The Mellotron Group

At 20:07 12/02/2012, Nick Hewitt wrote:
>
>Chris Dale wrote: "Today, a university music student (who is a big 
>Tangerine Dream fan) asked me what model of Mellotron the Loop 
>Mellotron is on the Tangerine Dream albums.
>
>Is it the T550 or was that not made in the 80's?... as a Novatron?? 
>Does anyone know the definitive answer? I asked him to give me a 
>couple of days to find out. The info on the net is far from accurate sometimes.
>
>Chris - oddly enough, I've been recently been poking around the 
>'net, and I found out a little more on the T550 and the mods that TD 
>did in converting a 'tron to take tape loops.
>
>Firstly, the T550's were built between 1981 and 1983 and they WERE 
>adapted from Novatrons.  Only 3 or 4 were produced and Tangerine 
>Dream bought at least 2 of them.
>
>They DID attempt to convert one of their T550's to take a loop of 
>tape, but it wasn't a total success, as the splice could clearly be 
>heard, so TD had to adjust their music to hide it. It has also been 
>stated that TD had a Birotron, which uses tape loops, so there's a 
>possibility it could be that.

TD did indeed have Birotrons - they bought 2 and would very probably 
have been the only commercial customer we had. Off hand I cannot 
recall which TD albums the Birotron was used on, if any, but they 
certainly had a fascination for all these types of machines.



Best Regards,

Nic

Birotron #015 nearly completed :-)