A big hand for the MELLOTRON !!

“I must have been 11 or 12 years old when I first heard the Mellotron. I had founded a playback trio in order to imitate my heroes from the TV. We made our own instruments out of wood during the handicraft lessons at school: a drum kit, a guitar and a keyboard. Our setlist included only a few songs that a fellow band member had on a vinyl single so we could  rehearse these songs in the sporting hall. I remember Black Is Black by Los Bravos and Ha Ha Said The Clown by Manfred Mann, playing the flute sound on .. the Mellotron I discovered later. My musical taste gradually turned from pop and glamrock to hardrock and eventually progressive rock. Genesis Live was the first progrock album that really touched me, until then I hated the complex structures and endless soli! But Genesis Live delighted me: melodic and dramatic music with powerful guitar work and, last but not least, the majestic and bombastic keyboard parts impressed me like thee intro in Watcher Of The Skies, great blend of Mellotron and Hammond organ. I am sure that after listening to Genesis Live, I soon started to check out and discover progrock and to appreciate keyboards. It turned out that especially the Mellotron evoked a lot of pleasant feelings and emotion. More and more I succeeded to recognize the sound of the Mellotron on records and every time I got more excited about that: from Grendel by Marillion and Tears by Rush to Halo Of Flies by Alice Cooper or even If You Go Away by Terry Jacks! The discovery of the ‘vintage keyboard’ drenched Italian – and Japanese prog carried me away to Mellotron Heaven with bands like Le Orme, PFM and Museo Rosenbach from Italy and Gerard, Ars Nova and Cosmos Factory from Japan. Then bands like Lift, Ethos, Neuschwanstein, Triumvirat, Halloween, Sandrose, Trace, Barclay James Harvest, Strawbs and more recently Willowglass, Maldoror, Red Sand, Like Wendy and again that prolific progrock country Italy with Finisterre, Ubi Maior and La Maschera Di Cera, to name a few! Although I play guitar, playing on a real Mellotron has always been my ultimate progrock dream. A few years ago I visited Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) at his home for an interview, there I was allowed to play on his EMU vintage keyboards featuring amazing choir-Mellotron samples. But still there was my wish to touch the real Mighty Tron,  a few months ago I finally succeeded: a friend who plays synthesizers had met a proghead on a concert who owns a real Mellotron. He could hardly play but he is a Tronmaniac and had purchased it for free because a band was fed up with the eternal technical problems.

 

 

This article is written as a blend of information and a way to get in touch with fellow Tronmaniacs, like in my thread A Big Hand For The Mellotron from last year. In that thread I got lots of fine and enthousiastic reactions from fellow Tronmaniacs and specialists like Pierreolivier and Jim Garten. Unfortunately it is kept in the vaults of Prog Archives (I found it on page #23 in the Prog Music Lounge...), I hope it will be safe in this thread. As I said before: “a big hand for the Mellotron!”, the unsurpassed ‘archaic’ keyboard that still manages to generate so many pleasant feelings and emotions.”

                                 Chapter 1:

Popular music and its culture has given us many famous instrument innovations. The electric guitar, the Rhodes Piano and the synthesizer quickly come to mind . Our capacity for invention seems at times to be limitless when a problem stands between us and our artistic vision. One problem facing all musicians at one time or another is the matter of artistic control and the ability to realize a sound without having the facility to play the instrument responsible for that sound. Multi-track recording gave a single musician the ability to manipulate time by overdubbing a performance to create a multi instrument piece of music but, he still was faced with learning and playing those instruments himself. A major driving force for today's music industry, to be sure.

In 1946, a clever man named Harry Chamberlin saw a solution to this problem. One day, while playing his home organ, Harry got out a portable tape recorder to record his playing for some friends. After having made the recording, the BIG IDEA struck him. He thought, “if I can make a recording of myself playing, why not build a machine that plays recordings of these (and any other) sounds?” Harry had seen the first sampler that has culminated to date in the machine that you, dear reader, are about to load these sounds into. Full circle.

