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 Mellotron 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.

You need KONTAKT v5.1 to use this library.

http://www.gforcesoftware.com/legacy/m-tron

Download File Size:937.8 MB

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