The Mellotron: Father of all Samplers
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
- The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It evolved from the similar Chamberlin, but could be mass-produced more efficiently. The instrument is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. Then as the key is released, the tape is retracted by a spring to its initial position. Different portions of the tape can be played to access different sounds.
The first models were designed to be used in the home and contained a variety of sounds, including automatic accompaniments. Bandleader Eric Robinson and television personality David Nixon were heavily involved in introductory promotion of the instruments. A number of other celebrities such as Princess Margaret were early adopters. The instrument began to be used by rock and pop groups in the mid to late 1960s. The Moody Blues's keyboardist Mike Pinder used it extensively on the band's 1967 orchestral collaboration Days of Future Passed. The Beatles used the instrument on several tracks, including the hit single "Strawberry Fields Forever". The Mellotron was subsequently used by groups like King Crimson and Genesis, becoming a common instrument in progressive rock. Later models, such as the best selling M400, dispensed with the accompaniments and some sound selection controls so it could be used by touring musicians. The instrument's popularity declined in the 1980s after the introduction of polyphonic synthesizers and samplers, despite a number of high-profile users like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and XTC.
Prog rock song used: Prod. by Danya Vodovoz • Prog Rock - Royalty Fr...
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The 'Bungalow Bill' Spanish guitar played from the Mellotron was recorded by guitarist Eric Cooke.
Thanks for the video! We love and use Mellotron on most of our songs and have an original M400 (with 4 tape frames), a Mellotron M4000D (the big digital one) and two Mellotron Micro's. We also used a few different Mellotron Apps for iPad and iPhone on our first album.
You can never have too much Mellotron!
🙌😎👍
Yes, I recently got Mellowsound App for iPad and it does a pretty decent job replicating some classic prog tunes.
Just like me you can never have to many mellotrons I have a M400 it's over 30 years old and going strong as ever I have 4 tape frames and hopefully more in the future hoping soon to have a new m400 6track or a m4000 6 track from the original mellotron company streetly Electronics my mellotron is always heard in my music name of my band is Knightmare fair on SoundCloud, my interest in the instrument was when I saw my first Tangerine Dream concert in 1975 and found that TD had their sequencer and real drum patterns and some synthesized sounds recorded and played back on their 400s and Edgar twin keyboard MK5 mellotron Peter Bauman said all his favourite TD albums had the mellotron playing TD own sounds, Peter of KnightMare Fair music,😃
You have to see King Crimson live to experience how amazing that band actually is.Simply quite possibly thee greatest band I ever saw...besides Blood Sweat and Tears.
Keep posting this musical instruments videos, always good to learn about these instruments, gracias.
As a fan of the Dutch band Earth and Fire I was happy to hear you promoted their music! They toured a lot so I think they had a lot of challenges with the Mellotron....
Great Job describing the Mellotron…Bill Eberline (past President of Mellotron)
Best instrument ever (besides the drum set)
The Grandfather of Samplers being the Chamberlin :-)
Harry Chamberlin invented his instrument in Wisconsin USA in the late 1940's, not England. His salesman Bill Franson basically stole a couple demo units in the early 1960's and went to England and sold them as his own invention to the Bradley brothers who had never heard of Chamberlin. It was years before Harry Chamberlin found out.
Absolutely. Mike Pinder, David Bowie, and I'm sure more, used a Chamberlin for some of their songs in their careers.
Ah! thank you. I was curious about who thought of, and how such a contraption came about. The most notorious instrument, not intended for "rock", but rock musicians put up with this "roadie's nightmare" aspect of it for a reason- its unique, human-like imperfections.
I bought a slightly water damaged M400 back in the '80s for $450, fixed it and sold it to a mellotron repair guy in LA for $4K who spruced it up for a client back east.
I personally don't own a mellotron 'cos it's not potable and requires some room
But I think every self respecting recording studio should have one,
despite all that digital emulation technology
Harry Chamberlin was not from and did not live in England, he was from Wisconsin. Frantzen showed the instrument to Les Bradley when he was looking to buy matching tape heads for the instrument.
