The Mellotron, an electronic keyboard of recorded samples, changed pop music

https://daily.jstor.org/tape-heads/

by samizdis • 3 years ago

156 66 3 years ago

daily.jstor.org

dang• 3 years ago

The Mellotron In Action [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17939204 - Sept 2018 (44 comments)

retrac• 3 years ago

Conceptually similar, there was also the ANS synthesizer [1] designed by the Soviet engineer Evgeny Murzin. Unlike the Mellotron, it was opto-electronic, giving the composer more direct access and control over the "samples". Waveforms were drawn on glass plates, and pressing one of the keys would scan across the associated plate, feeding the generated signal through various filters, etc.

It features prominently in the soundtrack by Eduard Artemyev, for the historical film Siberiade from 1979. [2]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANS_synthesizer

[2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=sJj9y4t9UnU

Gordonjcp3• 3 years ago

I remember my dad telling me years and years ago about an arbitrary function generator that they used at university, where you had an oscilloscope with a cardboard mask representing the function's graph in front of the screen, and a light sensor in a light-tight funnel that controlled the spot height. When light shone on the sensor it would reduce the input voltage, and so the spot would trace the top of the cardboard mask.

This actually works quite well!

ano-ther• 3 years ago

Very clever!

rodgerd• 3 years ago

Waveforms were drawn on glass plates

Interestingly enough the documentary "Sisters with Transistors" show some British pioneers adopt a similar approach, but drawing on film rather than glass plates, in the 40s and 50s.

TheOtherHobbes2• 3 years ago

That was Daphne Oram, who was a pioneer and all-round innovator. You can find her book online and it's a fascinating insight into a different cultural universe than the one we have today.

But her Oramics system was more like an automation controller hand-painted onto film strip than optical waveform synthesis.

It was a direct ancestor of the automation in all modern DAWs.

joezydeco• 3 years ago

A somewhat distant cousin to that is the Mattel Optigan, which used waveforms printed on a transparent sheet of plastic and spun over a photocell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optigan

epcoa3• 3 years ago

That’s how sound movies worked for years.

cadr• 3 years ago

There is a cool app that emulates it - https://www.warmplace.ru/soft/ans/

FpUser2• 3 years ago

Think this guy Nikolai Voinov from Soviet Union was doing it in 1930. Quite amazing:

https://youtu.be/Z7Zb4rso82M

denton-scratch2• 3 years ago

Waveforms were drawn on glass plates

That sounds similar to how the Hammond organ worked, I think. I believe it had spinning wheels with a wavy edge; light shone past the edge of a wheel generated an electrical waveform.

bzzzt• 3 years ago

Hammond organs use an electromagnetic pickup to get the waveform from the wheels.

noizejoy• 3 years ago

There’s a fantastic free collection of samples recorded from real Mellotrons, which is worth knowing about for anyone desiring to experiment with creating their own virtual Mellotron.

“Tajiguy mellotron samples” in your favourite search engine, should hopefully get you to the right place.

w0mbat• 3 years ago

The original article is wrong to use the term "samples". That only applies when making a digital representation of an analog signal by "sampling" the amplitude thousands of times a second. These are recordings.

The Mellotron is still alive and well, both as a mechanical instrument still supported and made by Streetly Electronics, and in digital form by the official plug-in versions from GForce Software like https://www.gforcesoftware.com/products/m-tron-pro/ . I suppose with the plug-in virtual Mellotron the sounds really are samples.

roblh• 3 years ago

I don’t think sample really implies it has to be digital at all. “Sampling” can mean what you said, but I think a mellotron is very much a sampler by most definitions. It plays back a chunk of a pre-existing recording.

Applejinx2• 3 years ago

More than that, it plays back a particular snippet of audio recording, over and over, upon pressing a particular key. Play a different key and you get a different recording, and they're not meant to be heard once, they're meant to map to the sounding of a particular note, whether that be played staccato (playing only from the attack) or legato (playing the full length of the sample).

The Mellotron is an analog multi-sample sample-playing instrument. It's just that working in analog makes everything way more cumbersome.

whstl• 3 years ago

I'd say the part of a sample being "a digital representation" is correct, however there's a fun exception to that rule: circuits called bucket-brigade delays that perform "analog sampling", using capacitors. They're still used a lot in musical contexts.