According to Harry's son Richard, Harry's first machine was the model 100 Rhythmate. This machine had 14 loops of drum patterns and was aimed at the home organ market. Pleased with the success of this machine, he then built a shop in Upland Ca. and began production of the Model 200 keyboard.This instrument used quarter inch full track tape and the first version of his multi station tape changing system. Oddly, this machine also had a steel subframe that was soon abandoned with the design of the 300/350 series. The lack of a subframe was the major design flaw in all of Harry's subsequent models up to the M series. It's the first thing that the Bradley Bros. would add to this design in producing their first Mellotron. Harry then built the remotely operated Model 300/350 (two separate cabinets) and the organ style cabinet Model 600/660 Music Master. These machines used 3/8ths in. tape and had thirty five keys, G to F. Harry felt that this range was enough to cover the useable range of most instruments and still left room in the cabinet for another 35 note keyboard that had “combo” rhythm tapes and special sound effects. The 3/8ths in. tape afforded him more sounds and a proprietary tape format that insured replacement tape sales. This was a largely successful design and in 1960 Harry set up a new shop in Ontario California to build and sell these instruments. After a period of time Harry hired a man named Bill Fransen as a salesman (something Bill was very good at) to help him increase his sales. Bill did this, but there were problems: Harry’s inability to keep up with the orders and the basic unreliability of the mechanism. There were six banks of tape in each keyboard that were scrolled from “station” to "station" thereby giving the player a different set of 3 sounds to choose from. His method for stopping this scrolling had about a 40 % failure rate and caused tape disasters few have ever seen the likes of. Also, the replay heads he used were unmatched, producing a very uneven play back from key to key. Nine months later, Bill concluded that even though Harry's wonderful keyboard was sound in principle, he was never going to fix the problems that continued to plague the tape shuttling system. Believing that the idea was to good to be left alone, Bill "appropriated" two of Harry's Model 600 Music Masters and took them to England to try and find someone with the engineering and manufacturing talent to bring this idea to fruition. While looking for this talent in Birmingham, Bill contacted Leslie Bradley of Bradmatic Ltd. and asked if they could supply a set of 70 matched replay heads. Les consulted with his brothers Frank and Norman and replied that they could indeed do this. The brothers were very curious about this strange request ( Frank rightly guessed that they must be for some sort of music machine) and inquired further.The Brothers were impressed when Bill showed them how their 70 replay heads were being used and when asked by Bill if they could improve upon and mass produce this machine, they gave him an enthusiastic “yes”. It should be stated here that the Bradleys at this point believed the idea to Bill's and they had no reason to believe that they were infringing on someone else's patent or intellectual property. This all came to light a year later after Harry got wind of it and hot footed it to England. Boy, was he mad. When the dust settled, Harry agreed to sell the technology to the Bradleys for a sum of 30,000.00 in 1966. Harry reluctantly shook Bill’s hand and went back home to continue his own path of development that culminated in the Chamberlin M series of the 1970’s. Harry did some master tape trading with the Bradleys and some of Harry’s masters ended up with the Bradleys.They are now a part of the Mellotron Archives collection that this CD ROM was made from. The Bradley Brothers, Orchestra leader Eric Robinson and magician David Nixon were all partners in Mellotronics, the company set up to handle sales and distribution of the Mellotron. The brothers then renamed their manufacturing outfit Streetly Electronics and proceeded to build Mellotrons and recording tapes for them. This tape recording process was a daunting task. Consider this: For the rhythm side they need thirty five tape recordings of a rhythm section playing in time, in tune and each tape had three of these recordings across the 3/8ths in. tape that had to start at the same time. Multiply this times the six “stations” that were selectable, involve stretching tape, and the fact that it’s 1963. No digital editing. No synchronized tape lock. Just a lot of head scratching and a stubborn will to make it work. It took three months for them to record the first set of Mk II rhythms and fills. The leads sets were next to be recorded because Harry’s leads were not in tune with the Bradley produced Rhythms, remember, one capstan drives both sides of the machine. Once this was done, they went into business and did quite well. A number of rock groups, the Beatles, Stones, Kinks etc.. helped make the instrument more visible and a young Brumey lad named Mike Pinder went to work for Streetly. Michael's job there was to play the finished Mellotron at the end of the assembly line and make any final adjustments before it was sent to the customer. He fell in love with the sound and decided that it would be an ideal addition to his new group the Moody Blues.

Mike's Notes: Speaking of Mellotron Flutes, I got to know John, Paul, George and Ringo over the years and I introduced them to the 'tron. They all said, "Hullo-wer vury pleased tuh meet yuh!" Within a week all four of them had a Fab-Tron. I knew that I would be rewarded, and the first time I heard "Strawberry Fields," I was in bliss. It was the closest thing to recording with them, other than my visits to Abbey Road during their recording sessions. I did get to breathe on Magical Mystery Tour, though, I was only six feet away from the vocal mike during "Roll Up! Roll Up!" Later on I played electric guitar with John at his home as we worked together on some of his material prior to he Imagine sessions. I was going to play mellotron on one of the sessions; however, the tapes in John's 'tron looked like a bowl of spaghetti. It was a hopeless mess. So, I grabbed a tambourine instead and played my socks off on "I Don't Want to be a Soldier Momma," the last track on the Imagine album.

I was always happy that the guys bought 'trons and I'll always be proud of my small part in influencing the greatest band in the world.”

Leslie Bradley helped Michael purchase a used Mk II and the group promptly used it to record their hit single “Love and Beauty”. Soon thereafter the Beatles cut Strawberry Fields Forever. The Mellotron sound was on it way to becoming a sonic archetype in our Pop music consciousness. The development paths taken by Harry Chamberlin and the Bradley Brothers went in two different directions. They both knew they needed to improve reliability, portability and make a larger choice of instrument sounds available. Harry abandoned the multiple “station” idea of shuttling the three track tape for new sound selections and instead changed to 1/2 inch eight track tape with stereo playback capability. This was the M series. The M-1 was a single 35 note keyboard. The M-2 (or M-1D as it was originally called) had two keyboards with a 25 note keyboard being added to the left of the 35 note one.