It's Fransen. No he didn't show the matching tape heads to Les Bradley right away. He had stolen the Chamberlin Music Master he had and had to be sure that the Bradley Brothers had no idea about the theft, so conversations about tape heads went on for a while before he finally decided to show the instrument to them.
Great video again. Have you seen Three Dog Night's live TV studio performance from 1975? Frank 'Skip' Konte's use of vintage synths and something which sounds like a Mellotron (but you'd know better than me) to recreate the arrangements of studio recordings is way ahead of its time.
Great book report! I’ve never been an original Mellotron owner, much less touched one. But I’m a proud owner of the 4000d and I love it to bits.
I hear good things about the 4000d!
@4:14 Rather the Father of Sample Players.
😎👍
Oh I want that guitar pedal that does the Sound. It’s a must have now! Nice work on the video!! Enjoyed it mucho!!!
I own one. And the EH pedal is lots of fun!
Got one.
Interesting that the picture of Edgar Froese shows a Birotron, but no Mellotron (lower left).
That was great.
There's an actual 70s mellotron here in a Philly guitar shop that I would pay just to play for 5 min.But the tag says don't touch the Tron😢
Fascinating.
Great video. I owned a Chamberlin 100 - a very early prototype - that I purchased in 1974 from a guy named Sandy in Hollywood for $1150. I will go to my grave with no regrets, except for giving Sandy my $1150.
Richard Chamberlin has fond memories of Sandy!
I had no idea there were samplers that early.
Hi James,
I know a lot of people call them "samplers" but it's more accurate to call the Chamberlin and Mellotron instruments ROMplers, since they can't actually "sample" sounds, they can only play back pre-recorded sounds. The term "ROMpler" came about in the digital age (ROM = Read Only Memory) to describe instruments that could play back digitally stored sounds that the instruments had already built in. A prerecorded strip of analog tape in a Chamberlin or Mellotron is effectively a bit of analog read only memory because those instruments only have playback heads and no record/erase heads and associated electronics like line/mic inputs to "sample" on their own. :-)
@@JohnLRice aren't samplers also just instruments that play back a pre-recorded sound though?
@@BLOOMDAWG It's probably a debatable topic 😎 but I wouldn't personally consider a keyboard or rack unit to be a "sampler" if it isn't able to create new samples itself from an audio input and have the necessary tools/controls to manipulate the sample, at the very least to change the start, stop, and loop points. If it can't actually sample, I would call it a ROMpler or a sample-playback keyboard/device.
@@JohnLRice The name for them is tape replay keyboards. Sampler and ROMpler would be digital domain instruments.
@@chrisdale3087 Sure, if you want to be narrow minded about it? 😅
Make sure to check out the band Optagonally Yours
Mr Wilson video is so wrong, it’s right! ❤️
Hi Doris! In was waiting for this vid, it is long overdue! Thanx for the post. You named great Bands whom have used the mellotron (1970 Isle of White Moody Blues live being my favourite). Smashing Pumpkins's 2012 Oceania album was the last great Mellotron (MkVI & MkVII) tunes I've heard. I think the mellotron vibe will be a great addition to the Dream Machine Sound!
I believe that Chamberlin and Franzen first got together in America before Franzen, rather dishonestly took the idea. to England.
Wtf- YT shadowbans you guys hard.
Just realized I was unsubscribed and unnotified of your vids 😡
The good news = old vids to watch!
Wonder wall cello sound thanks to mellotron
I know you guys are all about using original equipment (as am I), but in this case, I'd just get a Nord Electro (I think they're on v6 now) instead.. It'll save you a lot of time, money, and headache. They do just about anything you want, old keyboard wise, plus there's an awesome B3 organ sim in there too, with drawbars & all! It's pretty damn spot on.. A worthy substitute indeed. You can even use Chamberlain samples if you prefer that too! ;-)
I also *highly* recommend picking up "Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie" .. An excellent documentary, all about the Mellotron. You can find it on Amazon, etc. 😎
I bought a Mellotron and on happy as hell to own it.
@@rogercormier5610 I still own 3 of them and two Chamberlins! They're all irreplaceable!
@@chrisdale3087 That is so cool man!
