Very interesting story! Ed Cohen...I remember that name from my
distant past. I think he used to book jobs for one of the bands I
played in. Was "Whisper" also "Surprise" from Meriden in another
incarnation?
Bernie
--- In
Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com, "jaybe52000" <jaybe52000@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com, "charel196" <charel196@>
wrote:
> >
> > I haven't heard those Birotron samples on M-Tron but always
thought the instrument
> was
> > hard to hear on record (see Wakeman's CRIMINAL RECORD & Yes'
TORMATO) very bass-
> ey
> > and distant sounding. I heard that Biro used 2 Mellotrons to
make the 8 track tapes, so
> > you'd think that this potentially might've sounded good.
> > I assume one could create their own Birotron sounds by looping
Mellotron samples then
> > lowering the fidelity (LP filter)
> >
>
>
> (I've posted this reply once already but I have not seen it show
up in the group messages,
> so please forgive me if it does in fact show up twice.)
>
>
> I didn't know there were any Birotron samples on the M-Tron! Let
alone any Birotron
> samples anywere to be had in any format.
>
> I didn't know there were any Birotron samples on the M-Tron!
>
> Here's my little personal story about my "brush" with the Birotron.
>
> (Again, I'm 52 years old now and I'll put a "senior moment"
disclaimer here at the
> beginning just in case anyone here thinks/knows I've got some of
this wrong, but this is
> my recollection of the events at that time when I was around all
this)
>
> In 1976 I was playing at the Holiday Inn of Bridgeport, CT in the
lounge with a "Show Band"
> that played covers of pop music with a Husband and Wife team as
the leaders and Front
> persons/Vocalists of the band.
>
> I came down to the club one afternoon to turn on all my keyboards
and synths to let them
> "warm up" before rehearsal that day. (My live setup at that time
consisted of my Mellotron
> M400 [Brass/String Section/8-Choir tapes], Hammond B3/Leslie 145,
Polyfusion Modular
> synthesizer (serial number 2), Moog Modular Synthesizer 12,
Minimoog, ARP String
> Ensemble, Hohner Clavinet D6, RMI Electra-Piano and Harpsichord
368 and a Fender
> Rhodes 73 Electric Piano.)
>
> When I went to turn on the Mellotron there was a little green
business card on the
> keyboard of my tron, it said "Ed Cohen Sales-Birotronics, a div of
Rick Wakeman
> Industries".
>
> I was dumbfounded since I had just read in Keyboard Magazine that
same week, that there
> was this "new" Mellotron type keyboard that had tape loops and
could hold notes longer
> than 8 seconds etc. What an odd coincidence I thought. I just
read about this thing and
> now there's a business card for this guy involved with it sitting
on my Mellotron.
>
> Apparently Ed Cohen also managed a band named Whisper that did
covers of Yes, Genesis
> and many of the prog artists of the era, as well as original music
in the same progressive
> vein. When he saw my large setup for live performance, he thought
he'd try to get me to
> audition for Whisper since they needed a keyboard/synth guy and I
obviously had the right
> tools for the job.
>
> So, I called the phone number and spoke to Ed Cohen. He told me
that "he was the
> manager of the Prog Rock band named "Whisper" which was based in
New Haven, CT and
> was also the manager of a band with a keyboard guy named David
Biro...you might have
> heard of him". "He invented what was supposed to be the much
improved Mellotron and
> he named it the "Birotron""
>
> Ed then told me the following story about the Birotron....
>
> Instead of using tapes that had a fixed length and starting point
like the Mellotron, he
> decided to use the old "8-Track" cartridges so that the sounds
could loop indefinitely
> unlike the Mellotron where you only have about 7-8 seconds of
sound playing then you
> have to release the key on the keyboard so the return springs on
the tape frame could pull
> the tape back to it's starting point.
>
> While he did get around the 7-second limitation, he introduced a
new problem. Because
> the Mellotron (and Chamberlin..the original tape replay keyboard
the Mellotron idea was
> er.."borrowed" fromÂ…another story that I'm sure you all know on
this forum...) was NOT a
> continuous loop, it could really play ANY sound because the tape
ALWAYS starts at the
> exact same starting point. Therefore, percussion sounds like the
tubular bells, sound
> effects, like those that I have currently in my Mellotron Mark V,
as well as the other sounds
> in the Mellotron library like drums, vibes, guitar strums etc.
would ALWAYS give you that
> percussive "hit" at the beginning of the sound which is why the
sounded so realistic...the
> Mellotron let you hear the hit of the mallet on every note, or the
articulation of the choir
> voices "Ahh" at the beginning of the notes.
