Watcher of the skies intro, alternative Mellotron sounds

[willregnier]

I'm trying to find a keyboard/synthesizer that can produce realistic mellotron sounds... Can anyone help me?

[ahioud]

simply the most majestic sound. no wonder progressive rock bands adopted it.

[mellotrongirl]

There are times when you run right up to the eight-second mark on those tapes, eh?!??!!

[Thomasooo2003]

@mellotrongirl

Should I have increase the tempo of the intro? :-)) But I guess you're right, some notes last close to 8 seconds. And the tapes are older than 35 years...

Greetings

[framzoid]

lol....ashamed....naw....heck,­that pales in comparison to finding a Mini-Moog in a whatnot shop in Florida for $50.00....always on the lookout!

[JohnLRice]

Cool! I had to start playing the drum part on my desk where you left off at! ;-)

[FoxtronInk]

Mellotron makes a dramatic sound hard to make it with other synths.

[stomp919]

Man i love the mellotron!

[lollygaggle]

Anyone know the chord sequence used in the above clip?

[LuthienAthariel]

I made a mellotron software instrument in Garageband with the MK II wav files and did this intro to 'Watcher of the Skies' by ear. I made screenshots from the notes panel and put them together in an image file .. I uploaded them to Skitch but I can't put a URL in here so I'll put that in a message.

In garageband, I added some low 'hollywood strings' for extra bass. I can give you the midi or .band file if you want.

[M400fan]

Yep - its Bmaj7 with F# in the bass, followed by G# 2nd inversion (C#FG#), holding the F# in the bass. Then Bb then F# 1st inversion (CD#F#) then G# 2nd inversion (C#FG#) then G then C then F# 2nd inversion (A#C#F#). Next bit is too complicated to recall from memory but that should get you started!

[lollygaggle]

@M400fan Thanks, that's really helpful.

[bepmeth]

The sound is that but the first two chords are 'na cacata!!!!!

[Keijz74]

Nice "Tronchestra"! ;o)# Furry with a small dull knife.

[chairdude1]

Mellotrons are amazing,I want one!

[framzoid]

bought mine (MK400) for $200.00 USD from an old lady that thought it was supposed to be a Casio.....After cleaning it up,I re-sold it for $6750.00 a month later.....man,what a deal I got..

[BynWreetsmart]

@framzoid Are you not ashamed?!

[mellotrongirl]

wow! Big scarey church-reverb sound...just a slight Earth & Fire touch..actually, would like to hear Chris Koerts do the vocal on WOTS one time..!

[stratdaddy89]

close but not

[malawri67]

BRAVO!!!

[hawklord75]

how do you learn how to play the intro to watchers or any of the famous Tony banks mellotron numbers ?

[Thomasooo2003]

I learned "Watcher" by sheet music (found it somewhere on the web, but the first two chords are not absolutly correct...). The other two tunes I found out by listening to the record over & over again ;-))

[hawklord75]

thank you very much thomas i will now be much more easily capable of learning watchers. thank you.

[kaizokuhousou]

Cool!

[sabourinrock]

darn its so nice to hear

[pueblos1chidos]

where can i get the score or the tabs i can't find it anywhere

[TheeMuseumofjunk]

ask Peter Gabriel? I cant think where else to try anyway!

[MoGreensEye]

Great sound. Very nice job!

[jkerrigan1990]

*drool...

[module19]

Fantastic. Early Genesis with Gabriel, hackett and Tony Banks, rocks. I can not quite do the original Mellotron quite right even with all my gear. Its close but not quite as good. Nice to see one in working condition played right! Put a Moog on top and you will have the perfect Prog rock setup!

:-)

[JackBlair2]

Too much attack, but I know those 'Trons can be a bitch.

[osunvid]

You're hearing the actual attack of the fingernails hitting the keys.

[JackBlair2]

No dear, not that kind of "attack."

[feralmusic]

trons are known for their fast attack. that's their identifiable sound.  peace.

[mellotrongirl]

Has a little Earth & Fire Atlantis/Song Of The Marching Children drama to it

[STIGMAMUSIC]

You makes me cry with this piece of wood and

8 seconds of violins record-tapes

[Elpdude]

For those of you who can't find or afford a real Mellotron, check out Sampletron by IK Multimedia. They sampled some of the most classic Mellotron sounds and put them in a nice, neat little software synth package.

[Grubenpony12]

HAUTING!!! One of the sounds you never forget! Thanks for sharing!

[crucker2007]

you want a mellotron your best bet is sampletron the complete out beats m-tron by m-audio by a lot even with the new one the m-tron pro

[lymph12]

ME WANT MELLOTRON

GIMME NOW!!!!!

ME WANT MONEY FOR MELLOTRON

ME NO WANT WORK...

Me broke.

[wishywashy2016]

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahah­ahahahahahahaha.

[helicoptered]

lol

[LiquidLen333]

<-- cracking up.

[mellotrongirl]

ahhh...sounds like the Earth & Fire version of Watcher Of The Skies

[CrazyAlvis]

I love the mellotron. Has a very "other worldly" sound to it.

I hav eyet to hear a digital keyboard that can make the the same magical sound of the mellotron.

[titanium9000]

Nice job, although your 2 intro chords are incorrect.

