Piano-Keyboards

I just got a phone call.

Long story short, some guy I know very basically has a MELLOTRON he wants to sell.


(sluurrrrrrpp) (Wipes mouth with back of hand)

Oh yeah, I can hear the bad yellow submarine stuff coming forward in my brain, like worm digging in for the next meal.

I want the damn thing, the catch is that he said it needs some work.

I am supposed to go down and play it tomorrow.

(gulp) And it's kind of cheap as well...making me wonder wtf is wrong with it?

But ooh the chewey goodness of that sound..ooh-ooh-ooh.

Anyone have any experience working with these bastards?
I am not really skilled enough to work on a Piano, let alone a Mellotron.

(gulp)(gulp)(gulp)

I'll be dreaming of rocking horse people eating marshmellow pies..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUcfB5Whp4I

Tell you what I find out tomorrow!!!!

They're worth money to the right people. Biggest problem with them is the old tape loop system that was used to store the sounds. I've got a MIDI VSTi that emulates the mellotron string sounds, used it for 1 song on my new cd where I didn't want the 'real' string sound.
Do an ebay search to see if there any recent sales to judge prices.

Omg I just got back from a long drive to see that turd and his "mellolump".

LOL

WHAT A LET DOWN...

I listened to all this music last night and was ready to play it.
I even had some skinny on how to set it and get a decent sound (for what I like to hear Muahahhahahaaa).

Wow, I got there and I knew I was in for some nonsense.

This farm looked like something out of "The Devil's Rejects".

So I talked to this cat a little bit and he takes me into his DUSTY ASS garage.

We go over to this thing under a sheet and voila, there it is.
My heart sank, it even had pigeon poop on it.

I just looked at this guy and felt like shedding a tear. lol

He goes "oh and it even works" where as he proceeds to turn this pos on and attempts to play it.

I wanted him to change the sound to strings, but he didn't want to touch the controls at all. I felt like it was just barely running on whatever shitbag sound he manged to coax out of this rubbish.

It was brown, you know like a turd. LOL

I wanted to play it but he was all tight and acting oddly.
He gave me the impression I could be what's for dinner tonight...

So we played a little chopsticks and then I busted out a little something at the end, just to see if this thing and I were in sync. He then started to whine about it.

I just stopped and looked, saying that it's normal for people to want to play something they would think of buying....LMAO

He got all wide eyed and then said that the whole thing needed to be restored. I just gave him the usual, "uh huh".

30 seconds later, he's throwing the tarp/sheet/dirty dog blanket back over the thing and I am like "hey wait, I am not done".

He then tells me that he wasn't going to sell it but he knows that I like weird synth stuff, so he'd give it to me at a deal price. (Never buy anything from Captain Spaulding)

When he told me how much he wanted, I just slowly backed away, got in the truck, drove back down the dirt lane in a hurry for the highway, praying he didn't get time to set up the barb wire across the road et cetera. lol

The entire time I kept hearing someone's chainsaw going here and there.

If I was brave, I would have told him that he should flag down the dude with the saw and use it on what's left of that Mellotron.

"You only get what you pay for and if it's cheap, it's usually busted".

This thing was such a dog the only thing it didn't do was bark, well unless you count the one time during "chopsticks".

I almost asked him if he was going to be at this event but I don't think he would have laughed..
http://cnj.craigslist.org/muc/4072712348.html

Great story, Starfish!

I'm just getting back here, haven't been on Bandmix for a couple years...
A friend of mine had a couple Mellotrons back in the day... They were
really finicky (even more so than my MiniMoog!). I used the Mellotron type
string sounds in my Emu Proteus 1+ for a long time... until recently...
Last year I finally bit it and bought a Kurzweil K8.... GREAT Mellotron
sounds - strings, brass, voices... If you bought that 2600 that I just read
in your posts you should be able to program them there. You might want
to give Sweetwater Music a call too as they have been dealing with
Kurzweil for years and have put out a number of custom program CDs.

PB

Great story, Starfish!

I'm just getting back here, haven't been on Bandmix for a couple years...
A friend of mine had a couple Mellotrons back in the day... They were
really finicky (even more so than my MiniMoog!). I used the Mellotron type
string sounds in my Emu Proteus 1+ for a long time... until recently...
Last year I finally bit it and bought a Kurzweil K8.... GREAT Mellotron
sounds - strings, brass, voices... If you bought that 2600 that I just read
in your posts you should be able to program them there. You might want
to give Sweetwater Music a call too as they have been dealing with
Kurzweil for years and have put out a number of custom program CDs.

PB

I really never deal with Sam Ash, Guitar Center or Sweet Water.
(The last time they wanted 1200 for something I could readily buy for 600, was "IT" for me. NO MORE, ever under any circumstances.)

I got lucky. The K2600 I was looking at was owned by someone that really liked PF, so most all of the samples I know of were already installed.

The Mellotron stuff is is really good. The thing I didn't expect is the VAST engine. It's not really user friendly per se, but it's lush sounding for sure.

The other patch I reallllly thought was outstanding was the SYNTH CALIOPE stuff. I was doing a "Gettysburg piece" and ended up using that for the main part and it's a real tear jerker.

THAT impressed me. I am 100% Kurzweil enhanced now, that kind of power can go to your head. lol

(SHOOOOMMMM - BBBOOOMMMMM) lol

(and you can add Musician's Friend to that list as well. eccch)