If memory and ears serves, that's a real oboe played by Mssr. Ray Thomas. There was no mellotron oboe at that point, and in listening to the recording, it sounds to me like the real deal. The percussive sound is "key clack" because he must be squeezing the hell out of the poor thing. The pinched quality of the tone also leads me to that conclusion.
Sorry, Rick, but I respectfully beg to differ, and I have an orchestral background as well. You are correct in that there was no Oboe sound for the MkII at that time. I think it's been long established that the "other" Tuesday Afternoon sound is Tenor Sax (Station 2, Track 3 on Mike's standard MkII tapes (although live recordings show that Mike only played 3 Violins despite having identical tapes on both keyboards -- go figure). Check it out directly if you have both sounds in your SFX m/c. I first heard this sound alone playing Justin Mayer's MkII and was blown away at the discovery, having originally thought that it was something like muted trumpet. I later recorded both sounds (the TA intro) when I got the Pinder CD-ROM and THAT was the sound. You can hear that it's the Tenor Sax sound more prominently in later recordings (e.g., alternate takes, the MFSL disk). The new Classic Artists Moodies DVD and my interview with Tony Clarke confirm that Ray's exposure to the oboe (bleeding lips and all) was not until ISOTLC, where he dubbed them "the world's smallest orchestra". Mike also used the Tenor Sax sound on the break in "Evening (Time To Get Away)" on DOFP, and on "Lazy Day" from OTTOAD.
Cheers,
Frank
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