The Mellotron Group

I have a good feeling that Streetly had nothing to do with this machine.  
Oddly, I ran into a young musician on Facebook who swears that his father had 
 seen and played that very instrument in some studio in England years ago. 
The  kid had no idea whether it had loops in it or not. But his dad 
recognized the  paint job and the giant hole in the side.
 
 
In a message dated 2/13/2012 1:42:11 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
unobtainiumkeys@gmail.com writes:

 
 
 
Frank:
 
 
It looks strange.
 
Was this something that Streetly did as a custom job, or did the customer  
musician hack into it himself?
 



On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 7:06 PM, <_lsf5275@aol.com_ 
(mailto:lsf5275@aol.com) > wrote:


When I first acquired the "Blue Mellotron" it was set up with looped  
tapes. In the You tube video you can see them. They were crap and I can't  
imagine what they sounded like, but the guy I acquired it from swore that it  
worked but he had not tried playing it for years. I had my doubts. I never  even 
tried to get them to work, but I still have the parts in a bin  somewhere.
 

 
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 2/12/2012 3:07:34 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
_nickhewitt235@btinternet.com_ (mailto:nickhewitt235@btinternet.com)  writes:


 
 
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.
Hope it all  helps. 
Nick