The Mellotron Group

Okay, here's the scuttlebutt.

As some of you know, my wife, Vicki, is a very fine classical flutist.  
On a trip to NY to visit the relatives, a trip was arranged to go down  
to the city and see Ian (who had been the Special Guest at the second  
Tronto Clambake in 2001). They were going to spend some time playing  
duet (he really is a good flute player, too). I brought my brother  
along because he wanted to meet Ian and get some albums signed.

My brother, a former audio engineer, has always been fascinated on how  
they got such huge gain (and no distortion) on that massive pitch  
sweep in "Epitaph", so naturally, he start asking Ian questions about  
that and the rest of the album. So here are some tidbits from that  
conversation.

There was a calliope in a corner of the studio and naturally the boys  
started fooling around with it. Only problem was, it was really flat.  
That's why the calliope part in ITCOTCK is in a different key. Not  
being keyboard players, I guess they were not good at transposing or  
just decided to go with the flow. Anyway, the section was played by  
McDonald on the top end with Giles playing the sustained notes on the  
bottom on the second time through. Ian played the calliope the rest of  
the way by himself.

For "Schizoid Man", that is the calliope at the beginning, too. It's  
McDonald and Giles again, just sweeping the flats of their hands over  
the keys. Being air driven and with a pretty poor air supply to begin  
with, the instrument would just sort of whistle and groan. They  
thought this sounded cool for the beginning of the album -- and I  
think they were right.

Some other things of interest:

* "Schizoid Man" was done in one take, live off the floor and then the  
second sax solo overdubbed in one. Pretty impressive!

* "Epitaph", on the other hand took 16 hours to record. They couldn't  
get the sound and feel right. It was also recorded last which is why  
the mellotron sounds different than the other two songs on the album  
that use it. They found a way to make it sound better. It was recorded  
from a HiWatt amp (not a direct line to the board) and then run  
through a plate reverb. The sweep part was played by McDonald and  
Fripp and the mellotron was double-tracked pretty well throughout.

* The album was done on an 8-track machine with numerous bounce downs,  
a la the method used by the Beatles.

There you have it!

Rick