Mike's Notes: I demonstrated to the unions how I was using the 'tron with lead sounds on both keyboards and no rhythm or fills. This broke their argument that I, and others, would be putting musicians out of work. Over the years I gave lots of feed back to the good folks at mellotron - especially about "coming up with some kind of cassette mechanism for the tapes," which I considered to be the weakest link - it was usually the cause of 99% of the breakdowns I suffered through on stage. I had also visited with Harry Chamberlin and purchased a couple of his machines which had a superior method of tape-return. Finally, the model 400 came along with its tape-cassette. I did not use this model, though. It was too small for my stage needs, and I felt that the sound quality was not acceptable. However it was the break the Bradleys had been waiting for. I suggested placing two cassettes in a MK2 size cabinet and voila! the MK5 The Pindertron was born complete with Transistor pre-amps, DC motors, stereo-line-out jacks, earphone-jack plus the top of the cabinet was flat -- just like the MK2s I had flipped the lids on -- and no loudspeakers to boot! Having moved to California in 1974, I returned to England for a visit in summer 1975. I was trying to get the band to do an album, but the response was so weak I returned to California with my two new MK5 Mellotrons and began work on my solo album The Promise. My MK2s were dispersed among many budding Mellotronists -- including The Beach Boys. The MK300 disappeared I know not where. I lost one of the MK5s in the Malibu fire of 1983 up at my Indigo Ranch, and the other one I later relinquished along with all of my spare parts to Dave Kean for his collection. The MK5 was the closest to my own personal vision of a mechanical 'tron. I spent many a day in love with my 'trons...but it was the soul/sound within the machines that I loved!! In 1976 I held a 256K Digital memory chip in my hand and I saw the future....again. I still play the Mellotron, and when I do it never breaks down because I have all of the sounds stored in my digital Samplers. I would have given almost anything to have this equipment when I needed it, and there were plenty of times it would have saved the day....remember?”

The M-4 had 4 keyboards and the Riviera Model 800 had two M-2 style units in one cabinet and a fifth foot operated 25 note unit. This last machine was Harry’s crowning achievement and is now owned by Mellotron Archives. Richard Chamberlin remembers only 2 of these units being built 4 M-4's and 5 of the M-2’s seeing the light of day. The production numbers for the M-1’s suggest between 100 and 300 units being produced between 1970 and 1981 and is arguably the best sounding instrument of this type. The Mellotron evolved in a much different way. After many calls to make the Mk II more portable, the Bradleys designed and built the Model 300 Mellotron. This unit (the oddest of the bunch) hints at the direction that would lead to the M400. The 300 had one 52 note keyboard, quarter inch tape and no pitch control! Only the first few had this much missed feature. Imagine.... a Mellotron that one couldn’t tune. The tape library was completely redone for this instrument but only 160 units were made. They realized quickly that even though the 300 was a much slimmer version of the huge Mk II, it still wasn’t portable enough and the sounds available still didn’t satisfy the thirst for more variety. To satisfy this demand the Brothers also abandoned the multi station platform but retained the proprietary 3/8 inch tape format. They then developed a removable tape frame or “cassette” and expanded the original Mk II library to include another 16 new instruments. The new instrument designed to use these new tape frames was the ever famous M400. One couldn’t go to a progressive rock concert in the 70’s without seeing that unmistakable profile. It was also usually the only white keyboard on the stage. At 122 lbs. the littlest Mellotron sold over 1800 units and was the only design that came close to being a marketing success. Why was the Mellotron more popular than the Chamberlin? A couple of reasons. Firstly, the Bradley Brothers were geniuses in their time at constructing many pieces and assembling the finished product, therefore, in the time it took Harry to build one Chamberlin, the Bradleys built a dozen Mellotrons with standardized parts and adjustment procedures. Secondly, the English groups had our attention at that time and they were using English instruments. In 1977, Mellotronics was approached by Bill Eberline of Dallas Musical Instruments of Mahwah, New Jersey to act as worldwide distributors for Mellotron. This was done and sales did pick up for a time, but other products picked up by D.M.I. were not doing so well and the company finally collapsed taking Mellotronics with them. Streetly Electronics barely survived this collapse and continued to build Mellotrons. Ironically, they had to change the name to Novatron because Bill Eberline “managed” to buy the name Mellotron in all of the legal wrangling that ensued. Bill then formed a company called Sound Sales to sell xtrons and tapes. This led to an unusual situation: Streetly would build a tron, call it a Novatron and sell it to you for 3500.00 where as Sound Sales would take shipment of that same machine, call it a Mellotron and charge you 4500.00 for it. Get the picture? Streetly went out of business in 1987 after heroically bucking the synthesizers domination of the market for 4 or 5 years. The end of this story is in your hands. Mellotron Archives bought the Bradley Brothers master tape collection of Mellotron and Chamberlin sounds and the Mellotron Digital collection that descended from Mellotronics in London. This collection of tapes and instruments was the source for this C.D. ROM. The sounds are exact recordings of Mellotrons and Chamberlins right down to the pressure pad contacting the tape head for 7 seconds. (These are the last sounds on earth that need to be destroyed by looping). All 35 notes were sampled from the most well maintained Mellotrons and Chamberlins on the planet. The renewed popularity of these sounds deserves an accurate volume like this one and we hope you can enjoy them without worrying about fouling a tape.