>
> Ed went on to say that basically "David Biro was a musician that
did not have the money to
> afford his own Mellotron, so he went to an auto junk yard, bought
37 8 Track car tape
> players, borrowed a friends Mellotron (excellent player-Jeff
Batter, I don't know about
> anyone else's Mellotron being recorded but it's possible),
recorded all the notes/tracks of
> the sounds in the Mellotron onto 8 Track tape cartridges and then
used an old piano
> keyboard he hollowed out, put switches on the keys that would then
trigger each of the
> different 8 track car tape decks to play the correct pitch. Crazy
huh?"
>
> Well the story goes like this. Ed Cohen, brought this monstrosity
(I guess it was a huge
> thing with all the 8 tack car decks in some kind of box) to a Yes
concert in New Haven, got
> Rick Wakeman to take a look at it, and convinced Wakeman to invest
in David Biro's
> "invention" and try to market and sell it as the "better
mousetrap" advanced version of the
> Mellotron.
>
> As I said earlier, he did get the sounds to play indefinitely, but
the catch was, because you
> never knew where the tape was playing from since the 8 track
cartridges were looped, you
> did not have that perfect attack of every possible type of sound
that the Mellotron had.
> They did add a very limited Envelope Generator that had Attack and
Decay, so you did
> have that, which was a good idea since on the Mellotron you really
have to learn how to
> use your volume pedal to get smooth fades in and out and make it
sound musical
> (Wakeman and Tony Banks were a few of the masters of that
technique).
>
> So while it did give you a perceived attack, it was never really
as good as the Mellotron's
> (IMHO) ability to really give you the exact attack of ANY sound.
The Birotron did OK on
> stuff like strings, cello (still missing that initial bite, there
too really) but I thought the
> attack of the Flute missing and the voices singing that
first "Ahh" really diminished the
> realism of the great way the Mellotron flutes and vocals sound.
>
> There were lots of mechanical problems with getting 8 track tapes
to run consistent
> speeds when you had 37 of them running together, there were pitch
problems I relating to
> I believe individual capstans (not totally sure about that but I
remember something along
> that line) and the project never really got off the ground.
> I know there were other business problems as well, (I heard rumors
that it might have had
> to do with Wakeman's divorce, but I honestly don't know any
details about that)
>
> I did see and hear Rick Wakeman use three or four Birotrons
onstage in concert once and I
> thought they sounded terrible, at least what I could hear of them
at all. Just like the
> previous poster "charel196" mentioned, I also thought it
sounded "distant" and very
> "muddy". I didn't think they came anywhere near sounding full and
rich like the Mellotron
> did. I wished he'd had Mellotrons at that show.
>
> Many years later I told this story to David Kean, (who I had
contacted when I was having
> problems with my Mellotron Mark V. I finally met David Kean when
I worked for E-mu
> Systems (Emu had a "after trade show" party at Dave Kean's studio
when it was in North
> Hollywood, CA one year) and he had expressed an interest in
getting his hands on a
> Birotron. I told him that I did at one time have David Biro's
phone number so I looked and
> found a very old phone book of mine that had David Biro's Mom's
home phone number in
> CT. At the time David Biro still lived there with his Mom. Turns
out that Dave Biro did
> have a Birotron still in his possession. Dave Kean then called
and thanked me. He told me
> later that he bought David Biro's personal Birotron from him. Not
sure what he paid for it.
>
> Ironically, I heard from Ed Cohen over the past year and he
mentioned that Dave Biro is
> living in Florida last he heard.
> Thru my relationship with Ed Cohen I eventually got to meet Rick
Wakeman and Keith
> Emerson.
> I ended up demonstrating the Polyfusion Modular Synthesizers to
both of them. Keith
> Emerson basically said, "he's never going to use anything other
than Moog synths, due the
> relationship he had with Bob Moog. We took my entire Polyfusion
Synth in multiple
> cabinets to Rick Wakeman's hotel room in New York, and he loved it
so much he ordered a
> larger system based on what was in my personal system.
> The problem was that Rick never paid for or took delivery of the
system after they custom
> built it for him. Talk about feeling stupid to the owners of
Polyfusion.
>
>
> Sorry for the length of the post and the off topics bit at the end
regarding synthesizers
>
> John
>