Sound library MANIKIN ELECTRONIC Vintage Collection 4

This time the focus was on very scarce Tron sounds that were never released in any other library before. Besides some unique custom noises, you will also find rather interesting 60s/70s sounds that perfectly suit the Tron’s environment.

Again the Memotron fulfils all your demands for those lovely ‘vintage’ sounds of the past. To achieve the highest possible authenticity, the sounds of this collection show all the genuine artefacts of the original tapes, like wow and flutter or slightly unstable pitch and levels.

Our cordial thanks go to Jurgen aus dem Moore for the excellent strings of the ‘New 3 Violins’, to Klaus Hoffmann-Hoock for his ‘Russian Choir’ and to Christophe Schwarz for the ‘Vox Organ’- and ‘Electric Piano Bass’-recordings.

New 3 Violins

Combined with an optional Tape Conversion Set’ only the M 400-Tron provided the possibility to play back personal recordings (on lU inch tape). Though the threading into a tape frame was often a tedious job, it did not hinder some studios and certain sound nerds from creating their own sounds for the Tron. Certainly the ‘New 3 Violins’ belong to the cream of the crop of non-library custom sounds and can effectively be merged with all other strings.

Combined Brass

At the end of its career, when the Tron had to fight hard against the rising polyphonic synths, ‘Combined Brass’ came out as one sound on the last official Nova tron tape frame # 43. Like with his other rather powerful and special blends, ‘Mr Tron’ (Les Bradley) must have had some Oberheim or Moog sounds in mind when he mixed ‘Midi Brass’ with a fat synth bass and who knows what else to concoct a massive brass wall of sound.

Jangle Piano

Do you remember those days when every new synth necessarily had to have a piano preset? In this regard the Tron was no exception. In all its predecessors a piano could be found but for the M 400 no piano recording was officially available, so we were surprised to discover the Jangle Piano’ on an M 400 tape frame. Reminding us of John Lennon’s home piano, rather exciting results can be achieved using it solo or in combinations.

M 300 Flute

In 1966 David Fouracre succeeded in recording this lovely and expressive new flute for the soon to be released smaller M 300 Tron. While many of the Mkl and II recordings had to be made in haste and under time pressure, this time the conditions (and results) were apparently a lot better.

Electric Piano Bass

It was in 1963 when the guitar builder Leo Fender and the inventor Harold Rhodes released the first result of their early cooperation, a rather scarce keyboard instrument. Similar to the later e-piano, it generated its deep gui-tarbass-like sounds out of metal tines and was intended to be mounted on a stand or placed on top of a piano or an organ. The Doors’ Ray Manzarek played the Piano Bass with his left hand while his right operated the Vox organ creating world hits like ‘Light my fire’ or ‘When the music’s over’.

Vox Super Continental Organ

In 1966 the British double manual and drawbars equipped Vox Super Continental organ was released and superseded the most successful Sixties organ, the single manual Continental 1. Soundwise those modern, all-transistorised Vox organs were the absolute beat and rock instruments. Artists like The Animals (‘House of the rising sun’), the Beatles, the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones, Them, the Zombies, Manfred Mann, the Dave Clark Five, the Boomtown Rats, Madness or Elvis Costello proved how hot and inspiring those ‘cheesy’ organs can be.

Only sixty were ever sold, so the M 300 was a commercial flop. Except the melancholic strings none of its well recorded new instruments came to fame. It is, therefore, no surprise that this nice recording of a Hammond organ, played with vibrato over a slowly spinning Leslie cabinet, sadly never appeared on any known records.

Russian Choir

A mixed, rather vigorous choir that even surpasses the famous ‘Genesis 8 Choir’. Combining per key seven sonorous male voices with three vibrant female voices, this custom noise chimes so ‘Russian’, creating visions of a snowy Kremlin and a wintry Red Square, that it was called ‘Russian Choir’ when it was added some years ago to Streetly Electronics’ official Tron-library. Na Sdorowje!

Trombone

Manfred Mann’s 1966 ,Ha ha said the clown’ (after all the first big Tron hit) introduced the Mkl’s and Midi’s ‘Trombone’ to the world. Presumably it was George Chisholm again who had played this brass sound for the Tron. Besides the ‘Trumpet’ and the ‘Saxophone’ being one part of the famed ‘Brass’, the ‘Trombone’ found its most prominent use (next to ‘Muted Brass’ and ‘Mandolin’) in the final part of the Beatles’ White Album song ‘The continuing story of Bungalow Bill’ and in the Kinks’ ‘Autumn Almanac’.

Trumpet

Interestingly enough the ‘Trumpet’ was never released as a solo instrument in the Tron library. Instead only artificial trumpet sounds were featured as Trumpet (Synthesised)’. Maybe it had to do with the fashion of the time that customers preferred Moogtrumpets to the real thing. But we find that this rare trumpet recording works very well as a solo instrument or in combinations creating nice textures and moods.

Sound Effects

Besides all their instrumental recordings, the first Trons came along with some effects (like applause) for the entertainment of the audience. To simplify the process of overdubbing effects on its radio plays and jingles, the BBC ordered special Mklls that were filled with 1260 effect noises from the vast BBC sound library. Our ‘Sound Effects’ offer a selection of these original noises and effects that found their way into the Tron.
Sounds: Klaus Hoffmann-Hoock