Yeah, you have to really take it for what it is and see what you can do with it - it's basically an instrument of its own - it's also interesting that the other common "orchestral" keyboard of that time - the B3 (which is also an instrument that asks for its own special way of being played, albeit it's super easy to play it in comparison) - reacts really really fast - so I can imagine armies of Hammond players trying a M400 and giving up cursingly after a few bars....mrdoghead wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2019 7:00 am Playing an old Mellotron, with the very-analog everything about them, including the exceedingly brief sound tapes, was and is an art in itself. Walking in as a keyboard player, one has familiarity with the layout, and knobs are knobs, but the feel and the timing and the preparation of the instrument are skills that are particular to the Mellotron. Getting a recognizable sound out of it is no problem. (I got a sound that was tolerable for a couple of notes in my one pass at one of these old beasts, back in prehistory. Mainly, however, I made a mess.) Playing it well is another matter.
If you manage to let go of your preconceptions regarding what you want to play on it and instead let it dictate you how to make use of it and give yourself some time to adjust to its weird quirkiness, playing the Mellotron can be very rewarding and extremely satisfying because you can get wonderful things out of it you could get from no other instrument. I think it's much more important to be open-minded and flexible than to be technically skilled in order to (pseudo-)master it.