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Subject: Re: [Mellotronists] Re: OT-Birotron

From: Nic Lewis <nic@...>
Date: 2003-10-18

At 23:52 17/10/03 +0000, charel196 wrote:

> I always suspected the machine might've worked better if the tapes
>were horizontal.

And they were in Dave Biro's prototype.

>Didn't Mr.Biro actually use trons to make the tape
>loops(2 400s if I recall)?

I'm not sure about Dave's originals, I know some later tapes were made
by using two original recordings of instruments of a few seconds each
which were then looped and copied from two recorders to a third tape of
adequate length to transfer to 8 track. The two original loops were put on
decks so that the splices were 180 degrees out of phase and an unfortunate
person had the job of fading between the two onto the longer 'master'.
Not only was this a tedious job, it also resulted in some interesting harmonics
on the resultant 'master' copy.

I listened to TORMATO and CRIMINAL RECORD
>intently the other day and they still don't cut through enough to get
>a decent opinion.

No, and as usual there's so much going on it's difficult to really pin down the
useage.

>I have Dave Kean's tune on the tron CD as well but
>it's mixed in with trons and Chamberlin so who can tell what's doing
>what? Maybe I should just loop the Pinder CD samples in my E4K and
>get a close approximation(endless tron notes).

Possibly/probably the best bet.


Best Regards,

Nic