12. APPENdIX
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Description of Program categories
ACOUSTIC Sounds with an acoustic character like ac-
cordion, ethnic sounds, mallets etc. doesn’t
necessarily have to be emulations of exist-
ing instruments.
BASS
All sorts of bass sounds.
drUM
drum and percussion sounds.
FANTASY
Melodic effects sounds and textures, often
with rhythmic modulations.
FX
Atonal effects sounds like water, laser guns,
explosions etc. Sometimes with heavy
modulations.
LEAd
Sounds meant for the soaring lead lines.
Monophonic sounds and also lead “chord
memory” sounds.
OrGAN
different types of organ sounds.
PAd
Melodic polyphonic “chord” sounds with
fairy slow attacks.
PIANO
Piano type sounds like rhodes and Wurlitzer
emulations and also sampled and FM based
pianos.
PLUCK
Sounds with a fast attack like guitar, synths
- anything that reacts really quick when you
hit a key.
STrINGS
Strings and string section sounds.
SYNTh
All sorts of melodic polyphonic synth
sounds .
VOCAL
Sample Instruments or synthesized sounds
with a distinct vocal character.
WINd
Wood wind and brass instruments.
USEr1
The User categories are meant for your own
categorization purposes.
USEr2
USEr3
Mellotron Sound Library
Some of the Sample Instruments in the Nord Wave Flash
memory comes from the legendary Mellotron, a classic
keyboard instrument that changed the music history. We
are very proud to be able to incorporate the first part of the
Mellotron Soundbank for the Nord Wave.
Please visit our website at www.clavia.se for further news
on the release of additional sound banks for the Nord
Wave.
What about those sounds?
The original sounds from the various Mellotron models
could be called the very first sample library, before anyone
even knew what these words were going to mean. These
sounds have a very distinct and wonderful quality to them
- earthy, organic and different are words that come to
mind.
The sounds in the Nord Wave library originates from the
master tapes that Clavia has licensed. These tapes were
then used to create original soundbanks for a brand new
Mellotron, manufactured with modern tape heads, cap-
stans, electronics etc. And from this brand new, exquisite
instrument, the sounds were recorded using state of the
art technology.
After many hours of editing and looping with the Nord
Wave Manager, the samples finally made it to a Nord Wave,
and then to this Cd.
The idea of using the vintage master tapes instead of
sampling a vintage instrument is to faithfully recreate the
original sounds the way they used to be, and is a natural
step in Clavia’s long striving effort to make the sounds of
classic keyboard instruments available to keyboard players
once again.
Condensed Mellotron Story
Tape replay keyboard instruments were invented in the late
1950’s by harry Chamberlin. In the early 1960’s one of his
employees took a Chamberlin Musicmaster 600 (a dual-
manual machine with 36 sounds) to the UK. This became
the blueprint of the Mellotron MkI. It had the same basic
layout as the Chamberlin 600 with 2 manuals, the left one
having rhythm tracks to be played as a background, and
the right one having lead sounds like strings, flute and lots
of organ sounds.
It was basically intended to be a home organ, like a home
entertainment center where someone without music skills
could sound like an orchestra. Unfortunately it was very
hard to play rhythms like that, even for trained musicians,
and together with some technical flaws and bad engineer-
ing it wasn’t too much of a success - many of the first series
of instruments had to be taken back to the factory and
upgraded from MkI to MkII. Luckily young and creative
professional musicians had become interested in the Mel-
lotron, and the MkII became extremely popular amongst
pop/rock groups in the late 1960’s: Manfred Mann, Beatles,
rolling Stones, Moody Blues, King Crimson and others.
12.
Appendix
