Abandoned Projects: Build your own Birotron...

[poltr1]

It was sometime between 1979 and 1980. I was listening to Yes' latest album at the time, "Tormato". I'm looking at the liner notes, and saw the list of instruments Rick Wakeman played on the album. And listed was an instrument I've never heard of before: a Birotron. So I asked my friend Glenn Gafter, who was another synth geek and progressive rock fan, and he told me it was like a Mellotron, but with 8-track tapes.

I knew about Mellotrons. They were 3-octave keyboard instruments that played tape loops -- one for each of the 37 keys. (It wasn't until years later, when Kathy Mar told me that the tapes were on some sort of rack to facilitate changing them for different sounds.) And I thought using an 8-track tape cartridge instead of a set of tape loops was a great idea.

I thought of what I would need: a voltage contolled keyboard, and an 8-track tape player with a hysteresis motor. Based on the amount of voltage going into the motor, it would spin faster or slower, regulating the tape speed. I picked up an 8-track player at a garage sale.

And that's as far as I ever got with this project.

The real Birotrons didn't fare much better. Even though the company had backing (and publicity) from Wakeman, the company that made them went under. The inventor lost his home to foreclosure in the early 1980s. One online source said that only 35 were ever made, but another online source says that the highest serial number ever sighted was #015.

Now, with digital sampling and storage technology, the concept of tape-driven keyboard instruments is essentially obsolete.

Comments

[gundo.livejournal.com]

The technology may be obsolete, and in the case of the Mellotrons, perhaps thankfully obsolete, but the sounds and samples are still beloved. Toyboat uses an MTron live on stage, something we couldn't do if we had to depend on the real Mellotron. Even though we can synth strings, sometimes the Mellotron strings, those beloved classics, are what we want.

I've also noticed that the keyboard player for Foo Fighters is using a Mellotron live, as well as a Hammond. Haven't spotted Moog yet.

[poltr1]

Yeah, those Mellotron sounds are classic. Didn't know bout the MTron; that's something to check out in the near future.

As far as I know, none of the sounds recorded for the Birotron survive. :-(

And Paul Shaffer has a Minimoog Voyager in the background, but I've never seen him play it.