(NOTE: Instead of embedding all the links in this post, there is simply a list at the end for the curious.)
Even if you don’t know what a Mellotron is, you’ve heard one. If you know what a Mellotron is, you probably want one. If you own a Mellotron, don't waste your time reading this.
How could something so lo-fi become such a classic? How could an instrument that included sounds recorded by the Lawrence Welk Orchestra be embraced by __________ (fill in the blank with the name of any worthwhile band from the past 45 years)? How could something musicians’ unions on both sides of the Atlantic objected to become something many musicians would kill love to own?
Let us start with the basics. This is a Melodica.
Not to be confused with a Mellotron (MK400 to be precise), which looks like this:
The birth of the Mellotron
In the late 40s, an American named Harry Chamberlin developed a mechanism that allowed a keyboard to playback short pieces of recorded tape (thus inventing sampling). The recordings were produced and supervised by Lawrence Welk in Harry Chamberlin's house: all Chamberlin recordings performed by members of the Lawrence Welk Orchestra in the late '40s and throughout the 1950s. In the early 60s, one of Chamberlin's salesmen, a rather unscrupulous fellow by the name of Bill Fransen, takes a Chamberlin keyboard to England where he claims to be the inventor and sells the idea to some unsuspecting Brits, namely the brothers Frank, Norm, and Lesley Bradley. Harry, who has had no idea where his salesman went, gets a phone call one day from the American distributors of a new British instrument called a Mellotron. I think we can all agree that Harry had every reason in the world to be pissed off. After a business chat with the brothers and a few choice words for his former salesman, Harry agrees to let the Bradleys produce the Mellotron. One of the conditions was that the Mellotron used the famous "3 violins" that was created in 1952 for the Chamberlin. This violin sound became the Mellotron's main sound used on much of the output of British Mellotron music beginning in the mid-1960s.
How a Mellotron Works - Give it a few seconds to load...
Mellotron Fun Facts
- Welk was impressed with Chamberlin's idea of a tape playback instrument and offered to fund its manufacture if it was called a "Welk" machine. Chamberlin refused Welk's offer.
- In 1975, Tangerine Dream had to pay a £2000 fine to the British Musician's Union in compensation to three chamber orchestras which they had allegedly made “redundant” with their Mellotron.
- Harry Chamberlin pulled one of his keyboards from production because of fears that he would upset the American Federation of Musicians.
- The choir sounds on Kraftwerk's Radioactivity and Trans Europe Express are NOT produced by a Mellotron, but instead by Orchestron, manufactured by Mattel. Yes, that Mattel, as in Barbie and Ken. The Orchestron attempted to remedy the instability of the Mellotron by using a disk instead of tape, but the instrument flopped and few were manufactured. Kraftwerk would later show their allegiance to Mattel products by using a Bee Gees Rhythm Machine on Computer World.
What a Mellotron Sounds Like (Or; We finally Get to the Purpose of this Post)
Here's where you get to have your fun: there are two free VSTs available that use actual Mellotron samples (sampling a sampler, how post-modern can you get?). First is the very excellent Redtron 400, available HERE. Unfortunately, for my Turkish friends, the link might bring up this familiar sight:
Google sites remain blocked by the main service provider in this country - I had to check the link at work to ensure it was still valid. Anyway, enough politics, the Redtron 400 looks like this…
…and it sounds even better. Clicking the On/Off switch brings you here…
…where you can mess with the sounds to your heart's content. For authenticity, don't click the LOOP buttons so the sound only plays for eight seconds. Likewise, go back to the first screen and put the ABC dial in-between any two of the letters and the sounds will overlap, just like the original. I can and have played this for hours. The quality of this VST is amazing.
Less amazing, definitely less versatile, but still quite functional when I need a more lo-fi Choir sound, is the Nanotron, which is available HERE.
Knowing that there are people out there who create and distribute instruments like these for free helps restore my faith in humanity.
Peace
TJ
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