Crossposted at Politicook.net
Back during the British Invasion, in the mid to late 1960's, the better bands wanted to bring something else to the audience than guitar and drums. Some use the Theremin, like the Beach Boys, some used a Moog, like the Beatles, and other used the Mellotron, like the Moody Blues.
Of the three, the Theremin is the oldest, but the Mellotron used more conventional technology. The Moog was something different. If there is interest, I will post about them another time.
The Mellotron is a pretty conventional tape player, except it has dozens of separate players with tape loops that are key activated. Think of it as an organ, but instead of tone generators, each keystroke plays prerecorded tapes of other, real instruments.
They are complicated and very prone to breakdown. But they have a wonderful tenor, when a master plays one. Such a master was Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues.
Mike actually was an engineer who worked for the company that made them, so could always make them work. He hooked up with some of the best musicians of his time as ended up as a founding member of the Moody Blues.
They did OK, but not well. Donovan Leitch himself wrote the album liners to their first record in 1966, but it was not that good. It was called Go Now, and was forgettable. Interestingly, Denny Lane went on to be the lead guitarist for Wings years later. Then a revolution happened.
Justin Hayward and John Lodge replaced Denny Laine and Clint Warwick and magic happened. The classic Moody Blues appeared, and we all should rejoice because of it. That is some wonderful stuff.
I call them Mark II, and that is when Days of Future Passed was originated. It was the first, and very clumsy attempt at their music. But it was good!
Then, In Search of the Last Chord came to us. Warp engines on a record in 1967! You listen and decide.
Back to the Mellotron.
It was very difficult to control, very 1960's technology, and difficult to make sound right. But when properly done, just wonderful. Here is a link
http://www.youtube.com/...
for the violin sound of a Mellotron. I am sorry that I could not embed it. Pinder liked violins. Rick Wakeman had one set to the Morman Tabernacle Quire.
The other thing that made them better than the Moog at the time was that, since multiple tape feeds could be input into a single mixer, Mellotrons were polyphonic, (able to play more than one note at a time). The Moog, with only one oscillator, could play only one note at a time. It gets technical, but the Mellotron, with all of its technical difficulties, was the best string sound until the AARP Sting Ensemble synthesizer, as poor as it was, took over in the mid 1970's.
I would enjoy any input on this subject from readers.
Warmest regards,
Doc