Nord User Forum

[Charlatan]

Greetings!

Prospective Nord Electro buyer here. I am very interested in organ sounds, but especially utilizing the sound library to get those Mellotron sounds too. I'm considering an Electro 3, 4, or 5 for this task. I'm also considering the Mellotron M4000D rack unit. However, I have heard rumor that the sound library samples, while samples of the Mellotron master tapes, are not complete when used with the sample engine and actually stretch the sounds to match a lot of the notes, resulting in some sub-par quality overall, especially compared to the M4000D that truly samples each note individually. Can someone confirm this? How bad is it?

[dhbp-nord]

All sounds available on the Nord site to decide for yourself, both Mellotron and Mellotron Master tapes - audio samples for every sound are posted there.

http://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-libr ... ster-tapes

Also a visit into your nearest Nord dealer may answer more clearly as trusting your own ears is always best.

DH

[Charlatan]

All sounds available on the Nord site to decide for yourself, both Mellotron and Mellotron Master tapes - audio samples for every sound are posted there.

http://www.nordkeyboards.com/sound-libr ... ster-tapes

Also a visit into your nearest Nord dealer may answer more clearly as trusting your own ears is always best.

DH

Unfortunately I won't have the M4000D to compare it to, nor will any Nords probably be loaded with the Mellotron samples already. Here's a quote I heard about this issue:

There's no inherent difference in approach between samples that can be downloaded into a machine and ones that can't but are instead permanently burned into ROM.

Newer Nords do have more sample library memory than their predecessors, but it can still go quickly depending on what you're trying to do, plus the sample library is designed to work on the new as well as the older models.

I can't explain technically how samples are stretched, but they always have been; it is the opposite--lack of stretching--that is the more rare.

Can anyone confirm this?

[dhbp-nord]

You can load quite a few samples in the newer Nords, that should not be an issue. Memory would not affect the sample quality anyhow, the samples are glorified WAV files basically. More or less memory does not automatically "stretch" the samples at any rate. Not really sure what you mean here, this is pretty vague. Are you meaning looping instead? Original Mellotrons did not loop, the audio stopped after 8 seconds. Has Nord mangled the audio when they created the samples? Who knows - but personally I found the Master Tape Collection to be a at a higher fidelity rate than an original Mellotron. Don't forgot the original Mellotron is a very lo-fi beast.

I have been on a shop floor and heard Mellotron samples loaded into sales models. And if the store is really keen on selling you one, they should easily be able to load up sounds of your choice for you to audition, or least connect to a PC with the Nord Sound Manager to load sounds at will.

Again the Nord sound demos are on their site for listening, so find some other audio examples of Mellotrons to compare against. Even if Nord has "stretched" the samples, I doubt very much anyone could ever tell the difference in a musical context (ie a mix) - to my ears the Nord Mellotron sounds are as good as any others I've heard. I have the IK Multimedia Libraries and have tried the GForce ones, the Nords are just as good imho.

DH

[voodoo]

You can tell from the size of the samples (starting from 1 MB per voice), that these cannot be chromatic samples (each key sampled separately). This is usual business. Look at the information page of the piano library. Only the XL versions have "Fully mapped keyboard". And these samples are some 100 MB of size.

[stiiiiiiive]

Yes but... IIRC Clavia has its own, proprietary sample format: quite compressed. So size half-matters.

[maxpiano]

You can tell from the size of the samples (starting from 1 MB per voice), that these cannot be chromatic samples (each key sampled separately). This is usual business. Look at the information page of the piano library. Only the XL versions have "Fully mapped keyboard". And these samples are some 100 MB of size.

That doesn't mean much, when sampling an acounstic piano you have to record a few seconds to get a complete waveform, from attack to end of decay; Mellotron tapes sounds instead are more repetitive and so easier to sample and loop also with shorter samples.

I even wonder if the original Mellotron tapes where recorded "one per note" or not and so they were also "stretched", anyone knows?

[Charlatan]

You can tell from the size of the samples (starting from 1 MB per voice), that these cannot be chromatic samples (each key sampled separately). This is usual business. Look at the information page of the piano library. Only the XL versions have "Fully mapped keyboard". And these samples are some 100 MB of size.

That doesn't mean much, when sampling an acounstic piano you have to record a few seconds to get a complete waveform, from attack to end of decay; Mellotron tapes sounds instead are more repetitive and so easier to sample and loop also with shorter samples.

I even wonder if the original Mellotron tapes where recorded "one per note" or not and so they were also "stretched", anyone knows?

As far as I understand, they auditioned the musicians, note for note, on their instruments. That's why stretching the samples of the mellotron is kind of a big deal, for authenticity's sake, there is some weird mojo/magic/glitch to each sample being quite unique, and it sounds like Nord kind of messed that up unfortunately, if they're stretching the master tapes to cover the samples they don't use.

[dhbp-nord]

Has this been actually verified by Nord, that they did not sample note for note? Has anyone actually asked them?

Where the Mellotron keyboard was only 3 octaves then yes by nature of the instrument, notes outside of that range would have had to have been extrapolated. A close listen to the Nord soundset should reveal if they sampled each note, you can usually easily tell when stretching has been used. I will load a couple up and have another listen.

DH

[dhbp-nord]

From the Nord site, just for our info, does not say anything about note for note (or lack thereof)

"Faithful recreation

The Nord Sample Library versions were made of the 63 most well known lead sounds from the Mellotron sound library, using super fresh tapes that were printed directly from the original masters. These tapes were then used in a brand new Mellotron mk VI, that uses new mechanics and state of the art technology, but original unused stock tape heads."

I will say it sounds like, to me, that the Master Tape Mellotron Collection was sampled by Nord at a much higher fidelity than the Mellotron itself was capable of, if you listen to the samples you can hear this. I expect all the Rhythms and Fills were only sampled at their original pitches as well.

DH