Great video. You obviously listened to the Rick Wakeman BBC interview about it. There's another more in-depth later BBC radio interview featuring Andy Partridge, Paul McCartney, etc. as well. I have a copy of it on CD somewhere. I have 3 Mellotrons and 2 Chamberlins (but I'm afraid I'm not selling them). You can contact Streetly Electronics or Mellotron in Sweden. Either of them can surely help you find one if it's an original one you want. There's no beating using an actual Mellotron for making music.
This was a really nice video. I've watched some technical ones but yours had a lot of nice trivia. Just turn up your overall volume, Doris.
Every time I see you comment it makes me happy because of whatever cute thing your thumbnail is. Will keep the audio in mind next time, thank you!
@@fuzzcityrecords432 Hahaha, isnt' he? It's a russian character called Cheburashka (I'm not russian, I just find him cute too).
mellotrons dont sample or record they play back recorded sounds,
00:04 👹
Do a video on the E-Mu Emulator 2 or all the E-Mu samplers. I just sold my Emulator 2+ and it would be cool to see you do a video on those :)
Ma la prima band ad usare un Mellotron sono stati la GRAHAM BOND ORGANISATION nel 1965 !!!!!!!! L' inventore fu un ingegnere elettronico del Wisconsin USA, HARRY CHAMBERLIN nel 1946 . Inizialmente lo chiamo' Chamberlin Organ e lo ideò per puro intrattenimento casalingo. E mise su un azienda per ideare altri modelli e costruirli . Quando un certo BILL FRANSON che era uno dei suoi venditori a sua insaputa si appropriò di due modelli e andò in Inghilterra, facendolo passare per una sua invenzione e facendoli costruire anche là. Fece apportare qualche modifica tecnica tipo maggior pressione delle testine sui nastri preregistrati ottenendo una sonorità ancora piu inquietante e cupa rispetto ai Chamberlin originali e lo ribattezzarono Mellotron ed essendo il primo modello....Mk 1 !!!!!!!!! Harry Chamberlin di questa cosa venne a saperla assai più tardi!!!!!!! Da quel momento in poi..... Tanti artisti, molte bands lo hanno utilizzato!!!!!!!!!!! La sua capacità di riprodurre praticamente un orchestra intera su tastiera ha dato modo ai musicisti soprattutto tastieristi di comporre vari creativi fantasiosi arrangiamenti e a far decollare sia la psichedelia e soprattutto il PROGRESSIVE ROCK!!!!!!!!! Grazie a questo straordinario strumento a tastiera il movimento Prog Rock ha scritto delle pagine straordinarie di GRANDE MUSICA!!!!!!!!
It’s cute that you’re so desperate to own one of these beasties. From everything I’ve heard from musicians and technicians who’ve worked with them, they’re a pain in the butt to maintain.
Tom Waits owned a Chamberlain (pretty much the same basic design) and described it as an instrument “that dies a little bit every time you play it”.
There’s no denying the Mellotron is an important instrument in the history of modern music, but owning one is potentially a major headache.
There are plenty of other mostly software options available these days. They’re more reliable and in most cases cheaper than the original machine.
And in most cases, you can have the entire LIBRARY of factory tapes available at your fingertips rather than just the 3 sets of tapes in a single keyboard.
Love all your videos.
They are actually quite simple to maintain. They require way less maintenance than a guitar. The musicians and technicians you've heard from haven't a clue how to maintain them. BTW, mine has 24 sounds with an optional modification for 48, not a mere 3. But it doesn't matter because there are only 5 commonly used sounds and just a few rarely used sounds.
No the entire Mellotron library has never been made available. The same is true for the Chamberlin and Birotron.
I love your videos, especially this series, but your vocals were recorded too low and I struggled to hear you! I can't wait until I get home so that I can listen to this on my monitors! Thanks for doing this vintage keyboard series!
Man, I sure loved the Mellotron. But now I know it was funded by the horrendous Royal Family I want to hit those keys harder and sing about their horrendous'ness
Cancel the mellotron lol
Not in the least bit true.
Great Job describing the Mellotron…Bill Eberline (past President of Mellotron)