Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Mellotronists

I usually lurk, but I have 2 cents to add to this story, back from a couple
years ago when I was writing a story about the Mellotron. (Usually my
freelancer instincts are good, but I never did find a home for my beloved
Mellotron article... sigh.) Anyway, Rick Wakeman recommended that I
interview his old Birotron partner Peter Robinson, and below are two clips
from that which turned up in my resulting article. The "last year" reference
in it, btw, would be 1999.

Cheers, -- Paul Collins


After playing a Carnegie Hall performance in 1975, Wakeman was approached by
an inventor from Connecticut named David Biro. Listen, said Biro, I've
figured out a way to beat the slow response and eight second limit on
Mellotrons. Wakeman's interest was piqued enough that he asked Biro to set
up a demonstration of his invention: forty five 8-track decks wired together
and hooked up to a keyboard. 8-track tapes never needed rewinding -- and
could, for the purposes of an instrument, be set on an endless loop, giving
notes infinite sustain.

Wakeman set up shop in England with business partner Peter Robinson and a
mechanical engineer with the unlikely name of Roger Rogers. The team
surmounted a number of technical challenges facing their design, and by 1978
found themselves with over 1000 orders from musicians anticipating the next
step in Mellotron evolution; at £1000 each, they had a million pounds in
outstanding orders. But the Birotron Company couldn't finesse the transition
to mass production, and then the bane of Mellotronic existence appeared:
digital sampling. Staggering under production problems and looming analog
obsolescence, the Birotron became a financial sinkhole -- as Wakeman notes
wearily, "I ploughed absolute fortunes into the Birotron."

Only twelve were made before the company folded in 1979. Wakeman doesn't
even own his anymore. What, I ask Peter Robinson, of the other eleven? "I
haven't a clue where they are," he answers. "I don't even know where Dave
Biro is. The last time I saw him was in New York. In 1979.".....

Birotron partner Peter Robinson admits that, like most Mellotron-related
alum, he threw out piles of machinery in the late 1980s and early 90s. He
now works with Packhorse Case, a supplier of custom equipment cases; when I
ask him about his years working on the Birotron, he laughs and says, "Quite
frankly, for a long time I blanked it all out of my mind."

Last year, though, while in Holland on business, a tipoff led Robinson face
to face with his long-forgotten past. "Someone had a trunk full of Birotron
stuff. I opened it up, and damned if it wasn't the master tapes. They were
all still there, good as the day we recorded them -- and I have to say that
they came out very nicely. We had the London Symphony Orchestra on there,
and wonderful choir recordings. And there they were."