Posted on 01/07/2018 6:00:47 AM PST by goldendelicious
British T.V. personalities, Eric Robinson and David Nixon, introduce us to an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard otherwise known as the 'Mellotron.'
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
I’m very glad to have seen both of those guys in their prime in the mid-70s. Saw ELP when they were touring behind Brain Salad Surgery.
“Saw ELP when they were touring behind Brain Salad Surgery.”
That must have been great. I saw them twice n 1977 at Madison Square Garden. Saw the Works tour with the orchestra and then I saw them again on my birthday for the WNEW FM Charity show.
That would be Mike Pinder. There’s a YT interview where he describes one of the band’s early shows in, IIRC NYC, when the mellotron literally went to pieces right before the show. The audience waited patiently for over an hour while Mike put it back together and got the thing working again.
Strawberry Fields Forever started playing in my mind as soon as I saw the thread title. That song is so good in so many ways and the mellotron part is perfect.
Pretty sure the woodwinds in Stairway to Heaven are mellotron.
As usual I’m a little late to the party so I’ll just throw a whole bunch of comments to a bunch of different replies in one post.
To goldendelicious, thanks for sharing.
Just to pick nits, the Mellotron being billed as “(1965- The first “Synthesizer”) is just a little off. For a very interesting piece of synth history I would suggest that honor belongs to the Telharmonium, the first of which was built in 1897! Not only was it a true subtractive synth but there is a fairly extensive written record of it’s history.
At 400 tons! and using 670 kilowatts! it wasn’t exactly portable.
There followed a whole host of devices over the next 30 years including the ever popular Thereman, first patented in 1928, along with several other electronic devices with another major first coming in the form of the Hammond Novachord, a fully electronic polyphonic synthesizer weighing close to 500 pounds and using over 160 vacuum tubes. It sold for $1900 which in today’s money would be roughly between $30,000 and $100,000 depending which value calculation is used. Needless to say, they did not sell very well at that price and WWII ended Hammond’s venture into synthesizers. There is a fully restored Novchord on EBay right now for $96,000.
The first optically based synth started development in Russia in 1937, Daphne Oram started building her optical synth in 1957 and Bob Moog and Don Buchla, among others were building synth hardware in the early 1960’s.
If you want to go way way back there is a Burmese Spinning Gong called the Keezee, though it has other names such as “zeetsee” though I guessing at the spelling. Depending on how hard and where you strike it it creates resonant frequencies coming off various points on the surface, when you spin it you add some really neat phasing effects and get a very spacey sound. I’m guessing this oscillator design could be several hundred years old.
Anybody her interested in playing with these machines can find a whole host of synths running the gamut from totally free to reasonably priced copies usually costing no more than a few hundred dollars that sound as good as original machines costing several tens of thousands of dollars when they first came out. There’s probably a dozen of software Mellotrons and at least a couple dozen different versions of Moogs. In addition, the iPad provides a wonderful ecosystem for electronic musical instruments and the prices they sell at are ridiculously cheap.
I’ve seen Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Peter Gabriel’s Genesis, Rick Wakeman among others and all were memorable concerts but I had seats at Public Hall for ELP four rows in-front of the main stage p.a. Dual stacks of quad horns for the subwoofers - they had to be something in the neighborhood of twelve feet tall and six feet wide. When Keith lit up his Moog IIIc it resonated my entire body. The closest thing I can compare it to was when I wrasseled a bear and got thrown across the ring by a forearm across my chest. Victor (the bear) had such padding that the effect was like being picked up off my feet by a gentle zephyr and landing 8 feet away. Fortunately there were no brown notes in either case.
Finally, just a note about the sad passing of Ray Thomas. R.I.P. he will be missed. I still listen to their music and it’s way better than most of what passes for commodity music these days. Anybody have any suggestions for any bands who have the same spirit in their music today?
Post finally. I have belonged to a few music related ping lists here on FreeRepublic in the past. Sadly, they all seem to have come and gone. I’m thinking about starting one in the not so near future. Anybody interested? Any comments?
> Anyone who enjoys quirky keyboards will love the Brooklyn Organ Synth Orchestra
Yes I did! Thanks for sharing.
Did you see this version ?
30+ Synths play Tubular Bells at SuperBooth 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi2l-B7OQ3A
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