Alex Ball Artist Expansion

Descriptions by Alex Ball

Double Bass
This is an instrument I acquired from a local ad about 7 years ago. I’m told it was built by a student who was learning from an experienced luther, but with no labelling anywhere, it’s difficult to know where it came from. It has a lovely boomy acoustic bass sound that translates to the M-Tron Pro very nicely.

Electronic Bass
A very quirky old sound from a 70s Crumar Multiman-S (more on this instrument below). Perfect for those lo-fi productions or for the sound of long forgotten electronic dreams.

Balalaika
I got this balalaika from a bric-a-brac shop in about 2010. The shop owner had seen it hanging on the wall of a plumbing or electrician’s merchant (I forget which) where it had been for goodness knows how long. I bought it for about £10 I think. It sounds unashamedly and wonderfully Eastern European and some years back I used it for a job that announced the opening of an advertising agency’s Russian office. True story.

Banjo
Ah, old twangy! I got this for my 30th birthday whilst I was on an exploration of guitar-ish instruments that I could get stuck into. The re-entrant tuning is faithfully captured, in case you were wondering why it starts high and then drops back down an octave.

Baritone Acoustic
Baritone guitars are one of my (not-so) secret weapons, being halfway between guitar and bass. This acoustic was purchased on Denmark Street in London about 8 years ago and I’ve used it to death and back. As there wasn’t a Mellotron baritone guitar (that I knew of) I thought this was a no-brainer.

Nylon Guitar
A genuine 1960s classical guitar made by Besson. It belonged to my mother-in-law who was gifted it as a teenager. It has a beautiful action, intonation and tone and I’m rather fond of it. Sounds gorgeous on the M-Tron Pro.

Tremolo Guitar
An acoustic guitar I’ve had since I was a teenager played with a tremolo picking style. This was as a variation to other ‘normal’ acoustic guitars that already exist in the Mellotron tapes.

Ukulele
Always fun, the Hawaiian plucker. Back in the mid 00s there was a (horrendous) fashion for uke covers of songs in adverts and as that was my main line of work, a uke was a must. I now have a strong aversion to such use of ukes (shudders) and prefer employing them in unusual ways. Therefore, converting one to Mellotron format was a nice outlet.

Baritone Electric
A Dan Electro baritone electric I bought about 10 years ago with hopes of being Duane Eddy. It’s actually incredibly versatile and great for metal where you are already down tuned before you even start. The M-Tron Pro version is more Duane Eddy than Eddie Van Halen.

Twang Guitar
As electric guitars are already covered in the old tapes, I decided to run mine through an obscure Evans tape delay for a bit of slap combined with a twangy playing style. The tape misbehaves slightly, so the sound is nice and wonky. Think late 1950s/early 60s.

Piano
A beautiful Yamaha U3 recorded in mono for the M-Tron Pro library. The effect is very 70s sounding and with some ensemble, even more so.

Clavinet
I had GForce’s Clav D6 on loan for this project and so thought it would make a nice instrument in the pack. As well as working great on its own, it is fantastic for combining with other instruments for multi patches with that plucky attack sound.

Fast Funk – Tape
Oh boy, this was fun. Drums, bass, guitars, clav and synth all recorded for a new set of rhythms following the weird (but logical) Mellotron paradigm. I absolutely adore the rhythms in the original Mellotron banks and couldn’t resist chucking a couple into this library. This version has been recorded to tape and then run through the Streetly Electronics ‘Skeletron’

Fast Funk – Speaker
As above, but re-recorded through the Mellotron MkII speaker for a super lo-fi sound.

Way Out West – Tape
Somewhere buried inside me is a wannabe cowboy. These are a series of Country and Western style rhythms with drums (played with brushes), bass, acoustic, electric and baritone guitars. Yeehaw! As per the Fast Funk Rhythms and Accompaniments, this was recorded to tape and then run through the Streetly Electronics ‘Skeletron’ for the authentic tron sound.

Way Out West – Speaker
As above, but re-recorded through the Mellotron MkII speaker for a super lo-fi sound. All rhythms and accompaniments adhere to a specific key

Violins Pizz
I’d not heard violins playing pizz on the Mellotron before, so I thought I’d create that myself. This was a fake Steiner violin I acquired many years ago.

Violas Pizz
As with the violins, I don’t know of any viola pizz articulations for the Mellotron, so I created a patch. These are from a viola I bought about 10 years ago in London. If you run these at 1⁄2 speed in the M-Tron Pro plugin they give you a whole other sound too.

Violins Bow
Violin sustains, a staple of the Mellotron sound. As the originals have been used so broadly, here’s some fresh ones!

Violas Bow
Viola sustains, as with the violins, it’s nice to have some new ones to mix with the classics.

Analogue Drums
These come from all sorts of 70s and early 80s rhythm machines that I sampled. They’re mainly Roland and Korg. I love the character of these and they are ideal for little accompaniments, but they can be pretty punchy in their own right.

Drum Synths
All sorts of weird and wonderful things here. The Musicaid Simmons SDS-3 was found by a friend in the loft of a school he was temping in. He sent me a picture (as he saw the word “Synthesizer” on the rear) and asked if I knew what it was. I nearly fell off my chair. It was, of course, dead, having been sitting there for decades, but they let me take it to see if we could resurrect it. My tech was indeed able to do just that as there was nothing too scary inside (hoorah for discrete electronics). I wound up buying it from the school, which was a win-win for everyone.

The other units used for these sounds were an Ult Sound DS-4 and a Pollard Syndrum I had on loan (the latter is the one used on “Baker Street” for that sound).

System 100M
One of the best synthesizers of all time in my opinion. Over many years and with an awful lot of help, luck and sacrifice I now have the entire thing. This is quite a simple patch for MTron purposes with a nice late 70s / early 80s bass sound that’s very vibey.

Voice Spectra
Another rare gem I grabbed a few years back, the Seeker’s Voice Spectra vocoder. They’re difficult to find and seem to originate from Japan in the late 90s. I’ve had a number of requests from people to buy mine, but it’s always a “no” from me as I won’t be able to get another. As a compromise, here’s a nice patch of my voice and a synth running through the analogue vocoder that has been tronned for a vintage tone. Think ELO.

Multiman S
Another one of my (not-so) secret weapons, the Crumar Multiman-S. Funny story, the previous owner had agreed to the sale and I needed to go and pick it up. On the day our third son was born I had to leave the hospital promptly after the birth due to Covid restrictions. As said owner is a friend who lives near the hospital, I’d parked on their drive and when I stumbled out of the hospital in a daze, they popped out as I returned to the car and handed me the Multiman which weighs an absolute ton. When I returned home to my mother-in-law who was looking after our other two, she came out to hear all about it and was quite surprised to see me come through the door dragging a synth before I went and dropped on the bed.

A couple of weeks later I fired it up and was blown away. It’s absolutely beautiful. Here’s some combined strings and brass from said instrument.

Synth Tremolo
System 100m with LFOs on the VCAs for a tremolo effect. This blends great with other patches.

Chime
The old Yamaha DX7 chime. A classic from the 80s, now taken back to the 60s because…why not?