mellotron

[mindgarde12]

@MyDadsMusic1 you want to talk some smack on americans come down here to texas and I'll show you how we treat shit talkers. Cant stand all these foriegners generalizing americans. I might live in texas but that doesnt mean I ride a horse or drive a truck. I can take care of some dinky headed stuck up foriegners though. Got a cattle brander and a roll of barbed wire waiting for you bro. CHEERS

[nerblebun]

@mindgarde12 MyDadsMusic might be stupid... but I don't think anyone is stupid enough to mess with a pissed off Texan.

[ITCXTC]

The forerunner of the Mellotron was used to put laugh tracks and sound effects in radio programs. It was a sound effects device before it was a musical instrument.

[flamincow11]

what a waste of a beautiful instrument, put some real noises on that

[MrPekingCat]

I so miss the seventies even though I was never alive to see them!

[MyDadsMusic1]

Definitely Americans

[YoMyEx]

@MyDadsMusic1 definitely a bigot

[MyDadsMusic1]

@YoMyEx Definitely don't remember anything about this comment, Mellotrons and definitely Americans? I like all of the Americans that I have met,..........................­................ but there are issues that go deep and here is not the relevant place to discuss them, sorry if I have offended you in some way. MDM

[newworldodour]

@MyDadsMusic1 I watched a youtube vid called "no offense to the americans :) .. but its so funny" The video was funny but the comments were by far the funniest part of the upload as just about every other comment there were Americans trying to claim British inventions as their own, most of them are so hopelessly lost and confused that they think the telephone was an American invention totally unaware that Bell was Scottish, not to mention computers, jet engines etc etc etc unreal

[Gooseberry51]

Great instrument... love the voice of the woman who makes the video!!

[poikaa3]

Badly loaded tapes and in need of maintenance! But this is a marvelous instrument!!!

[Neueregel]

worst vid on YT

[vinnypimentel]

americans...

[Uiks55]

is that terminator in the background?

[CCSofChocolatesvill]

Americans.

[hallobaaaby]

wow, the girl is so slick-greasy (fake) it's nauseating!

[ciolamorta]

Ok, you get her smile. Now you're so close... a little more playing and you'll go to the backyard of the museum

[Thereminized]

what's a mellotron???



[rockabillycat1954]

@Thereminized The keyboard featured in the video is a Mellotron, which is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in the early 1960s. The heart of the instrument is a bank of parallel linear magnetic audio tape strips with pre-recorded audio of a chosen instrument in all the notes of the keyboard. Some famous songs that used one were "strawberry fields forever" beatles, "tuesday's gone" lynyrd skynyrd, "atom heart mother" pink floyd, & "turn the page" bob seger.

[Screenery]

I am looking to buy a Mellotron. If you have one for sale or know of any that might be for sale, please contact me at Screenery[AT]gmail[DOT]com.

Thanks,

Mitch

[Johnnywr]

I know that Graham Bond used the mellotron on his 1965 album "There`s a bond between us" making him possibly the first recodring artist to commercially use mellotron pre-dating the Beatles and the Moody Blues by at least a year.

[Johnnywr]

I think they`re flirting

[exactspace]

dude shut up

[exactspace]

yeah i do, in fact i've worked at a studio that has one. this is a foley sound effect tape. look at what your life consists of. stop posting on the internet. you're worthless.

[OFR]

There is a documentary on the whole history - how Chamberlin invented it and Mellotron made new versions. Chamberlin also continued. I'd say Chamberlin has better-sounding tapes for some things, but a worse mechanism. The Mellotron is more reliable, but still not a well-designed machine.

[OFR]

@bunterwilmot

Actually the Chamberlin is first. From the 1950s, before the Mellotron by quite a few years. The Mellotron does the same thing better, but it was a direct copy of the Chamberlin idea (great idea!).

[retrofan42]

This one sounds like one of those used by the BBC for their Foley work. It's a Mk II but the cabinet is a different color. BTW, "Foley" regards to the process of adding sound effects to a movie/TV show in post-production.

[tuscanod2]

Who did the samples, sounds like maybe from a sound effects guy or something?

[ninjae4976]

it looks like such an amazing instrument

[ninjae4976]

samplers and sequencer? so there not consider sythesizers?

[OFR]

No - a synthesizer "synthesizes" sound - makes it from individual components; look up the definition. You cannot on the Mello or Chamberlin - it's all prerecorded. A sampler is not technically a synth, although some samplers can use synthesis to create a new sound using raw samples.

[mellotrongirl]

I'm in the same boat with Dietervanmarcke...yet I'll take my M-400 out on the road and keep the Mk2 in the den.

[dietervanmarcke]

I would say get this thing out of the museum and give it to someone who can do something useful with it. Like me! I have a M400 already but this one I'd like to have too :-)

[derneueuntergang]

FAK OFF

[FawitoBlues]

Amazing instrument!!!!! Tip: every single tape has a maximum lenght of 8 seconds, so longer sounds will break up!

[drunksingsheep]

Next time, play King Crimson's "In The Wake Of Poseidon" the best use of a Mellotron ever recorded ~ 1970.

Robert Fripp was/is the artistic master of this ominously beautiful, and magical instrument! Thank-you Harry Chamberlain! R.I.P.