                                 Chapter 2:

A Mellotron is a tape replay keyboard. This means that under every key is a length of magnetic tape that is moved past a playback head whenever that key is pressed. Each piece of tape has a sound (for example a sustained flute note) whose pitch corresponds with the note that it is under. After a key has been pressed and then released, the tape is pulled quickly back to its starting position by a spring. Since each sound is produced by a linear piece of tape rather than an endless loop, the sound can faithfully reproduce the attack phase and then the decay phase of a percussive instrument such as a piano.

While the designer's goal was probably to make it sound exactly like the original instrument that was recorded, the quality of a Mellotron's sound is, perhaps accidentally, distinctly its own. It has been called a 'mutant organ' and its sound is often described as moody and warm. It gives a song a haunting, lonely quality.

 

 

 

                                Chapter 3: 

* Mark I (1963) : Earliest Mellotron with two 35-note keyboards side by side. Basically a Chamberlin Musicmaster model but with an internal frame. Styled as a  smart piece of mahogany furniture, weighing at about 140 kg!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Mark  II  (1964) : Revised Mark I model with minor transport and electronics improvements. Most in mahogany but later also some in blond and black with gold escutcheons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* M300 (1968) : 52-note single manual model with six sound banks on two-track quarter-inch tape and a Hammond organ reverb. Lots of new recordings, from Spanish guitar to celeste and harpsichord. Lots of reliability problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* M400 (1970) : 35-note single manual model with one sound bank on three-track tape. Far simpler but more reliable than the M300. Many new sounds like choirs, church-organ, brass, ‘vintage keyboards (Minimoog, Rhodes electric piano, Hohner clavinet) and great violins. Most commercial successfull model, at about 2000 were made.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Mark V  (1975) : Double manual model, virtually a double M400 with the addition of reverb and two volume pedals. Only 28 were made…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                   Chapter 4:

                   'Quotes’ from known musicians who

                           played on the Mellotron.

 

To be clear, these are excerpts from this book:

 

Mike Pinder (The Moody Blues)

“For me a part of the revelation of the Mellotron was to put my hands on a keyboard that allowed me to get very close, in a sense, to things I was hearing in my head. And that right there was quite an incredible thing because the people who had had that kind of privelege were people like Beethoven, Bach and other great guys woho could hear everything and were able to write it down and, hence, what we have now. I thni that in a small way, someone who didn’t have that kind of musical background or talent could still experss themselves muscially, albeit a limited expression compared with a real orchestra. The whole idea of being able to make orechestrations wiith real instruments sounds was absolutely fantastic to me.”

“We went to a gig in a house were Mr. And Mrs. Smith had just put on the electric ovens to cook their husbands dinner. This effected the voltage in the house and soon the motor of the Mellotron slowed down and the Mellotron went out of tune. A lot of times I had to actually be tuning with my left hand while I was playing things with my right hand. This was one of the limitations of the Mellotron...”

“I must admit that I cannot include the M400 in the family of Trons in terms of it sounding like a Mellotron and performing like a Mellotron. The M400 is somehow a black-and-white photograph of a colorful Mellotron; it just has no color. It appeared that somebody had re-equalised the recordings, made copies and used these copies, this ruined the overall sound and feel!”

 

Ian McDonald (King Crimson):

“I had to work  within the limitations so I had to to keep it exciting within a fairly limited range. I think a good example of that is the track Mars from the Epitaph box set of King Crimson from the Fillmore East: I started very quiet, with string settings, just strings pads and then at some point I switched into brass sound for the melody. It’s the same brass setting that I used on the album In The Court Of The Crimson King at the end of the song Epitaph. The brass sound comes in there at the coda of the song. I thnik it’s very effective. And a great sound, one of the more effective sounds on the Mellotron.”

“In those days were were only working on 8 tracks in the studio but I used at least two tracks for the Mellotron.”

“A lot of groups used the M400 which I personally never thought sounded as good as the Mark II.. I think Mellotronics sort of made a cheap version or something like that.”

“Some of the sounds within the Tron itself were out of tune with each other. That’s synonymous with the Mellotron, it’s part of the charm of that intstrument, a Mellotron is virtually out of tune with itself.”

 

Rick Wakeman (Strawbs, Yes):

“I first became aware of the Mellotron when I did a session for a band. I was booked to play a Hammond organ and in the corner was a brandnew double manual Mellotron. Between the ‘takes’ I played around with it and got to know its little quirks. What I really remember was being knocked out that here were sounds that hitherto never been capable of reproduction with any keyboard.”

“The Mellotron was a nightmare to play: lousy touch, no control, always going out of tune and badly built. They were a nightmare onthe road and I used to take six on the road, four to use on stage and two for spares. If two on-stage instruments managed to finish the performance without problems, it was classed as a good night!”.

