Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: The Mellotron Group

Welcome Mattias:


Thanks for sending this. It's an interesting time capsule of sorts.

It certainly sounds like MK II electric guitar in there but I doubt it's Mellotron cello.

The Mellotron cello was released with the M400 in 1970 and these recordings pre-date that.

What I'm fairly certain it is - is Chamberlin cello, but with the higher frequencies muted out.

This would be a Chamberlin Musicmaster 600 which was the 'common' model up until the M1 came out in late 69 / early 1970.

You can also tell by the heavy vibrato as many Chamberlin sounds have this and it was characteristic of the recordings of that time - (1940's -1950's). The Chamberlin was intended as a big band instrument. (The inventor despised everything about rock and roll that he largely made his son deal with the rock musicians though Bobby Darin was an exception).

Chamberlins were used starting from the 1950's in the US and Canada before the Mellotron arrived.
(In fact, I thought Mellotrons were rarer because I personally encountered more Chamberlins in my travels, and never thought the inverse was true.)
 

Of course, this brings up the possibility that it's not MK II guitar then, but a Chamberlin electric guitar sound used in the same range. I haven't heard the Chamberlin electric guitar in a long time and would have to re-familiarize myself with it.  It's not a common or distinctive recording. The Doors never owned a Mellotron or Chamberlin  so I wonder if this second video is live in a studio?
If so the studio could have had both a MK II and a Chamberlin Music Master though they would have to be a major outfit based in Hollywood that did mainly post production for movies to afford both at that time.
It also sounds like there's some real saxophone too, and maybe some electric piano.

Certainly it's interesting as the Doors are most associated with the combo organ sound and not the tape keyboards.

Thanks for sharing it.


Chris Dale