Mellotron

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An early double-manual, woodgrain Mellotron. Later Mellotrons came in a white case and were simplified for ease of use by rock musicians; it was these Mellotrons that became an iconic symbol of 60s and 70s progressive rock.
An early double-manual, woodgrain Mellotron. Later Mellotrons came in a white case and were simplified for ease of use by rock musicians; it was these Mellotrons that became an iconic symbol of 60s and 70s progressive rock.

The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s.

The Mellotron superseded the Chamberlin, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard. The heart of the instrument is a bank of magnetic audio tapes (which are parallel linear, not looped as has sometimes been reported or presumed). Each tape has approximately eight seconds of playing time. Playback heads (underneath each key) enable the playing of pre-recorded sounds.

The earlier MKI and MKII models contained two side-by-side keyboards: On the right keyboard were 18 selectable "lead/instrument" sounds (such as strings, flutes, and brass instruments). The left keyboard played pre-recorded musical rhythm tracks (in various styles).

The tape banks for the later, lighter-weight M400 models contain only 3 selectable sounds such as strings, cello, and the famous eight-voice choir. The sound on each individual tape piece was recorded at the pitch of the key to which it was assigned. To make up for the fewer sounds available, the M400 tapes came in a removable frame, which allowed for relatively quick changes to new racks of sounds.

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[edit] History

Although tape samplers had been explored in research studios (e.g., Hugh LeCaine's 1955 keyboard-controlled "Special Purpose Tape Recorder", which he used when recording his classic "Dripsody"), the first commercially available keyboard-driven tape instruments were built and sold by California-based Harry Chamberlin from 1948 through the 1970s.

Things really took off, however, when Chamberlin's sales agent, Bill Fransen, brought two of Chamberlin's instruments to England in 1962 to search for someone who could manufacture 70 matching tape heads for future Chamberlins. Initially, Harry Chamberlin was not happy with the fact that someone overseas was basically "copying" his idea, and that one of his own people (Bill Fransen) was the reason for this. Fransen approached a UK company that was skilled enough to develop the idea further and a deal was struck with brothers Frank, Norm, and Lesley Bradley of engineering company Bradmatic Ltd. This resulted in the formation of a subsidiary company named Mellotronics, which produced the first Mellotrons in Aston, Birmingham, England. Bradmatic later took on the name Streetly Electronics. In the early 70's 100 of the instruments were assembled and sold by EMI under license. Many years later, following financial and trademark troubles, the Mellotron name became unavailable and resided with the American based Sound Sales while Streetly manufactured instruments after 1976 were sold under the name Novatron.

Throughout the 1970s, the Mellotron had a major impact on rock music, particularly the 35 note (G-F) model M400. The M400 version was released in 1970 and sold over 1800 units, becoming a trademark sound of the era's progressive bands. The earlier 1960's MK II units were made for the home and the characteristics of the instrument attracted a number of celebrities. Among the early Mellotron owners were Princess Margaret, Peter Sellers, King Hussein of Jordan and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.[citation needed]

Mellotrons were normally pre-loaded with string instrument and orchestral sounds, although the model 400's tape bank could be removed with relative ease by the owner and loaded with banks containing different sounds including percussion loops, sound effects, or synthesizer-generated sounds, to generate polyphonic electronically generated sounds in the days before polyphonic synthesizers.

Beneath every key is a disengaged tape head and roller.
Beneath every key is a disengaged tape head and roller.
Depressed key engages tape head and roller.
Depressed key engages tape head and roller.

The unique sound of the Mellotron is produced by a combination of characteristics: Among these are tape replay artifacts such as wow and flutter, the result being that each time a note is played, it is slightly different from the previous time it was played (a bit like a conventional instrument). The notes also interact with each other so that chords or even just pairs of notes have an extremely powerful sound.

Another factor in the strangely haunting quality of the Mellotron's most frequently-heard sounds is that the individual notes were recorded in isolation. For a musician accustomed to playing in an orchestral setting, this was unusual, and meant that he/she had nothing against which to intonate. Thus, the temperament of the Mellotron is always somewhat questionable when it is used in the context of other instruments. Perhaps for this reason, and perhaps also to allow easy transposition of the instrument's limited range, the pitch control is placed closest to the keyboard on the M400 model.

This temperament issue has led to the Mellotron being regarded, rather unfairly, as a difficult instrument to tune. There certainly could be mechanical problems that would also contribute to this. The original varispeed servo design was poor, for instance, but later improved dramatically. The tapes would stick inside their frames and refuse to rewind if the frame became distorted due to careless handling of the machine. Properly maintained though, the machines behave a lot better than their reputation suggests.

Although they enabled many bands to perform string, brass and choir arrangements, which had been previously impossible to recreate live, Mellotrons were not without their disadvantages. Above all, they were very expensive. They sold for £1,000 in the mid-1960s, and the official Mellotron site gives the 1973 list price as US $5200. Like the Hammond organ, they were a roadie's nightmare: heavy, bulky and fragile. After years of touring with Mellotrons, Robert Fripp formulated a rule: "Tuning a mellotron doesn't." The tape banks were also notoriously prone to breakages & jams and those groups who could afford to (like Yes) typically took two Mellotrons on tour to cope with the inevitable breakdowns.