 

Wooly Wolstenholme (Barclay James Harvest):

“Barclay James Harvest started in1967 and we were playing around with conventional instrumentation of a rock band but also instruments like the oboes and violas and anything that would make a different sound. When it came to reproducing anything that sounded even remotely like an orchestra, the synthesizers of that time were not real and the only thing that could do that was a Mellotron. We rent a Mellotron from a man who didn’t want it back a few days later so we could buy it quite cheap from him.”

“Fundamentally I used M300 strings, occasionally supplemented by the Mark II, especially if it was a heavy song. For instance, on After The Day it has both models of Mellotron on it, a big, heavy King Crimson sort of sound. My trick for the recoding has always been the same – it’s usually Mellotron and an organ,or some fusion like that. I used to do three tracks of Mellotron: one slightly sharp, one as a concert as a Mellotron ever gets and one slightly flat, thereby effectively making the sound bigger than it would have been with a single recording.”

“At one point I was so fed up with the tapes either sticking or cycling that I used to start with a small fanheater to warm the machine up. Another time I was on stage nd in the downtime betwen bands, someone smashed a glass on the Mellotron. I did the set, came off and I was bleeding – the keyboard was covered in blood, I had not seen it because of the darkness and I had not feel any pain, a real rock and roll story!”.

 

John Hawken (Renaissance, Strawbs, Illusion):

Nothing prepares you for the strange, disconnected feel to the keys accompanied by the hissing and fluttering of the tapes over the pick-up heads, followed shortly thereafter by a slight thud, then silence, as your eights seconds of sounds are up. I felt distincly uncomfortable yet the same time I was exhilarated by the huge an dimpressive sound pouring out of ‘The Beast’!”.

“Mellotrons don’t like to travel. The slightes flexing of the cabinet and subsequent misalignment of tapes and heads would cause a Mellotron to produce sounds not unlike the squealing of small animals in extreme pain! And Mellotrons suffered a strong aversion to any change of temperature and it required an absolutely stable power source (there are many jokes about the caretakers of the halls in question not pedaling fast enought...).”

“My favorite three-track tape consisted of Strings, Choir and Brass and these sounds were a major part of the Strawbs sound (and later Illusion).”

 

Tony Visconti (producer T-Rex, Bowie and The Moody Blues):

“I first heard the Mellotron on Strawberry Fields Forever and immediately knew that the flutes weren’t real. But no special effect, to myknowledge, could produce that fluttery sound except maybe a wobbly tape. It turned out that I wasn’t far from right!”.

“The trouble with the Mellotrons in the new Millennium is that th etapes are gettin gold and wearin gout. Sampling will at least preserve teh sound before tehy all become unplayable. I have certain friends who would jump of the Brooklyn Bridge if that ever happened!”.

“As a producer I have probably use more Mellotrons than my friends. I know the sound has lately come back and I’m so happy I made my samples because they are really hard to get a good sound of. I must mention that I always felt the Chamberlin was a superior Mellotron and David Bowie still owns one.”

 

John Wetton (King Crimson, Uriah Heep, Asia and UK)

“Ian McDonald probably wrote with The Court Of The Crimson King the definitive Mellotron tune.”

“With King Crimson we rehearsed for many weeks without teh M400’s but when we did use them again, they added another dimension to the music. By the time I joined King Crimson, Robert Fripp had a pretty good handle on the way to voice the Mellotron (an art in itself) and I learned a great deal of him.

 

Nick Magnus (Steve Hackett Band):
“My first concious recollection of the ‘Tron’ sound was on the Rolling Stones album Satanic Majesties which my older brother used to play a lot. I was totally captivated by the wird sound; I didn’t perceive it as strings at all. It was unearthly and gothic, quiet beautiful and at the time rather at odds with my idea of what the Stones were about.

“Using a swell pedal was also crucially important to give the performances some sort of dynamic realism.”

“I’ve put a Tron through a Vocoder during Tigermoth on the Spectral Mornings album. There are also occasion when I mix the Tron strings with synth strings (Prohet 5 or Memorymoog) for a really ‘Rachmaninov’ texture, the song Hammer in The Sand (from Hacket’s Defector album) is a good example of ‘Tron-plus-Prophet-sound’.”

“I personally have never owned myown Mellotron but all through the Hackett years I used Steve’s Novatron 400. This was very much the center-piece of my keyboard setup, it had a variety of tapes like violins, 8-voice choir, male and female choir, string section, flute, cello and brass.”

 

In the late Nineties I made an article entitled 'Vintage Keyboards In The Progressive Rock' for the Dutch progrock magazine iO Pages. I interviewed known and lesser known Dutch keyboard players, here are some ‘quotes’ about the ubiquitous Mellotron:

 

Erik De Vroomen (Coda):

"When I only look at the Mellotron, my heart starts to beat stronger!"

 

Cleem Determeijer (Finch, Veralin, Ayreon):

"The Mellotron on the first two Finch albums was borrowed, an old, brown piece of furniture delivering trics like applause. It made a lot of 'side-sounds', the tapes sounded sometimes un-pitched or even stopped but the sound remains so nostalgic."

 

Rene De Haan (Pythagoras):

"I borrowed the Mellotron from the Dutch symphonic rock group Plackband. In fact it was a ridiculous instrument: it required a lot of maintenance and it was expensive. I often used the violin - and choir-section and at some moments the church organ sound."

