Hey Bernie,
Whipser did have many incarnations before I joined the band in 1976.
And you are correct in that Ed and his now ex wife Miriam Cohen were managing several
bands in that area.
Surprise was one of the bands they managed in addition to Whisper.
However, what you may be thinking of is that the "version"of Whisper I was in, Ken
Nessing, our frontman/Lead Singer was in the band Surprise, before joining us in whipser.
I've got a great overhead shot of me and my keyboard set up at a college in New Britian,
CT I beleive it was. I need to get that scanned so I can put it up on the photos section of
this and a few other sites that have asked to see what the set up back then looked like.
I still can't believe we moved all that stuff ourselves back then without a road crew!
Arrgghh.
Did we know each other back then Bernie? We you also playing Mellotron back then in
your bands from that area? What was the name of the band you were in?
John
--- In Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com, "Bernie" <kornowicz@...> wrote:
>
> 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
> >
>