The original Mellotrons (MkI/MkII) were not intended to be portable (they often become misaligned when jostled even lightly), but later models such as the M300, M400 and MKV were designed for portability. The American Mellotron distributor Sound Sales, produced their own Mellotron model the 4 Track in the mid 70's. At the same time Streetly produced a road cased version of the 400 - the T550 Novatron. By the mid 1980's both Sound Sales and Streetly Electronics suffered severe financial setbacks losing their market to synths and samplers, which rendered the Mellotron almost extinct.

All models, when installed permanently in a studio, provided a very realistic effect. Many examples abound. One example of this can be found on Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album. Despite these shortcomings, Mellotrons were prized for their unique sound, and they helped pave the way for the later sampler.

In the late 1990s, a Calgary-based company began producing new Mellotrons. These new MKVI Mellotrons were similar to the M400, with some modifications. The company also released sample discs featuring wav files of each individual note sampled from an original Mellotron. These files, when played using a sampler, enable keyboardists to recreate part of the sound of the original Mellotrons using cheaper and more reliable modern keyboards. Streetly Electronics has also released a new version of the M400 Mellotron,called the M4000, and is the first machine to offer a failproof cycling mechanism, an updated design of the system used in th 1960's MK 1, MK 2 and M300 machines.

Bands such as Counting Crows and The Musical Box have toured using these sampled Mellotrons to avoid the inconvenience of transporting and maintaining original Mellotrons on the road. The Musical Box, being a tribute band dedicated to visually reproducing early Genesis shows, have taken great pains to hide the fact that they do not use a real Mellotron by hiding a Kurzweil synthesiser in a wooden box made to look like a Mellotron.

[edit] The Mellotron in popular music

British multi-instrumentalist Graham Bond may have been the first rock musician to record with a Mellotron, beginning in 1965. The song Baby Can It Be True, is the first hit song to feature a Mellotron MKII. Mike Pinder of The Moody Blues, and an 18 month long employee of Streetly Electronics for quality control and test driver, introduced the Mellotron to John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the The Beatles, and they used it prominently on their groundbreaking single "Strawberry Fields Forever" a year later (recorded November-December 1966)[1]. It was also Pinder who brought the Mellotron to the forefront of popular music with The Moody Blues' 1967 album Days of Future Passed in songs including "Nights in White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon". Pinder made regular use of the instrument on The Moody Blues' studio albums from 1967 through 1971. Their 1972 album Seventh Sojourn employed the Mellotron's predecessor, the Chamberlin.

The Mellotron was also used by Led Zeppelin in "The Rain Song" and "Kashmir". Contrary to popular belief, a Mellotron was not used on the studio recording of "Stairway to Heaven", although it was used to recreate the recorder arrangements in live performances. The Zombies ("Changes"), Donovan ("Celeste", "Breezes of Patchule"), Manfred Mann (several Mike D'abo-era recordings, including "So Long Dad" and "Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James"), Lynyrd Skynyrd ("Tuesday's Gone", "Free Bird"), The Rolling Stones ("2000 Light Years from Home", "We Love You"), Deep Purple ("Anthem"), The Bee Gees ("World", "Every Christian Lion-Hearted Man Will Show You"), Traffic ("House for Everyone", "Hole In My Shoe"), Pink Floyd ("A Saucerful of Secrets", "Julia Dream", "Atom Heart Mother" and "Sysyphus"), Procol Harum ("Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)", The Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow, Cream's "Badge", "Anyone for Tennis", The Left Banke's "Myrah", Marvin Gaye's Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology), Nilsson's "The Moonbeam Song", Big Star ("Kangaroo", played by producer Jim Dickinson) and others made use of the Mellotron during the psychedelic era. The Kinks featured the instrument prominently in their recordings between 1967 and 1969, most obviously on 1968's "Phenomenal Cat," from The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society.

The Mellotron was widely used to provide backing keyboard accompaniment by many of the progressive rock groups of the 1970s and, alongside the venerable Hammond organ, it was crucial to shaping the sound of the genre. It has been featured on the following albums (not an exhaustive list): Once Again by Barclay James Harvest, Music in a Doll's House by Family (band), Grave New World and From the Witchwood by Strawbs, In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson, Space Oddity, Hunky Dory, and Diamond Dogs by David Bowie, 2112 by Rush, I Robot by The Alan Parsons Project, Fragile, Close to the Edge, and Tales From Topographic Oceans by Yes, and Nursery Cryme, Genesis Live, Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, A Trick of the Tail, Wind & Wuthering, Seconds Out and …And Then There Were Three… by Genesis, and Space Ritual, Hall of the Mountain Grill, and In Search Of Space by Hawkwind.