 

Ton Scherpenzeel (Kayak, Camel):

"The Mellotron is both my highest as lowest point, it's an instrument with obstacles! On stage singer Max Werner used it and in the studio we both played on it. It has a wonderful sound, a bit dusty and melancholic, very massive. But technically it was a disaster, it unpitched very easily and quickly. If you used one key, it was OK but pressing two or more keys you often didn't get any sound and you had to watch out at windy stages! And on parties with an aggregate it was a misery with the Mellotron .. but on the other hand it is a memorable and emotional instrument, also because of its imperfects. It also had an impact on writing, I used it as an orchestra, a band like Earth & Fire build entire songs around the Mellotron.

 

Thijs Van Leer (Focus):

“I only used the Mellotron on studio recordings like Eruption. I love the violin section with the string sound, very special. In fact it was the forerunner of the synthesizer. But of course it had many failures, it was almost every time broken. But these imperfections had its charm, the Mellotron has something obsolete, something archaic and timeless."

 

Rick Van Der Linden (Ekseption, Trace):

"The Mellotron is a very beautiful instrument but very vulnerable. I carried a lot of reserve parts with me including frames. I had to keep these in huge suitcases! Playing on a Mellotron, your classically trained piano skills are useless, you have to learn playing on it again by excersing a lot and learning the trics like very quickly lifting the key in order to use it again. I succeeded to play on it for 9 seconds instead of 8 by some technical changes in the instrument! The sound is often bad with a lot of noise and you frequently have to use the pitch button. I let build the technician a 'fine control' for the pitching and a stabilisator for the synchrone-moter in order to let it sound more stable. I loved to use the violin section, the choirs and the flute traverse, these sounds are mighty close to the real sound."

 

Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon):

"The Mellotron has a wonderful sound but in use it's a disaster, for example because of the breaking of the tapes. It's an easy instrument to sample so I have made a lot of samples."

 

                                          Chapter 5:

                                     Mellotron myths.

 

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer never used a Mellotron.

Plausible?  Confirmed?  ...or BUSTED!

Unconfirmed:  Stories have it that Emo had one and got ready to use it on stage, and it broke down nearly right away.  ELP never touched it again.  So I understand that they did have one, but they didn't have a very good experience with it...

Mellotron samples are the same as the real thing.

Plausible?  Confirmed?   ...or BUSTED!

You can argue all day long whether samples of a Mellotron sound like the real thing or not, or whether you'd notice, or whatever.  The truth is the electronics and mechanics of the Mellotron affect the sound, something that's not going to happen in a sampler.  A chord in a Mellotron, for example, will have sound playing from several tape heads wired in series and run through a preamp.  The result is a slightly distorted, compressed sound.  A sampler combines digital data.  The Mellotron's tape path mechanicals also affect how the instrument is played and how the tapes sound, adding in bits of wobblies or pitch variance.  This won't happen in a sampler.

Because they were hand made, every Mellotron is different.

Plausible?  Confirmed?  ...or BUSTED!

CONFIRMED after playing many of these.  Each Mellotron has its own feel and playability.  #805 is a bit tough to play, has some squeaky notes, and can be a bear in humid weather.  #1037 is a smoother machine.  The Mark I/II/M300 series machines have their keyboards tied directly to the tape transport chassis, and the keyboards feel a little more Hammond-like and are easier to play than the M400's removable keyboards.  Some Mellotrons want to be played fast, some not.  The playability depends a lot on who did the key adjustment.  I adjust things to be light, others prefer the "standard" Mellotron key adjustments.  And, of course, you can have the staggered pressure pad adjustment screw placement modification done to your machine if you wish.  I know of one case where someone purchased a refurbished machine and one straight from a studio, and although both played fine, he kept the studio one because he felt it played better.  These things are all over the place.

 

Source: http://www.kleonard.com

 

                                    Chapter 6:

                               

                                  Favorite lists.

 

                        My 20 favorite Mellotron compositions:

 

       

 

* Museo Rosenbach – Zarathustra (from the eponymous album)

* Outer Limits – The Scene Of Pale Blue (from the eponymous album)

* Cosmos factory - An Old Castle Of Transylvania (from the eponymous

   album)

* Atlantis Philharmonic – Woodsman (from the album Atlantis Philharmonic)

* Steve Hackett – Shadow Of The Hierophant (from Voyage Of An Acolyte)

* Genesis –Watcher Of The Skies (from Foxtrot)

* Fantasy – Alanderie (from the CD Beyound The Beyond)

* Greenslade – Tide (from Time And Tide)

* Anglagard – Kung Bore (from Hybris)

* King Crimson – Starless (from Red)

* Strawbs – Down By The Sea (from In Concert )

* Barclay James Harvest – After The Day (from Live)

* Ange – Captain Coeur De Miel (from Guet-Apens)

* Yes – Heart Of The Sunrise (from Yessongs)

* Pallas – March On Atlantis (from The Sentinel)

* IQ – Widow’s Peak

* Genesis – Supper’s Ready

* Schicke Führs Fröhling – Modimidofre (from Live 1975)

