voice choir tape set, Porcupine Tree, Anekdoten, Air, Opeth, Wobbler, In Lingua Mortua, Waterclime and Oceana Company. Anekdoten utilizes the Mellotron heavily in their recordings. French electronic musician Jean Michel Jarre was particularly vocal in his love of the instrument, using it extensively in his 1997 Oxygène tour, and often describing it as the "Stradivarius of electronic music". Avant-garde singer-song writer Tom Waits has also used the Mellotron on several albums such as Frank Wild Years, Bone Machine, Black Rider, Mule Variations, Alice, Blood Money, Real Gone and Orphans. Rockbeat poet Joe Linus used an original model M400 on his 2004 album Gunpowder Tea on track #7 (Ladybug Lady).

By the year 1999, availability of original Mellotrons had vastly declined. Discoveries of some commercial software sample sets using digitally pitched notes and magnetized tapes (revealed in A and B comparisons) caused a greater purist demand for authentic Mellotrons. As a result of this demand, (and because old models could not be located for re-sale), new Mellotron models were put into production: the American / Swedish Mellotron MK 6 model and the British Streetly Mellotron M-4000 model. Both resemble the M400 design, but with modern improvements to make them more reliable and roadworthy.

An example of this is the recent purchase of a Mellotron M4000 for use by the band Arcade Fire who use it in the soundtrack for the 2009 movie The Box. Another example is Oasis' band member Noel Gallagher's purchase of a Mellotron MK 6 model in 1999 followed by his purchase of an original MK 2 model. Other bands such as A-ha (MK6 model), The Kooks (M4000) and Radiohead (original M400) are also part of this wave of musicians. Older musicians also continue to use real Mellotrons, one being Paul McCartney who still uses his on solo albums and in collaboration with Youth in his Fireman releases. Newer bands such as Sanctuary Rig use the M400 in their studio releases.

Of all the disk and tape instruments, the Mellotron has made the strongest comeback. The other related instruments such as the Chamberlin, Birotron, Orchestron, and Optigan live on (if at all) only as restored original instruments. No modern reproductions of these exist. The Mellotron is arguably the most ubiquitous and the Birotron almost a myth. The others fall neatly in between these two extremes, but all provide unique qualities and variations of sound colour like the Mellotron. Although the sounds from each instrument are similar, none of them truly duplicate each other. The resurgence in the Mellotron and the related tape and disk keyboards has caused a greater appreciation for their place in music history as well as being remarkable examples of mechanical engineering. Because of this, the demand for Mellotrons and the other related instruments continues to remain high well into the 21st century.

THE LEGENDARY MELLOTRON

All the Samples are compatible with any PC/Mac Music Software/Plug-In`s, Music Sequencer/Sampler/Hard ware Synth's, that support WAVES/AUDIO Files:

Acid Pro, Acid DJ;
Acid Music, Adobe Audition;
Akai S5000 & S6000;
CakeWalk ProAudio/Sonar (all version);
Creamware, Power Sampler;
Pulsar, STS-3000/4000/5000;
Emagic EXS24, Emagic Logic Audio;
Emu E4 Platinum, E4XT Ultra;
E-Synth Ultra, Emu E6400 Ultra;
E5000 Ultra, Fast Tracker;
Fruity loops;
Image Line Fruity Loops;
Impulse Tracker;
Korg Triton;
Kurzweil K-2000, K-2500, K-2600;
Logic (all version);
Magix Samplitude Professional;
Making Waves;
MOTU Digital Performer;
Native Instruments Battery;
Reactor, Reason;
Propellerheads Reason;
Propellerheads Reason Emagic EXS24;
Propellerheads Recycle;
Pro-tools (all version);
Rebirth (mods);
Recycle (all version);
Roland Fantom;
Roland VP-9000, Scream Tracker;
Sony Sound Forge;
Sound Forge;
SpeedSoft Virtual Sampler;
Steinberg Cubase (all version);
Steinberg Nuendo (all version);
Steinberg HALion 1/2/3;
Steinberg Wavelab;
Syntrillium CoolEdit Pro;
Tascam Gigasampler/Gigastudio;
Unity DS-1;
Vegas;
Yamaha Motif A-3000, A-4000, A-5000

and many more...