The mellotron was also used extensively by pioneering German electronic band Tangerine Dream through their prime, including solo work by Edgar Froese. The Tangerine Dream albums Phaedra, Rubycon, Ricochet, and Encore as well as Froese's Epsilon in Malaysian Pale provide excellent examples of Mellotron playing. Another example of the Mellotron's unique sounds can be heard on Immediate Curtain, played by former Soft Machine-percussionist Robert Wyatt on the first album of his second band Matching Mole. The Pillory, recorded in 1977 by American musician & composer Jasun Martz, is often considered the "Holy Grail" of Mellotron releases. ref: * [1]

The advent of cheaper and more reliable polysynths and preset 'string machines' saw the Mellotron's popularity wane by the end of the 1970s. Following the impact of punk, the Mellotron tended to be viewed as a relic of a pompous era. By 1980, Switzerland's progressive rock band Flame Dream used the Mellotron on all 6 of their Vertigo, Phonogram albums; and its status had diminished to the extent that Captain Beefheart was able to reappropriate it almost as an archaic "found instrument". One of the few UK post-punk bands to utilise its sounds were Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, who featured it heavily on their platinum-selling Architecture & Morality album (1981). It was also used by English band XTC on the albums Mummer, The Big Express and on their albums under the alias The Dukes Of Stratosphear. A handful of British groups, notably Cardiacs and IQ continued to use Mellotrons throughout the mid 1980s, but they were in a minority.

The Mellotron experienced a revival of sorts in the 1990s. A plethora of bands began using the instrument or more commonly, samples of the instrument because of the release of Mellotron sounds in software form.

These bands include Dinosaur Jr, You Am I, Fiona Apple (in this case - real Chamberlin), Pulp, Marillion, U2, Radio Massacre International, The Smashing Pumpkins, Counting Crows, Oasis, Barenaked Ladies, Sheryl Crow, Incubus, Tori Amos, Spock's Beard, Lenny Kravitz , Kevin Gilbert, The Flower Kings, Nine Inch Nails, Modest Mouse, Muse, Pearl Jam, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Faith No More, Grandaddy, Tom Waits (real Chamberlin), The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Charlatans, Paul Weller (real Novatron - formerly Steve Hackett's machine), Radiohead (real mellotron) (The song 'Exit Music (For A Film)' is a good example of the stop/start style of the Mellotron, in this case with the choir patch), John Medeski, Porcupine Tree, Air, Anekdoten, Morte Macabre, Opeth, Enslaved, No-Man, Waterclime, and a revived "double-trio" version of King Crimson. In 1989/90, R.E.M. Losing My Religion" French electronic musician Jean Michel Jarre was particularly vocal in his love of the instrument, using it extensively in his 1997 Oxygene tour, and often describing it as the "Stradivarius of electronic music".

The Flaming Lips, in 2002, used Mellotron samples in the recording of their album Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Armenian metal band System Of A Down has used the sound in their music, most notably on the song "Roulette." It is used a lot on Vincent Gallo's 'When' LP. On Porcupine Tree's 2005 album Deadwing, track 6 is titled "Mellotron Scratch" and includes lyrics about the sound of a Mellotron causing a woman to cry. Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson prominently used the Mellotron's haunting choral sounds on No-Man's 2003 album Together We're Stranger. In 2006, Sloan featured the Mellotron's flute samples prominently on "Fading Into Obscurity" and "You Know What It's About." The flute sound was also used extensively on Eels' 2005 album Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. And most recently, the Mellotron can be sparingly heard on songs from the Canadian rock band Rush's 2007 release, Snakes & Arrows (the Mellotron has made an appearance on one of their earlier songs "Tears". The sound also appears on British artist PJ Harvey's 2007 release, White Chalk, and Black Mountain's 2008 release In the Future. The Belgian band Hooverphonic also used mellotron samples on their album The President of the LSD Golf Club. British indie rock band The Kooks also use a real mellotron on their new albums Konk and Rak most noticably in the song shine on. The Strokes also used a mellotron on the song 'Ask Me Anthing' on their 2006 album First Impressions of Earth.

It should be pointed out that many bands who use a real Mellotron most likely don't own one due to the rarity of both surviving original machines / newer models, and that the ones used are often in based in studios. This is especially true of Chamberlin instruments. Nevertheless, many bands are content to use Mellotron samples in software libraries, and these can provide an adequate, if less accurate and less expensive version of the sound.

Unfortunately this has also led to a new trend: Mellotron (or Chamberlin) samples are used but list real Mellotron in album liner notes in an attempt to fool the listener. This is documented on www.planetmellotron.com where several entries exist. Many records produced in the mid 90's and up to present day may have no real physical Mellotron, Chamberlin, Optigan, or Orchestron on them and use samples instead despite the real instrument listed in liner notes. Whether this matters much to music buyers in general is an open question, but according to online information in music newsgroups, certainly many Mellotron owners and users consider it fraudulent and offensive. This has led to a growing phenomenon of savvy younger musicians curious about mellotrons and related instruments now seeking out albums pre 1990's to hear what they consider to be authentic mellotron music.


[edit] References

  1. ^ Welcome to Mike Pinder's Official Web Site

[edit] See also

[edit] External links