[casadyrocks]

I agree %100

[Martianfan]

I want a real Moody Blues Mellotron in my house :(

[gillesbertacco]

I want this. Any ideas?

[phlizmo]

get a job that pays a lot of money.. or do what I did and work 3 jobs for a year.. :)

[gillesbertacco]

Well, that´s not allowed here in Europe. But it´s rather a problem of availability if you don´t wanna go with an M400...

[kn1ghtstemplar]

I do not get this. Why put such daft tapes on a MKII Mellotron it`s a musical instrument indeed one of the best ever invented. Train noises? Sheesh!

[bassmajor]

agree... this thing should be there for playing music on it

[organfairy]

BBC had several of them which they used for applying FX sounds to television programmes. One of them were loaded with Sci-Fi sounds that were used in the classec Dr Who series. The idea was that the sound technician could get 72 instant sounds instead of having to splice a lot of separate tape strips together and have to deal whith syncronizing everything. The principle is still used today - but with modern samplers.

[taijiguy]

It's not a MkII. It's an SFX.

[kn1ghtstemplar]

It is a mkII The sample tapes are sound effect but the samples can be of anything. the Machine itself is what Mike pinder developed with the Moody Blues. The left keyboard is rythem and the right is melody.

[taijiguy]

Nope, it's an FX Console (a.k.a. SFX) with the standard FX tape set. I know folks who own both models and I've played both. The Mellotron was developed by Streetly Electronics, not Mike Pinder (I also know the owner of one of his 3 MkII's). He only developed his own solid state preamp for his machines and gave suggestions to Streetly for improvements while he was employed there as a Mellotron tester.

[kn1ghtstemplar]

Well then I have stand corrected but Italked to Wooly Wolstenhome many times when BJH used a MKII and he never spoke of an sfx model only that they first hired the mkII in Birmingham and re taped it before buying it and also that it weighed in at 4 cwt, he since had a 300 and 400 while still with BJH.

[taijiguy]

It's a rare model. You can't blend adjacent tracks, but you can split the keyboards. I know he still has an M400 with a custom tape set: M300A/Ian McDonald's Classical Flute/MkII 3 Violins.

[phlizmo]

isnt this what the beatles used on the white album? If I remember correctly it was an SFX machine loaded with MK II tapes.

[taijiguy]

I think you're right. I know they each had their own MkII at one point. The one McCartney has now is an SFX with MkII tapes. I think there's a clip somewhere on Youtube with him demonstrating it. Maybe it's the same one they used on the White Album.

[phlizmo]

right as far as I know the one Paul owns is the very White Album Mellotron which he undoubtedly "bought at an auction" much like nearly every other EMI instrument.

[OFR]

The Abbey Road machine the Beatles used in 68 was unusual - an FX Mellotron but with Mk II (music) tapes. Odd idea, but the MkII was no longer made as it had failed. Interesting, as Beatles, Crimson, Genesis, Zeppelin all used the MkII after it was discontinued and no longer made!

[82osammot]

@OFR Lennon owned the very first Mellotron in the whole Europe, in late 66. The first thing they did was Strawberry Fields Forever (played by McCartney).

[OFR]

Actually Lennon got his in August 1965, even Mike Pinder of Moody Blues had one before that. It was one of the LAST MkIIs to be built, something like #247. Lennon was far from the first, although Beatles recorded it early, even other records had used it.

[82osammot]

@OFR that's what he always used to say, nobody really knows if it was the truth....he got that in 1966.

[OFR]

I have never seen John discuss it but the factory records show it delivered in Aug 1965. This Wheels on Fire predates Strawberry Fields and the MkII was built from 1964, so there is no way Lennon had the first even. Sorry but I know this history very well, I have even repaired Lennon's Mellotron for the current owner.

[82osammot]

@OFR I've never seen him too, but I read it, Ian McDonald wrote it, and I believe him more than you. Maybe Lennon didn't know about previous versions, so he believed he owned the first one in Europe. Stop it please.

[phlizmo]

@kn1ghtstemplar

Its an sfx mellotron..

[Karlfalcon]

@kn1ghtstemplar

To be used as sound effects, likely for radio.

[konked]

@kn1ghtstemplar BBC was one of the first customers on the instruments because with mellotron they could fit the effects for radio dramas just in the right place and right time. Music is only one if wonderful aspect.

[willregnier]

@kn1ghtstemplar Steven Wilson would like it! Haha!

[newworldodour]

@kn1ghtstemplar I'm not sure but it might be one of the BBC's old Mellotron's which I had the opportunity to buy which at the time was loaded with nothing but special effects when I saw it. Obviously digital samplers didn't exist then and this was the next best thing, I think they had 3 altogether all specifically for sound effects and not to be played as an instrument.

[ueaj123]

ahaha flirting much?

[Aspartamebraintumor]

whos the chick with the seductive voice?

[M400fan]

Probably Tara Busch - search for her YouTube posts and you'll not be disappointed!

[OFR]

That's not Tara, as this girl sounds European...

[mohrizm]

thank you very much to add, and i will put another movie that took in National Media Museum later!

[nationalmediamuseum]

Hi there - thanks for the video, I've added it to the favorites on the NationalMediaMuseum channel!