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Shutter On The Scene

from Domus by Mike Dickson

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about

Perhaps the most interesting thing to mention in respect of this particular track is that the credit to the Mellotron is actually bogus. When recording the tracks it became clear that the other sections built around it would have to be scaled up or down according to key, and rather than record and re-record the Mellotron tracks it was easier to record the entire Mellotron sections (strings and some choirs) via sampler through MIDI. The difference is that the samples used are not commercially available ones, but recordings of my own M400 placed into a digital sampler without any effort to noise reduce them, tweak their EQ, normalise them or generally mess about with them to make them 'acceptable'. Sure the Mellotron is a noisy instrument - it has thirty five open playback heads for starters, not to mention a red hot output - but in my experience any samples offered so far by a variety of commercial ventures have been flawed by the manufacturers trying to edit them in some way. (Or loop them, heaven forfend) One other cardinal sin is for a sample library to be recorded directly from the tape or digitised tape source, instead of via a Mellotron. Not only does this make the sound far too clean, it also does not introduce the pleasing distortions that the instrument introduces to the music.

Mostly for this reason, sampled Mellotrons can be spotted a hundred yards away no matter how they are buried down in the mix. If nothing else I show here that making a sampled Mellotron sound like a Mellotron is still possible. Given the fact that there are precious few of these magnificent instruments in circulation, samples are the easiest (and cheapest) way to access the sounds that made this instrument famous. It would be a pity if their legacy was left to a handful of enthusiasts like me and some badly constructed and unrepresentative sample libraries.

credits

from Domus, released November 11, 2007
Instrumentation:

Boesendorfer grand piano
Upright piano
Acoustic bass
Mellotron (choir, string section, Mk II strings, tripled choir, distorted strings)
Minimoog, Prophet 5 and Atmosphere synthesisers
Acoustic guitar
Fretless bass
Digitised string section
Magnus choirs

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about

Mike Dickson Edinburgh, UK

Independent musician located in Scotland, producing cinematic/ambient/electronic works as and when he feels like it, for little to no fee.
Early works centred very much on the Mellotron but the palette is now much more varied.
Releases made periodically and usually frequently throughout the year. If you're listening to my stuff then I'd love to hear from you.
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