Arturia - Mellotron V

Tape-Based Orchestra Keyboard

Flutes, strings, brass, organs, choirs — if you wanted these sounds in the 1960s, the Mellotron was the only solution short of hiring section players.

Its unheard-of realism was infused with the quirks of each key playing a moving analog tape, creating a sound that went down in history with The Beatles, The Moody Blues, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, and countless others. Mellotron V brings that history, with every beautiful sonic imperfection, to your musical future.

Strawberry Fields, Everything Is Real

In the 1960s, sampling wasn’t yet even a fantasy. But what if you could cross a tape player with a musical instrument? That’s the Mellotron, and it literally rewrote the rules for what keyboards could do.

The idea was genius: a bank of tapes, one for each note, in a cabinet with a keyboard on it. Pressing a key pushes a play head onto the tape, triggering the recorded sound. Finicky? Very. Expensive? Half the price of a starter home in the UK in the ’60s. Perfect sound? Not even. But it captured musicians’ imaginations at the exact time rock music was going high-concept and welcoming artistic influences.

Discover the history of Mellotron

Nights in White Plywood

Purists will love Mellotron V’s authentic, uncluttered interface.

Unlike the synths and samplers that would come later, the Mellotron didn’t resemble the helm of a spaceship. We kept that look, but with deep FX power just a click away.

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The best of Both worlds

Mellotron V goes way beyond sampling to give you the most authentic, versatile, and straight-up usable emulation ever..

Faithful modeling

Our proprietary technology reproduces the electro-acoustic behavior of the original Mellotron at component level. The reason it sounds so recognizable is because we reverse-engineered the actual tape system, right down to the transport and tape heads. That means you can even dial in the amount of tape flutter, tape saturation and mechanical noise you want, along with the beautifully crisp preamp and electronics that perfected its classic sound.

World-class sampling

No expense was spared seeking out mint Mellotrons and tapes, including the M400 production unit and all its predecessors. With the finest sampling technology, those timeless sounds have been translated and preserved digitally with Mellotron V - now they’re yours to craft your own musical music with.

And then some

Load any instrument sounds you want from the built-in library into the three tape tracks in whatever combination you want. Dial in a mix of any two adjacent tracks, or use the mod wheel to perform crossfades across all three. Effortlessly set up splits and layers complete with multiple instruments on each track. Whether in the studio or on stage, Mellotron V perfectly balances the original’s coveted character with the cutting-edge flexibility your creative flow deserves.

Mega ’Tron

In addition to FX, we added the kind of high-key control over your sound that no hardware Mellotron ever offered.

The Advanced panel lets you dial in exactly as much lo-fi tape character as you want, manage and edit samples, and more.

Hear it in action

Let these demos from talented and creative souls in the Arturia community take you down to days of future passed. They’re just the beginning of where Mellotron V can go.

Artists corner

Included in
V collection

Legendary Keyboards Reinvented

This instrument is also part of the V Collection -your complete dream line-up of the legendary synths, organs, pianos and more that made keyboard history. They’re modeled with the most advanced technologies for authentic realism, and enhanced with new creative options. Whether you use it as DAW plugins in the studio or standalone at gigs, V Collection puts the greatest keys of all time at your fingertips for instant inspiration.

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Mellotron® is a registered trademark of Mellotron.com

is a registered trademark of Mellotron Inc.

All manufacturer and product names mentioned on this page are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Arturia. The trademarks of other manufacturers are used solely to identify the products of those manufacturers whose features and sound were studied during the development. All names of equipment, inventors, and manufacturers have been included for illustrative and educational purposes only, and do not suggest any affiliation or endorsement by any equipment inventor or manufacturer.