[Thomasooo2003]

Are they? To me it sounds like on the record, same voicing. Maybe it simply has to do with the sounds: I use the church organ tape instead of the brass. The mix of the sound with the violins is not exactly the same in all registers, and the church organ has also a huge bass note in the lower register (which I guess is very different to the brass sound...) Maybe you mean this.

[danmist]

You're close but the first chord is a B major 7th with an F# bass rather than the Eb minor (just one note out though)!

[Thomasooo2003]

You are right, I made a mistake, obviously!!! Well, I tried B maj 7 instead of that boring sounding Eb minor and that is so much richer, well that't the real sound of Watcher :-)) Thanks! I have immediatly to change the sheet music. I am not sure if this was a mistake in the printed sheet music or if I played it a bit shallow and never looked again into the sheet. Don't know. Will have a closer look now.

Greetings, Thomas

[JIF882]

Mr. Banks was right. Watcher of the Skies just doesn't sound the same on the Mellotron 400. Stick with the MK. 2

[pacific707]

Yep! You're right. Everything else was practically spot on, except for not using enough of the brass elements. But, I have to say, I almost turned it off after hearing the first 2 chords played incorrectly. But - who cares? I'm a purist. You did great!! And, you own a real Mellotron - lucky dog!!!

[CaptainSiberia]

Love it.

[yyyyyyyffffffffffiii]

the mellotron is not only one of the most legendary vintage keyboards, but also one of the creepiest!

[Cozy990]

If you guys want that very sound...without the assle of mecanicals problems, google or youtube... the mighty MEMOTRON !

[Ottocento80]

Bravo, from Italy and me.

[eartopsy]

Frickin EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!! Weird! (in the best possible way). Sounds better than the original! Thank you.

[maxbackstrom]

Pure Love!

Thank you!

MaxB

[Stratman78]

GODLY!!!! I need to get one of those!

[racer500gp]

You got about $8,000. They are not cheap.

[ChocloManx]

fantastic, you nailed it. Do you happen to have the sheet music for it?

Also how did you obtain such a fine instrument?

[Thomasooo2003]

Yes, I have the correct sheet music of the intro (there are a lot with little mistakes also available ... :-)) It's no problem to find it on the web as a PDF or JPEG or MIDI.

The Mellotron I own I bought 12 years ago in Holland for about 1650 Euros (then D-Mark), but I upgraded the motor controler card with a new one from Markus Resch, which helps a lot to get the beast in tune when you play more than four notes at one time. Cleaning every now and then also helps to keep it in good condition :-)

[ueaj123]

What do you mean by getting it in tune?? I thought mellotrons played smples from tapes or something?? They truely are fantastic innovative instruments and they sound incredible

[Thomasooo2003]

yes, correct, if you mean "in tune" literally. Of course you can't tune any single note as they are prerecorded, but the overall tuning can become a bit adventurous if you have an old motor controller. If you try to play let's say more than 4 notes, the tuning goues down a bit, the more the notes you try to play. That's what I meant. Also the pinch rollers can become stiff and don't transport the tape with the same amount of presure. And...

[Thomasooo2003]

...some notes on some sounds have not a correct pitch! On my tapes, the C# on the violings are bit out of tune, and the pipe organ is not good to use for chords. It's OK for single lines and mixed as in this example, but you will notice it when playing alone. Don't ask me why this can happing at all, the church organ they recorded then back in the Seventies must has been in tune ;-)) But "mellotronized" it is not... in todays digital tuning standards !!!

[ueaj123]

Hmm, I don't know the different components to a mellotron but you mean that it basically comes down to whtever they reocrded and how well the instrument operates, that affects how the tapes actually sound? like playing it slower/faster will affect pitch etc? Im not really a pianist i actually play guitar :P

[Thomasooo2003]

Yes, more or less. Imagine, it is a kind of huge tape machine with 35 tapes and playback-heads, but only one capstan. And the problem is that the speed of the capstan has to vary to react to the presure of the amount of tapes. The older motor controler cards get problems to change the capstan speed, so you can notice the change in overall pitch. Like bending four strings at the same time towards a semi-tone or something about that... :-( But it has been fixed, in case of my instrument :-)

[ueaj123]

OHh i think i get it now! that's still cool that you know so much about them. where'd you learn?i mean they're already so hard to come by! I gotta start learning more about them. i just figured out wacther last night so i'd have so much fun fooling around on a mellotron

[Thomasooo2003]

I learned something by looking how the beast is working (but I am no technican, so I am very careful in changing components). I read posts in a Mellotron yahoo group — helps a LOT!!! And I once met an expert in Germany (who wrote articles about the instrument and helped me to restore some weaker parts, showed me how to use the screws, which I forgot after a while, told me everything about Mellotrons history... Klaus Hoffmann-Hoog thats his name!).

[ady24]

cool one Thomasooo2003, was getting into it then, waiting for the rythmy bit to kick in(that da da da d d d d d d da.....or something :-) )

cool instrument, don't know much about um to be honest. got it to a T though-love that track :-)

[univhearse]

Men that instrument sounds very good, very loud too ! What kind of amplifier do you have on that ?!

[Thomasooo2003]

Um, no amp at all. I played it directly into my Mac with Logic and used a reverb to get the "big" sound. The signal was fed back into the camera instead of the camera's microphone...

And you're right, the tapes sounds fine (which is not happening every day... :-))

[SireThomasAsh]

Nothing better than a mellotron! :)