Secondly, here's the news.
We have wanted to get a store into M3000 for a while. Partly because Streetly have so many more tapes than we shipped with the original application, but also because we wanted to be able to open up a market for all-new 'artist' voice packages, exclusive to M3000, designed to enable expressive performance using the ABC control or MIDI mod wheel.
With the release of version 2.84 in April 2014 we have implemented the in-app Tape Store, and have pulled in some fabulous old Streetly tapes, and a single artist voice package, both of which have been very well-received.
One of the Streetly tapes is a sample set derived from Harry Chamberlin's original tape of 23 voices, featuring saxes, solo vocals, and the original '3 violins' tape which, after EQ and remastering became the classic M400 violins sound. The 'Harry' original is something else - much cleaner, much less 'mellotron' than the M400 version, and much more like a real string section.
And that got us thinking - if strings could be made to sound this good in 1951, imagine what we could do in 2014? Thus was the Clare Lindley Violin Collection born. Featuring Stackridge violinist and occasional vocalist/guitarist/ukulelist Clare Lindley, the recordings were done in a single 4-hour session in late March 2014 by Glenn Tommey (keyboard player with Stackridge). They were then edited and assembled over the next week into a collection of 10 individual voices. This collection is very much designed to be played, and features multiple solo and ensemble arco voices, with and without a gentle vibrato, plus pizzicato, tremolo and spiccato. Using the ABC control to fade between a set of 3 of these violin voices, selected to have different playing intensity and vibrato level, offers up a huge sonic palette than has not been available before on any 'mellotron', real or virtual.
Take a listen - below is a demo made by YouTube user 'pinstripedclips'. He has used the Clare Lindley Violin Collection to remarkable effect, layering 3 of the voices and manipulating ABC, then overlaying pizzicato and tremolo for dramatic effect. This demo was recorded entirely on an iPad - M3000 generates all the sounds, and Garageband provided the reverb and tape recording facility.