Mellotronists

Don Tillman wrote:

Hi David,

That's fine; the Echoplex also runs at a constant motor speed. One of
the heads (I forget whether it's the record or playback head) is
physically mounted on a sliding track, and you manually move it back
and forth to change the delay time.

You'd probably want to do something similar for a Mellotron tape echo.

It's actually better to have the head on a slider -- you can yank it
and perform much faster speed changes than you could with the
rotational inertia of a motor. And if you move it fast enough you can
even run the echo sound backwards for brief bits. Witness the Tommy
Bolan guitar solo on Billy Cobham's "Spectrum". :-) -- Don

____________________________________________________________

Hi Don and gang, Interesting discussion about on-board tape-echo
for Trons. Will wear my engineer's thinking-cap for a moment.
Hides my "folically-challenged" cranium anyway.

There's barely enough room to shoehorn a two-head (front-to-rear)
assembly adjacent to the headblock assembly.
Support electronics will have to tap into preamp box output and
also add recording circuitry. Since all present Trons
are playback-only, an old engineering cookbook might be the solution.

The actual implementation of a 36th tape driven off the capstan in endless-loop
config. would not be impossible. Too bad capstans aren't two inches longer
on the LH side of M400's.....

Cheers, -- Jerry Korb (no echoes, but repeats of Mexican cuisine)