Flawed
I would love to buy a ‘hardware’ Mellotron, but despite their seemingly quite modest specs and abilities, the digital versions are *way* out of my league, price-wise. Thought I’d try this just to access some classic sounds, in any case, and attempt some simple monophonic lines for a couple of songs.
Some lovely sounds are included, anyway - but getting them cleanly off my iPhone (no headphone jack…) meant buying a Bluetooth speaker with an ‘Aux’ out (fiddly, expensive). The Mellotron app, however, proved almost impossible to play on a phone, however… unless you were content with single-note drones. You *can* ‘concertina’ the graphic keyboard to around an octave-and-a-half (but why no documentation describing this feature..? It took me weeks to work it out…), though it’s still hell to ‘play’. Trying to access the sounds via Midi (using Audiobus and Sidecar) did work - eventually - but introduced a loud ‘click’ on the attack to each note rendering the sounds unusable (there was already a marked ‘lag’, even using the screen interface to trigger sounds…).
In all, I spent many hours (and over £100, in ‘support’ apps and additional bits of hardware) just trying to record a ‘real’ Mellotron tune on to a song… before giving up and just recording an actual flute part instead. So much for convenience.
So… the sounds are in there, but you’ll never find any serious application for them, sadly… and unless you’re thoroughly minted, you’ll never be able to be able to afford the (presumably far superior..?) hardware equivalent. Such a shame, and such a wasted opportunity. I love Mellotrons… but this could easily make me go off them…
Some lovely sounds are included, anyway - but getting them cleanly off my iPhone (no headphone jack…) meant buying a Bluetooth speaker with an ‘Aux’ out (fiddly, expensive). The Mellotron app, however, proved almost impossible to play on a phone, however… unless you were content with single-note drones. You *can* ‘concertina’ the graphic keyboard to around an octave-and-a-half (but why no documentation describing this feature..? It took me weeks to work it out…), though it’s still hell to ‘play’. Trying to access the sounds via Midi (using Audiobus and Sidecar) did work - eventually - but introduced a loud ‘click’ on the attack to each note rendering the sounds unusable (there was already a marked ‘lag’, even using the screen interface to trigger sounds…).
In all, I spent many hours (and over £100, in ‘support’ apps and additional bits of hardware) just trying to record a ‘real’ Mellotron tune on to a song… before giving up and just recording an actual flute part instead. So much for convenience.
So… the sounds are in there, but you’ll never find any serious application for them, sadly… and unless you’re thoroughly minted, you’ll never be able to be able to afford the (presumably far superior..?) hardware equivalent. Such a shame, and such a wasted opportunity. I love Mellotrons… but this could easily make me go off them…
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