Mel 9

[Caesar]

Anyone try out he Mel 9? I do so like the mellotron. Should I just suck it up and buy a synth or is fun enough for a guitar player to explore?

[ck3]

The Mel9 is loads of fun, though the main reason I own one is Amazon sending the wrong item when I ordered a 720 Looper. Mine doesn't always boot properly and sometimes has to be power cycled. A few of the presets are a tinge hokey, but I'm continually amazed at the sounds and textures it can produce. The ability to blend the dry and effected signals allows for all sorts of amazing layering options. I tend to mostly gravitate toward the orchestra, strings, flute, saxophone, and low choir presets, the last of which can sound downright evil when blended with fuzzy doom riffing.

[kralc]

Don't know if you have any computer stuff going ie: Kontakt, but if you do here are some lovely free samples that get a lot of use for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JLzJDb ... tronsonics

[hotknife]

Expensive piece of kit just for the mellotron. If you really want one, I'd grab it on a Black Friday sale. Luckily, most of the other sounds are quite good too. So, yes, lots of fun to be had. I liked feeding the various string presets into random filters.

[echorec]

I use one with synths. If you're going to use a guitar, then you might want to use it with a compressor and/or an octave/harmonizer box. It will trigger more consistently that way.

The sounds are quite good, if you like psychedelic or experimental sounds. A couple of the sounds are a bit overdone---like a cassette recording being played inside a barrel. It seems they tried too hard to get it to sound gritty and lo-fi, thus they added too much processing and chorusing. Overall I like mine, and I've considered getting a second one, so that I could trigger 2 different banks at once.

[echorec]

Should I just suck it up and buy a synth or is fun enough for a guitar player to explore?

If you've got $200 to spend and want synth sounds, buy a JU-06. You could get an open box unit in 10/10 condition for $195-220. I think I paid around $206 for a returned JU-06 in mint shape. (strings, pads, 80s analog-like textures)

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