Mellotron
The first (and still the best) sampler, the Mellotron has a very distinctive and realistic sound. Used by many groups, particularly those of the Progressive Rock fraternity, it was originally made by Streetly Electronics in Birmingham, England.
Consisting of a glorified tape machine, the Mellotron is basically a keyboard instrument in which each keys plays an eight second tape sample of an instrument. With the help of a little reverb, the Mellotron has added strings, choirs, flutes, and other sounds to many songs over the past four decades.
You know that flute intro on Strawberry Fields Forever and the strings in Knights In White Satin? That's a Mellotron, that is.
Rick Wakeman and Tony Banks used them to great effect in Yes and Genesis respectively, but there were other bands, such as The Moody Blues and Barclay James Harvest, whose love affair with the Mellotron went to extremes.
There are some good websites dedicated to this wonderful instrument, including:
Mellotron.com
The Ultimate Mellotron Recordings List
Streetly Electronics
About My Family and Me
From humble Yorkshire lad to honorary Midlander, I've been in the making since 1971 and still haven't made it yet.
Born in Bradford in 1971 and raised in the village of Oxenhope in Brontë country, I attended Coventry University between 1990 and 1994, where I studied Modern Languages (German and French as core languages and Russian ab initio), with a third year spent between Potsdam, Germany and Grenoble, France.
I met Emma Paddison in 1993, we married in 1996 and now have two girls, Murron (born 1998) and Philippa (born 2001), and one boy, Tristan (born in 2008).
I live in Nuneaton, Warwickshire and am webmaster for a CAD/CAM software company in Coventry. So much for the Modern Languages degree!
I have played the drums since 1981 and was a member of Coventry originals band BAiT between its birth in 1996 and its demise in 2007. I now play classical guitar and mandolin for my own amusement.