At Knobcon 2024, we caught up synthesist Marc Doty, and talked about his latest video series, embedded above, that offers an in-depth look at the Mellotron Micro.
The Mellotron Micro is the smallest version of Mellotron’s modern digital instrument. It includes many of the features of the full-size version, but has a smaller keyboard and no expansion slot for loading additional sound libraries.
You might think that Doty – with his love of analog instruments and the interfaces of classic instruments – might not be a fan of an instrument that’s a scaled-down digital copy.
But he loves it, and sees these digital recreations as an important option for musicians, when for most of us, owning and maintaining a vintage tape Mellotron is simply not a realistic option.
And even the entry-level digital Mellotron lets you access a library of sounds that goes far beyond what would be typically available to vintage Mellotron users.
In the first videos in the series, Doty introduces the Mellotron Micro and demonstrates how it works. In the later videos, Doty explores the Micro’s sound library. Along the way, he highlights some of the weirdness of the original Mellotron recordings, noting “If you have stuff like that, it’s going to give this thing way more character. It’s awesome.”
Check out the videos and then share your thoughts on the Mellotron Micro in the comments!
I’d find two octaves too limiting. Otherwise, its a winner. There’s a general love/hate thing going about the quirky, lo-fi sound. I’m drawn to it in a big way. Where it fits, especially layered with other instruments, its massive. M-Tron Pro is my chosen path. The huge library makes it as potent as any classic poly synth.
If you need one, you know it. If you don’t, you probably need a punk era “I HATE PINK FLOYD” t-shirt.
Critics seem to hate the ‘vst in a box’ category, but this seems like an ‘if you know, you know’ type of situation.
Combining that deep library of sounds with a traditional interface puts you on the fast train to prog town. What an evocative collection of sounds!
Perhaps the range of the instruments recorded forthe originals had limited range and the instrument reflects this.
Too expensive for me: 1000$ is too much for this
I see a lot of touring acts using Resch’s Mellotron because it looks cool and sounds close enough. But it’s fundamentally flawed because Resch sampled the master tapes and scrubbed the samples. Because the sound hasn’t passed through the machine, been affected by the electronics and mechanics, and recorded from the output, it doesn’t have the same magic as other options that are more faithful emulations.
…. he never plays it in the demo.
He didn’t in the first one but in the next 12 installments he played it.
Video #4 gives a brief overview of the patches you’d expect to hear.
Sounds pretty accurate – that is (to me at least) both absolutely horrendous and very cool depending on the ‘tape’ selected.
It’s $1k+ ? Absurd price.
The pricing on these is very confusing. The hardware itself can’t possibly be worth more than a tenth of what they are asking for. So you’re supposedly paying for the sounds, which is also reflected in the 500 (!) dollars they charge per pack of 100 additional sounds for their larger models. So these keyboards are, in a way, very expensive dongles to access the „original“ Mellotron sounds. Which could even make sense, if those very same sounds weren’t available in software form by Gforce for a fraction of the price. And if there wasn’t the Memotron by Manikin, which manages to make basically the same products for half the price.
Tell us more about these $100 high-quality sample playback keyboards that you seem to be imagining.
The closest thing that comes to mind is the Wavestate, which is around $700.
Not sure what you are talking about, I did not mention any „100 $ sample playback keyboards“ in my post. I did mention the Memotron, which sells in two versions for 990 and 1560 Euros. I find the Mellotron products fantastic and absolutely desirable, it’s just that the pricing feels…off.
The pricing isn’t just off.. it’s absurd.. a shame to as some of the sounds are quite pleasing, and all seem to be fairly accurate. Anyway, regarding price:
A hypothetical exercise – remove the mellotron logo and replace it with ‘Behringer’ , Behlotron perhaps. Anyhow.. £250 sounds about right, no?
Or forget Behringer, and just remove the Mellotrob logo. New price? £450, surely no more than £600?
Alexander
You said “The hardware itself can’t possibly be worth more than a tenth of what they are asking for.”
The Micro is $1000.
When I said “Tell us more about these $100 high-quality sample playback keyboards that you seem to be imagining.”, I assumed you were smart enough to divide $1000 by 10.
Your comment suggests otherwise.
The suggestion that the Micro should be a $100 device or a $300 device is appealing, but ludicrous.