Mellotronists

I usually lurk, but I have 2 cents to add to this story, back from a couple 
years ago when I was writing a story about the Mellotron.  (Usually my 
freelancer instincts are good, but I never did find a home for my beloved 
Mellotron article... sigh.)  Anyway, Rick Wakeman recommended that I 
interview his old Birotron partner Peter Robinson, and below are two clips 
from that which turned up in my resulting article.  The "last year" reference 
in it, btw, would be 1999.

Cheers, -- Paul Collins


After playing a Carnegie Hall performance in 1975, Wakeman was approached by 
an inventor from Connecticut named David Biro.  Listen, said Biro, I've 
figured out a way to beat the slow response and eight second limit on 
Mellotrons.  Wakeman's interest was piqued enough that he asked Biro to set 
up a demonstration of his invention: forty five 8-track decks wired together 
and hooked up to a keyboard.  8-track tapes never needed rewinding -- and 
could, for the purposes of an instrument, be set on an endless loop, giving 
notes infinite sustain.  

Wakeman set up shop in England with business partner Peter Robinson and a 
mechanical engineer with the unlikely name of Roger Rogers.  The team 
surmounted a number of technical challenges facing their design, and by 1978 
found themselves with over 1000 orders from musicians anticipating the next 
step in Mellotron evolution; at £1000 each, they had a million pounds in 
outstanding orders.  But the Birotron Company couldn't finesse the transition 
to mass production, and then the bane of Mellotronic existence appeared: 
digital sampling.  Staggering under production problems and looming analog 
obsolescence, the Birotron became a financial sinkhole -- as Wakeman notes 
wearily, "I ploughed absolute fortunes into the Birotron."

Only twelve were made before the company folded in 1979.  Wakeman doesn't 
even own his anymore.  What, I ask Peter Robinson, of the other eleven?  "I 
haven't a clue where they are," he answers.  "I don't even know where Dave 
Biro is.  The last time I saw him was in New York.  In 1979.".....

Birotron partner Peter Robinson admits that, like most Mellotron-related 
alum, he threw out piles of machinery in the late 1980s and early 90s.  He 
now works with Packhorse Case, a supplier of custom equipment cases; when I 
ask him about his years working on the Birotron, he  laughs and says, "Quite 
frankly, for a long time I blanked it all out of my mind."

Last year, though, while in Holland on business, a tipoff led Robinson face 
to face with his long-forgotten past.  "Someone had a trunk full of Birotron 
stuff.  I opened it up, and damned if it wasn't the master tapes.  They were 
all still there, good as the day we recorded them -- and I have to say that 
they came out very nicely.  We had the London Symphony Orchestra on there, 
and wonderful choir recordings.  And there they were."