Mellotronists

At 21:30 03/01/03 +0000, tron@... wrote:
> > What was the big problem with the Birotron....?
>
>It sounded like shit, it was *very* poorly implemented, it had crap
>recordings to start with (mostly) and had no real industry 'back up'.

A bit harsh but sadly not far from the truth. In terms of implementation
the Dave Biro original used discrete auto 8-track players, (so subsequently
was huge) and sounded OK. A bright engineer (who shall remain
nameless) suggested making it smaller by mounting the 8 -tracks
vertically on a common frame - only after this design decision was taken
did someone dig out the BS (British Standards) documents for 8-track cartridges
and players - they were not intended to be played vertically, hence some 
horrible
tracking  and tape jamming problems.

<Sigh>.

The crap recordings were probably a result of the limited industry 'back up',
(manual fading between two tape loops - resulting in some interesting
audio effects) the whole thing was being done on a shoestring budget (and I 
mean shoestring
even in terms of the industry at the time) and being involved in building 
the darned
things I know how hard a couple of us (more dedicated) engineers struggled 
to make
a silk purse out of a pig's ear. With hindsight it was probably doomed to 
failure,
but at least we had some fun.

I still intend to restore a Birotron - more for interest and maybe a 
Machiavellian sense
of fun, than to produce a useable, playable, instrument. Unless of course 
there is
anyone UK based on the list that would be reckless enough to try one on 
stage :-)

<Duck, in preparation for flame attack>


Best Regards,

Nic

Birotron #009 still awaiting rebuild :-(