I have only two cassette tapes of the bands i was in back then. One is 3 or 4 songs from
the Prog Rock group Whipser the other is the band I was in when I first moved to California
in the late '70's which was an entire album but our record deal fell thru so it was never
released, all we got were master cassettes. I do have to transfer them into the Mac and
clean up up and turn them into MP3's just for the hell of it. The Whipser stuff was
recorded on a just an 8 track, so the quality is not really that great, but you can hear the
Mellotrons on that one. (I had a second M400 for those sessions in addition to my own
M400. However the Nightwork album was done in 24 track Analog 2 inch tape at the
totally pro, hitmaking Sound City in Van Nuys, CA. This was the same studio famous for
Pat Benatar's 1st album, the Buckingham/Nicks album Stevie Nicks and Lindsey
Buckingham did before they joined Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty was there recording his
album in Studio A during the time we were recording ours in Studio B. That might have
been Petty's "Damn the Torpedo" not sure though. Rick Springfield was also there trying to
get his first "hits" out there. To name a few of the people I met there when we were
recording that album.
Unfortunately, the damn producer and engineer of that record HATED my
Mellotron..because they were prejudice from their previous encounters with tron's that
must have been not maintained, and played by people that most likely did not have the
required "technique" we on this list know that Mellotron needs to sound it's best.
The LOVED my Hammond B3 playing and sounds so you can hear my organ solos at least
and some of the Synth leads etc.
Even though I did some real nice stuff with my M400 they always buried it in the mix. It
really pissed me off. I had done some really nice stuff with layering Polymoog Strings,
Yamaha CS-80 strings and the String Section in my M400. Of course I had used the
Mellotron String section as the "grit and base" of the whole string section, the the
Polymoog and CS-80 were the frosting. Well all the frosting was there but the mellotron
cake was missing.
Actually now that I'm thinking about this, one nice intro to a song called "Anything Can
Happen In Hollywood" the entire into to the song is all me, playing acoustic piano,
Mellotron Flutes and a Bell like/Celeste patch I created on the Yamaha CS-80. Since there
were only the three instruments on the intro and the Mellotron Flutes were the only thing
playing the chords, they HAD to have it up in the mix. There, now I feel better.
One of the albums I played on that was release as a CD was James Young's 2nd solo record
after he left Styx for awhile and lived in California. I'm on the first cut, the introducton is
lots of keyboards, unfortunatly, no Mellotron tho. I know if you "google" me that does
come up in some music database, but the CD is no longer available from what I've heard/
seen. I do however have a copy of that for playing and one still shrinkwrapped with a
"Thank You" post it note from JY.
John
--- In Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com, "Andy Thompson" <andy.thompson@...> wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "jaybe52000" <jaybe52000@...>
> To: <Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 4:33 AM
> Subject: [Mellotronists] Re: did the Birotron ever sound good?
>
>
> > Thanks! Glad to hear you found it interesting.
> >
> > I wasn't sure if I was taking up too much bandwidth here. LOL
> >
> > I've started informally writing my own little autobiography about what
> > I've done behind the
> > scenes so to speak in the synth/sampling industry. So anything anyone
> > thinks I've got
> > wrong or knows something differently from what I'm remembering always glad
> > to hear
> > other's perspective/thoughts.
> >
> > Sorry it's taken me so long to start posting on the group.
> >
> > John
>
> Chaps
>
> Sounds like quite a few of you were gigging M400s around the States in the
> late '70s - did any of you record albums that aren't widely known? Even if
> only limited 'private pressings'?
>
> Andy T.
>