Birotron master tapes
2002-02-09 by paulcllins@aol.com
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."