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

In the case of Strawberry Fields, at first I wasn't even sure that the sound was 'intended' to be a flute, it just sounded too weird for that to my ears. I assumed that it was a strange backward tape loop with sort-of-flute-like tones that maybe the Beatles made themselves. It wasn't until shortly afterwards and hearing "Ha Ha Said The Clown", "Let's Go To San Francisco" and "Julia Dream" and hearing that odd sound again that I started to really become curious about what was behind that sound. And that was only the flutes. Once I heard "Hole In My Shoe" and The Kinks' "Days" (again not realising it was actually strings, it sounded too odd and 'spacey' to me), then other sounds such as the brass on the Stones' "We Love You", followed by reading in various places about the Mellotron, eventually I put two and two together, and realised with much amazement that so many of my favourite sounds on these records were all made by the same instrument! I've been addicted to the 'tron ever since.Tony S.