Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Mellotronists

Certainly the M300 was a transitional design, but I can just imagine
a little staff meeting at the factory after the initial run of
Mk2's. Someone of hierarchy saying "Okay, gang--these pricey
monstrosities are a bit too much to manufacture--the mechanics, the
cabinetry...the delicate inner workings, everything...and they
aren't selling too hot, so we need to scale these things down and
simplify them a bit & keep 'em unique at the same time."

Actually it was a lot more sluggish than that.  Painfully slow in fact because it took them until 1971 to realise the potential of a compact mellotron for the rock and pop industry despite the Beatles, Manfred Mann and all having shown them the way for the last 5 years.  There were all these classic singles and albums coming out around 1967 loaded with 'tron and what did Mellotronics Manufacturing, Londinium decide upon?  Let's make another domestic cycling 'tron using 1/4" tape.  Wrong design, wrong format.  It beggars belief.  The boys at the top had all the marketing skills of the Baghdad Pork Scratching Company.  Once the penny dropped it took Les and his brothers very little time to come up with the M400, probably only a few weeks to pin down the whole design if I remember Les's words correctly.  Streetly were enterprising but Mellotronics were staid, the result being a difficult relationship a lot of the time.

Martin

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