Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Mellotronists
Subject: Re: [Mellotronists] Mellotron 4 track
From: NormLeete@...
Date: 2002-12-02
Daer All,
I saw and played the 4-track while it was at John and Martin's and it was much better than I expected it to be.
One surprise was that the 'kitchen white goods' assembly techniques had been applied to some of the innards as well as the case. The tape frame and the keyboard metalwork were made from aluminium pressings rather than the extrusions we are all used to.
The thing that probably stuffed this was the cost, 4 track heads were not cheap so 35 of them soon mount up plus there were four complete sets of playback electronics. However it was good to be able to mix any combination of tracks. Quality of sound seemed OK as well although I can't remember if the tapes were the J + M set.
One dodgy bit was the motor controller was mounted horizontally which does not aid cooling!
All the best,
Norm