Tony Lambley writes: > Back in the 80's people were using the Synclavier for audio on video > productions. I know they were serious beasts, but I doubt they would have > kept all that data in RAM. The latter Fairlights were probably similar. > Anyone have any first hand experience of them? Maybe they're the prior-art > people are looking for? May be the Mellotron was implementing read-ahead > too!
I don't know what technology Synclavier used, but Mellotron wasn't digital at all. It used strips of magnetic tape; when you pressed a key it pressed the appropriate idler wheel against one of the tape strips, which dragged it under a read head. Then when you released the key a weight pulled the tape back to its original position. That's right, you couldn't hold a note for longer than eight seconds -- that's how long the tape was. Dr. Who's foley work was mostly (I've read ``completely'' but I simply don't believe *that*) done with a Mellotron. Good grief -- getting ready to post this, I discover they're back in production. http://www.mellotron.com/ -- Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605 Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002 New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer Southwestern NM Regional Science and Engr Fair: http://www.nmsu.edu/~scifair
