Ken has a nice bit of info about Waits and his chamberlin on his site,
> As I managed to see Tom Wais in concert less than a week ago I have been
> looking up interviews with him and found this little snippet:
>
> *Pitchfork:* Do you have a favorite instrument?
>
> *Tom Waits: *I have a Chamberlain I bought from some surfers in Westwood
> many years ago. It's an early analog synthesizer, it operates on tape
> loops. It has 60 voices-- everything from galloping horses to owls to
> rain to every instrument in the orchestra. Including the human voice
> [/Waits sings a scale in "synthesizer voice"/]. Eleven-second samples! I
> like primitive things. I've used that a lot over the years on different
> recordings.
>
> --
> Mike Dickson, Edinburgh
>
> Free Music Project: http://www.last.fm/music/Mike+Dickson
> Or http://www.mikedickson.org.uk/
>
>