* Rocket Scientists – Mariner (from Brutal Architecture)

* Epidaurus – Actions And Reactions (from Earthly Paradise)

 

               

 

         My 20 favorite Mellotron albums:

 

* Barclay James Harvest – Live

* Spring – Spring

* Landberk – Lonely Land

* IQ – Nine In A Pond Is Here

* Epidaurus – Earthly Paradise

* Lift – Caverns Of Your Brain

* Gerard – Gerard

* Sandrose – Sandrose

* Greenslade – Live 1975

* Schicke Führs Fröhling – Live 1975

* Anekdoten – Vemod and From Within

* Anglagard – Hybris

* Le Orme – Uomo Di Pezza

* Cherry Five – Cherry Five

* Rustichelli & Bordini – Opera Prima

* Strawbs – In Concert 73/74

* Pallas – The Dreams Of Men

* King Crimson – The Night Watch

* Genesis – Seconds Out

* PFM – USA (aka Cook)

 

       

 

                      The Mellotron in ‘Classic Rock’ songs:

 

* Led Zeppelin – Stairway To Heaven and Rain Song

* Alice Cooper – Halo Of Flies

* Roxy Music – Love Is The Drug

* The Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever

* Julie Driscoll & Brian Auger – This Wheel’s On Fire

* Cream – Badge

* David Bowie – Space Oddity

* Earth & Fire – Memories

* Kayak – Wintertime

* Focus – Tommy

 

        Interesting footage with Mellotron on DVD:          

 

* Steve Hackett – Live 1979 (Nick Magnus plays frequently on the Mellotron)

* Barclay James Harvest – Caught Live (this is Mellotron Heaven)

* The Strawbs – Live In Tokyo 1975 (the track Down By The Sea featuring a

   wonderful choir-Mellotron sound)

* Yes – Yessongs (especially Heart Of The Sunrise and Rick Wakeman his

   solo spot)

* Earth & Fire – Greatest Hits (bonustrack contains 18 minutes of Song Of

   The Marching Children with many images from Gerard Koerts playing the

   M400)

* Pallas – Live From London (some exciting bombastic Mellotron eruptions)

* IQ – Live From London (Martin Orford often use the M400)

* Rick Wakeman – Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (some splendid

   work on the M400)

* Isle Of Wight Festival – The Moody Blues with Nights In White Satin

   (featuring great shots from Mike Pinder playing on the Mark II)

 

                                                                  

 

Planet Mellotron Top Mellotron Albums – a selection of the highest rated albums.

 

Ratings (Mellotronness):

TTTT: lots of 'Tron

TTTT½: loads of 'Tron, though not necessarily innovative

TTTTT: stuffed to the gills, and innovative

 

Ratings (music):

½: utter sh*te

*: sh*te

*½: very poor

**: poor

**½: below average

***: average

***½: good

****: very good

****½: excellent

*****: classic

 

TTTTT+

Schicke Führs Fröhling Live 1975  (2002)  *****           

 

 

                                         

 

TTTTT

* Air - The Virgin Suicides  (2000)  ****

* Anekdoten - Vemod  (1993)  *****

* Änglagård - Hybris  (1992)  *****

* Änglagård - Epilog  (1994)  *****

* Änglagård - Buried Alive  (1996)  ****½

* Änglagård - NEARfest 2003 [bootleg]  *****

* Barclay James Harvest - Live  (1974)  ****½

* Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come - Journey  (1973)  ****½

* Celluloid - Neptune  (1983)  ***½

* Clearlight Symphony - Same (1973)  ****

* Deadwood Forest - Mellodramatic  (2000)  ****½

* Druid - Toward the Sun  (1975)  ***½

* England - Garden Shed  (1977)  *****

* Edgar Froese - Macula Transfer  (1976)  *****

* I Giganti - Terra in Bocca  (1971)  ****½

* Gracious! - This is... Gracious!! (1972)  ****½

* Steve Hackett - Voyage of the Acolyte  (1975)  *****

* Steve Hackett - Live Archive 70, 80, 90's  (2001)  *****

* King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King  (1969)  *****

* King Crimson - The Great Deceiver  (1992)  ****½

* Jasun Martz - The Pillory  (1978)  ****

* Neil Merryweather - Space Rangers  (1974)  ***

* Moody Blues - Caught Live + Five  (1977)  ****

* Morse Code - Les Grands Succes... [comp]  (1992)  ****

* Morte Macabre - Symphonic Holocaust  (1998)  ****½

* Museo Rosenbach - Zarathustra  (1973)  *****

* Pallas - Arrive Alive [all versions]  (1981/83/98)  *****

* Pallas - Mythopoeia  (2002)  *****

* Victor Peraino's Kingdom - Come No Man's Land  (1975)  ***½

* Pugwash - Almanac  (2002)  ****½

* Pye Fyte - The Gathering of the Krums  (1998)  ****

* Quarteto 1111 - Onde Quando Como Porquê Cantamos Pessoas Vivas  (1975)  ****

* Sandrose - Sandrose  (1972)  ****½

* Schicke Führs Fröhling - Symphonic Pictures (& The Collected Works...)  (1976)  ****½

