It isn't worth it but I've some time to waste today :)
Mike Pinder used Chamberlin, an M300 Mellotron and a very heavily modified MK II on Seventh Sojourn.
The Chamberlin sounds cleaner on Seventh Sojourn only because it's an M series unit that has higher quality tape heads.
The earlier Chamberlins don't necessarily sound cleaner than the Mellotron because there isn't standardized tape heads in many of them. Master tapes have less to do with it when the playback mechanism is an influence.
The cellos on Isn't Life Strange and New Horizons are Chamberlin, but on other songs the sounds are interwoven with Mellotron M300 strings, which mask the Chamberlin vibrato.
Chamberlin is commonly mistaken for real string sections on many records. This was by design for authenticity purposes and to a much lesser extent - to avoid the American Musicians Unions.
In a mix, Chamberlin sounds are generally harder to discern than Mellotron sounds.
You almost need to own a real Chamberlin to recognize them. Not all of the Chamberlin sounds have been released digitally.
You're right about the Mellotron cellos being lower than the Chamberlin. Many of us here have both a real Chamberlin and Mellotron, and this was one of the first things that was noticeable. But not all 35 notes on the Chamberlin are used for every sound. For instance, the Male Voice and Female Voice singers couldn't sing that high. The upper few keys are blank, or have filler sounds on them. Other wind instrument sounds are like that too.
If you have a full 35 notes or more for every Chamberlin sound in a digital keyboard or sample library, then the lowest and highest notes are either digitally pitched or occasionally can be from some other non-Chamberlin source.
On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 10:05 AM, Hal Moser
<halmoser@yahoo.com> wrote:
Check it out on Wikipedia and All Music. The sonic quality of the Chamberlin is much cleaner than previous albums. He did use the mellotron on some songs, but listen carefully, especially the cellos. With my new Mellotron/Chamberlin, you can switch back and forth between sounds and you can immediately tell the difference.
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2012 12:00 PM
Subject: Re: [newmellotrongroup] Re: Here's something that you wont want to miss out on
I will take a listen but when Mike recorded Seventh S, he still had a MKII and the M400 with the cello sound hadn't been released. Of course he could have used an M300 with the early A tapes but his instrument had B tapes. It's all so confusing and probably not worth it!
Sorry, but you're wrong. Mike Pinder used the Chamberlain on 7th Soujourn. Listen for the cellos on "Isn't Life Strange". Mellotrn cellos are an octive below the Chamberlain cellos and at the lower end of the cellos, it switches to a "double bass". Richard Chamberlain said that Mike bought a Chamberlain, but tried to re-wire it himself. Richard said that they had to go in a fix the wiring because it was so messed up.
Just to be a pedant.......you won't find any mellotron cello on any Moodies recordings.
Best,
M