Those are traditionally regarded as being analog, although in recent times I've seen people claiming they're not, since they use discrete instead of continuous signals. So they're kind of halfway.

burnte• 3 years ago

Sampling in the analog world happened for millennia before computers. It's a perfectly good use of the word here. It does not in anyway only apply to digital.

nohankyou• 3 years ago

Why does it have to be digital? A sample is a small portion of a whole, digital, analog, regardless of the medium.

These are recordings of a sample of parts from instruments.

scarecrowbob• 3 years ago

A as musician, technologist, and sample user of many years I disagree.

Your usage of sample is correct, but there are other usages of the word which are alos correct, and the term "sampler" isn't specific to the literal digital signal sampling.

I have bought and made plenty of sample packs, to be played back by various sample players, over the last 25 years. A "sampler" refers to how the device works with recordings, not the individual digital samples that it makes up- as far as I understand it anything that allows you to recontextualuze short recordings is a sampler,

A mellotron very much is a mechanical sampler, though very limited compared to its current digital counterparts.

I am open to being wrong. But your claim is a bit odd. While I'd be stoked to see some evidence in the philology of the term that says I'm wrong, I just don't think that is something you'd find.

epcoa3• 3 years ago

The term sampling is used in DJing and music production for a short “sample” of a whole, long before digital recording technologies were used. You’re too ridgid in your definition. (I am also surprised why this specific “well akshully” comes up - it’s not like DJ sampling or hip hop sampling is obscure.)

dekhn• 3 years ago

I believe the term "sampling" was introduced with the Fairlight, which was digital. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairlight_CMI although I would refer to previous analog work as sampling, since a sample is a generic term.

weinzierl• 3 years ago

Vulfpeck's Woody Goss has a short but excellent video about vintage keyboard instruments, one of them being the Mellotron.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rK8FhHt0iO4

MontgomeryPi2• 3 years ago

Obligatory Moody Blues song link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlMebMCru9s

rwmj2• 3 years ago

Or most Van Der Graaf Generator songs. eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDDf_SuAlBA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Plague_of_Lighthouse_Keepers)

beders• 3 years ago

Or Genesis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2agWXrNJGjg

metal13• 3 years ago

Picked a good day to wear my Opeth hoodie...

volfied• 3 years ago

Isn't it all Steven Wilson playing the mellotron on Opeth records? Damnation is one of those albums where if you hear a song from it, the whole thing is getting played.

squigg• 3 years ago

If the Panoptigon playing Kraftwerk "Uranium" does not send a shiver up the spine of anyone in tech, then you my friend should have a good hard look in the mirror.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6uvpd38msA

Lio• 3 years ago

An article about the Mellotron that doesn’t mention King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King? Disgraceful! :P

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ukgraQ-xkp4&pp=ygUta2luZyBjcml...

Applejinx2• 3 years ago

One could also mention the Birotron. It was a mellotron-type instrument that Rick Wakeman had in the mid-seventies, but instead of the Mellotron strips of rewindable tape, it used 8-track tape housings to hold its tape.

The members of Yes are said to have pranked Rick one day, by swapping out all the tapes for commercial 8-tracks, so when he began to play it was a cacophony of pop songs overlaid onto each other, rather than the appropriate sounds. It's said that Wakeman was quite cross :)

(the instrument is heard on Tangerine Dream's album Force Majeure: strings and male choir https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afqgm3CzzQY )

devnull255• 3 years ago

Right? And King Crimson sold one of theirs to Tony Banks of Genesis. At least that's a claim here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellotron I loved its use on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

hondo77• 3 years ago

Or Michael Pinder from The Moody Blues. You know, the guy who also introduced the Mellotron to The Beatles?

hayley-patton• 3 years ago

Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark also used the Mellotron in the early 80s, all over Architecture and Morality and Dazzle Ships.

But without actually having the confidence or the guts to work with a real choir we had to employ other means of trying to reproduce that massed choral sound, hence the Mellotrons.

For example the Mellotron provided the violin lead and choir background in their single Maid of Orleans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmwMhjbThKg

Gordonjcp3• 3 years ago

Or Led Zeppelin - The Rain Song.

joemi2• 3 years ago

There's a group called Mellotron Variations (led by a great organist, John Medeski) where all four members play Mellotrons. It's very interesting, and much more varied than you might expect if you're familiar with the typical Mellotron uses. There are some videos of their live performances on youtube, including an NPR Tiny Desk concert.

rwmj2• 3 years ago

I'm thinking about the MTBF of Mellotrons, and thinking it's a miracle all 4 band members were able to play together ...

