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

previous by date index next by date
previous in topic topic list next in topic

Subject: Re: [newmellotrongroup] Birotron on ebay

From: "will davis" <trondave@gmail.com>
Date: 2009-04-14

Mike....I have played a pipe organ and I have played a Birotron and I can safely say that you obviously never actually played a Birotron.....why are you lying about it ?   The key action was lightning fast; it was made by Pratt and Reade, the same company that made keyboards for Moog and many others.  If you did indeed play one and maybe you are just prejudiced for some reason, Id be curious to know exactly when, where and who owned it !  dave
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Dickson
To: newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2009 5:42 AM
Subject: Re: [newmellotrongroup] Birotron on ebay

Played it, hated it.

The keyboard is heavier than a direct action pipe organ, thanks to the
keys being sprung with something that could have been used to catapult
boulders over a castle wall 600 years ago. Worse than that is the noise
from the mechanics of the machine. Dear god...all those little 8 track
cartridges clattering away constantly. I never thought much of the
fidelity either, although that may have had something to do with the
state of the recordings.

Even worse though is that it all works on tape loops, thereby losing
that characteristic attack that actually signals what a sound is.Without
it (say) a solo cello and a solo voice sound amazingly similar, although
with the reproduction problems the Birotron had it's amazing it sounded
like anything at all. It's better than the Orchestron (which seems to
have a library of sine waves, clicks and white noise) but not by much.

tronbros@aol. com wrote:
>
>
> It's the one we restored about 7 years ago!
>
> M
>
> ∗Streetly Electronics - All Things Mellotronic
> www.mellotronics. com <http://www.mellotro nics.com/>∗
> US Sales East: Jimmy Moore JMoore6397@aol. com <http://JMoore6397@ aol.com/>
> US Sales West: Paul Cox pjc56@earthlink <mailto:pjc56@ earthlink>
>
>

--
Mike Dickson, Edinburgh

Free Music Project: http://www.last. fm/music/ Mike+Dickson
Or http://www.mikedick son.org.uk/