* The Smell of Incense - Through the Gates of Deeper Slumber  (1997)  ****½

* Spring - Spring  (1971)  ****

* Standarte - Curses & Invocations  (1997)  ****

* Yes -  Close to the Edge  (1972)  *****

* Yes - Yessongs  (1973)  ****½

* Yes - Tales From Topographic Oceans  (1973)  ***

 

TTTT½

 

* Anekdoten - Waking the Dead  (2005)  ****½

* Fiona Apple - Tidal  (1996)  ***

* Bigelf - Money Machine  (2000)  ***½

* Don Bradsham Leather - Distance Between Us  (1972)  ***½

* Canarios - Ciclos  (1974)  ****½

* Cathedral - Stained Glass Stories  (1978)  ****½

* Celeste - Principe di un Giorno  (1976)  *****

* Julian Cope - Interpreter  (1996)  ***½

* Czar - Czar  (1970)  ***½

* Delirium - Lo Scemo e il Villagio  (1972)  ****

* Dice - Dice  (1978)  ****½

* Dice - The Four Riders of the Apocalypse  (1992)  ****½

* Earth & Fire - Atlantis  (1973)  ****

* Epidaurus - Earthly Paradise  (1977)  ****½

* Ethos - Ethos (Ardour)  (1976)  ****

* The Fibonaccis - Repressed  (1992)  ****

* Flamen - Dialis Symptome-Dei  (1979)  ****½

* Geller - The Uri Geller Syndrome  (1999)  ****

* Steve Hackett - Spectral Mornings  (1979)  ****½

* Henry Fool - Henry Fool  (2001)  ****½

* Cosmic Hoffmann - Beyond the Galaxy  (1999)  ****

* Human Instinct - Peg Leg  (2002)  ***½

* Kaipa - Notes From the Past  (2002)  ***½

* Kaipa - Keyholder  (2003)  ***½

* King Crimson - USA (expanded ed.)  (1975)  *****

* King Crimson - Epitaph - Live 1969  (1997)  ****

* King Crimson - The Night Watch  (1997)  *****

* Kinks - Village Green Preservation Society (3-CD set)  (1968)  *****

* Landberk - Riktigt Äkta/Lonely Land  (1992)  ****½

* Landberk - One Man Tell's Another  (1994)  ****½

* Leviathan - Leviathan  (1974)  ***½

* Litmus - You Are Here  (2004)  ****

* Manfred Mann Semi- Detached Suburban Mr James [single]  (1966)  ****

* Mikromidas - Brennende Drømmer  (2001)  ****

* Mikromidas - Faunus  (2005)  ****

* Moody Blues - Seventh Sojourn  (1972)  ***

* Pallas - The Sentinel  (1984)  ****½

* Pavlov's Dog - Pampered Menial  (1975)  ****

* Michael Penn - Free-for-All  (1992)  ****

* Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia di un Minuto  (1972)  *****

* Pugwash - Jollity  (2005)  ****

* Ragnarok - Ragnarok  (1975)  ***½

* Ragnarok - Live [bootleg]  (1977?)  ****

* Rogue ELement - Premonition  (2004)  ****

* Rolling Stones - Their Satanic Majesties Request  (1967)  ****

* Sebastian Hardie - Four Moments  (1975)  *****

* Sebastian Hardie - Live in LA  (1999)  *****

* Spektakel - Spektakel  (1996)  ****

* Spock's Beard - The Official Live Bootleg  (1996)  ****½

* Spock's Beard - Beware of Darkness  (1997)  *****

* Spock's Beard - The Kindness of Strangers  (1998)  ****

* Spock's Beard - Day for Night  (1999)  ***½

* Stackridge - BBC Radio 1 Live in Concert  (1997)  ****½

* Strawbs - Deep Cuts  (1976)  ***½

* Systems - Theory Demos 2001-2002  (2002)  ****

* Systems - Theory Soundtracks for Imaginary Movies  (2004)  ****½

* Tangerine Dream - Encore  (1977)  ****

* Terpandre - Terpandre  (1981)  ****

* Trace - Trace  (1974)  *****

* Whipping - Post So We Are  (1980)  ***½

* White Willow - Ignis Fatuus  (1995)  ****½

* White Willow - Ex Tenebris  (1998)  ****½

* White Willow - Storm Season  (2004)  ****½

* Wobbler - Hinterland  (2005)  ****

 

 This picture is from: http://www.kleonard.com

 

 

 

Sources of information and recommended sites:

 

- www.mikepinder.com/mellotron.shtml

- http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/studio/7846/mtron_desc.html

- http://www.geocities.jp/mellotronics/models.html

- http://www.planetmellotron.com/toptron.htm

- http://www.kleonard.com/mellotron/mellotronia/MelloBook.htm

- http://www.mellotron.com (Me

 

The wonderful Mellotron book is available through:

amazon.com, barnes&noble.com and eBay

 

                            llotroII n

 

I HOPE YOU LIKE ITIIIArchives, site of Dave Kean)ii

                                     I HOPE YUOU LIKE IT-II