FpUser2• 3 years ago

This is absolutely genius. I love it. Too bad I did not know about them before.

https://youtu.be/B7XF3tINSyI

acomjean• 3 years ago

Is that the John Medeski of Medeski Martin & Wood?

I have a couple albums from them I need to listen to again, but he was on a Hammond or piano. I can see this new thing being fun.

joemi2• 3 years ago

Indeed, it sure is him! I love that he's still doing awesome stuff. The early MMW albums will forever hold a special place in my heart.

sitkack• 3 years ago

This whole comment section is a beautiful example of what makes hn nice. All the interested folks, sharing their links, not posturing about how smart they are or how stupid the post is. Just wonderful exploration and learning.

niccl• 3 years ago

I think the BBC used a version of the mellotron with sound effects instead of instruments, so they could quickly access effects during a radio show

tricky• 3 years ago

I'm a terrible hobby musician and I love using the Mellotron that's in GarageBand or Logic. I had no idea what it really was before today (thanks for sharing the article) but it somehow always adds some sort of perfect, whimsical ambiance to whatever I'm trying to make. Give it a try with some reverb under a good beat. Can't go wrong.

TheHideout• 3 years ago

Tangentially related, Melotron is the name of a fantastic synthpop band.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melotron

alecfreudenberg• 3 years ago

John Medeski is a legendary jazz keyboardist who experimentally uses the tape speed to get extraordinary texture out of his OG mellotron.

He recently put out a great record called 'Mellotron Variations' with a few other artists that gives you a deep dive into its tonal qualities.

The modern digital mellotrons are so satisfying to play, especially with the instrument layering and mixing. Truly feels like like scoring an orchestra at your fingertips.

stuartmemo• 3 years ago

I made a little online version if anyone's interested - https://sodaphonic.com/instruments/mellotron

duderific• 3 years ago

Super cool, love it!

Kye• 3 years ago

I have an emulated version through Arturia's V Collection. It's fun to play around with even if newer sampler VSTs are more featureful. It's an easy way to get a specific sound of the era it came from.

jacquesm• 3 years ago

The intro to Strawberry fields is a Mellotron:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUH9z_Oey8

throw_m239339• 3 years ago

Dinosaur Jr - Thumb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUVQSbrZ_Zo

Dinosaur Jr - Never Bought It

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMZvi96CDjE

Dinosaur Jr - Don't Pretend You Didn't Know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk28bFikvvI

barneybooroo• 3 years ago

I've always loved using a (simulated) Mellotron when making music, without being consciously clued in to which songs first got me hooked on it, but you've just made me realise it was Dinosaur Jr, not Strawberry Fields Forever. Thanks!

gerdesj2• 3 years ago

Up the road from here a new city has formed for about a week. Its population is roughly twice that of the City of Bath, which is close by. It's not actually in Glastonbury but on a farm near the village of Pilton which is way closer to Shepton Mallet than Glasto.

However, the Isle of Avalon () n that is in Glastonbury and let's face it "Shepton Mallet" doesn't really cut it for a festy name! Pilton isn't too bad for a name but Glasto does have a Tor and some proper oddness. There is a bloke on the main road in Glasto at the moment, dressed up as Merlin who is blessing everyone who passes through. Nice sentiment.

Anyway, I'd like to think that somewhere in the 90 odd stages in this year's Glasto, a Mellotron is wheezing and whining somewhere! The sound they produce is so lovely. Everyone else will be using a synth of some sort, probably on a laptop but it won't ever sound quite like a Mello ... well it will because modern gear can emulate a Mello and other old stuff rather well, for me. I don't buy cables costing £lol

------ () Before the Somerset levels were drained in the C16ish, Glasto Tor was an island as were several other raised bits of villages - eg Muchelney abbey was an island too. On the levels the older buildings are built on mounds for obvious reasons. Ill advised modern housing estates get flooded.

Gordonjcp3• 3 years ago

Where I used to live, a little north of Glasgow but a little south of Stirling, there was a big flat bit of low-lying ground where a modern housing estate was built, with a nice little stream at the bottom.

The ground was flat because it was the bottom of a loch drained in the 1500s, by a culvert to a river a few miles away.

All the rubbish that people threw from their cars washed down the stream, into the wetlands that it flowed through, and eventually began to gunk up the culvert. The wetlands got bigger, the stream got deeper, and by the 1970s the housing scheme had a nice little pond instead of a stream, and cracks in every foundation.

It's not as bad as the proposed housing scheme further along the valley, where I have a photo (which I can't find just at the moment, sorry) of the developer's 4m tall sign boards just barely sticking out of a pond the size of the entire fenced-off bit.

Don't drain wetlands then build on them, folks. Geology will always win against you.

gerdesj2• 3 years ago

Apparently they were put up to it by a bunch of Dutch engineers. To be fair the engineering is fabulous given how old it is, provided you don't screw with rivers and allow the drainage ditches to silt up. All the farms and older buildings are on mounds.

There are loads of modern estates built on the flood plains - it is madness. I live in Yeovil, on the side of a hill, 40' above the brook at the bottom edge of our garden. Just north is Yeovil Marsh (mostly drained but the name is a clue), yes of course people build houses in a fucking marsh! The word Yeovil was originally Gifle (C7) which means bend in a river in old English. There are of course houses rather close to the river Yeo that get very damp with monotonous regularity.

Cumbernauld (guess!) looked charming back in 1986, when we drove past. It still looked lovely about four years ago, the concrete had aged beautifully.

I studied Civ Eng at Plymouth Poly back in '89 and our first field trip was to Roadford Reservoir with its smart new dam - built for something like 1 in 1000 year events. Sadly 1 in 1000 year events are more common these days due to global warming. Luckily Dartmoor is pretty stable but really big dams could be severely tested in the coming decades. Ironically one of our remedies - the EV is much heavier than the gas guzzler. That means that multi story CPs could become overloaded. However pre-stressed conc. members are bloody strong and shouldn't fail by exploding, so I shouldn't lose too much sleep!

Geology, hydrology and meteorology can be jolly unforgiving.

s1mon• 3 years ago

For a rabbit hole of sampling which involves Mellotron, Vako Orchestron, Optigan, New Order and Kraftwerk, I highly recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_jrPon8bMg

WalterBright• 3 years ago

The Moody Blues built their sound around the mellotron, I really like their albums. It also appears in the opening of the movie "Aguirre The Wrath of God". I like the dreamy, ethereal quality of it.

SeanLuke• 3 years ago

IIRC the Mellotron also featured prominently in the beginning of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds too.

TonyTrapp• 3 years ago

Note that there is barely any electronics in the Mellotron (the motor control). Here's a great breakdown of the instrument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByD8gH7kYxs

zaplin• 3 years ago

Interestingly, in a recent interview Damon Albarn, the guy behing Gorillaz revealed that the song Clint Eastwood is a Mellotron preset. You can check the interview, featuring the sample here > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDX6l9_58RA

Btw, if you're interested in synths and music gear, I run a newsletter about music producers and their studios > https://www.gasnewsletter.com/

[edit] uugghh, I messed up. I had in mind the omnichord. Damon Albarn used the omnichord, not the mellotron.

mft_• 3 years ago

I had in mind the omnichord.

...as also used by Bowie in a lovely cover of America, once upon a time.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/david-bowie-simon-and-garfunkel...

denton-scratch2• 3 years ago

tape loops were heavy, and therefore difficult to export or take on tour.

What could be lighter than a tape-loop?

TheOtherHobbes2• 3 years ago

The Mellotron is really more of a sound transformer. The playback system is so analog and wonky you get a kind of warbly soft focus evocation of the original sound with a surreal, often epic, edge around it. Musically it's not at all a straight copy.

Which is why it was so popular for prog, especially during its drug-enhanced heyday. The magic isn't in the reproduction, it's in the unique atmosphere it creates.

karina22222• 3 years ago

Nice

Perenti• 3 years ago

My Boss back in the 80's bought one and I had the job of restoring it. The worst was jam on the drives and heads (a capstan drive and playback head for each key). The magazine where the tapes hang was full of ferrite dust. We ended up using a DX-7 and a Tascam to make new tapes that were not transparent from so much use.

Since musicians favour particular keys, some notes get more use than others, so in theory you'd rebalance the volumes using a pot for each tape.

A truely unique sound though, something about the analogue process just makes it lovely.

The Mellotron, an electronic keyboard of recorded samples, changed pop music

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