The Mellotron Group

Chris,
Thank you very much for the story.You must be so happy to have it!
Congradulations.
Pete

Chris Dale wrote:
> Sorry I'm late to the party..
> I'll try to shed some light.
> Wakeman never owned a MK V. Supposedly, the only reason the MK V was 
> ever built was because Wakeman put two existing M400 machines together 
> and demonstrated that there was a demand for a double unit again. I 
> have no independent facts to verify this though.
> The definite facts are: The "Wakeman Double-Tron" was made from two 
> separate M400 models which were completely dismantled. The innards of 
> both were put into a much thicker wooden cabinet with thick aluminium 
> inside. The electronics are also completely customized, and new tapes 
> were put in that have the sounds eq'd slightly differently / errors 
> removed (like the bang on the high F cello. He probably did this with 
> the support of Mellotronics, though). Some of the people at Packhorse 
> / Birotronics were also involved. These were part of Wakeman's Complex 
> 7 business group.
> The machine does sound different than the regular M400's and fixing it 
> was extremely arduous and frustrating for everyone, and took a VERY 
> long time between myself, former YES tech Frank Levi, Professor Jerry 
> Korb, and support from both Dave Kean and Streetly because of the 
> customizations and the fact they had different people working on it at 
> different times. Jerry Korb however, deserves the very special golden 
> credit for getting it going. YES technician Michael Tate was the man 
> who did the initial re-build work.
> Wakeman claims it was used on all his solo efforts and all YES 
> material except "Fragile", which had used two earlier Mellotrons. The 
> actual dismantling / re- assembly took place in 1972, and the Tales 
> tour is the first appearance of the instrument. The production 
> certificate states "Black YES Machine # 3) so it seems to confirm 
> Wakeman's claims. It was apparently stolen at some point by some of 
> Wakeman's tech crew (along with at least two other Mellotrons) when 
> Wakeman was going through a divorce and during the Birotron struggle 
> when they were losing money and it appeared he couldn't pay some of 
> them. The machine had experienced neglect, and badly needed to be 
> refinished. The Birotron multi-turn pitch knob appears to be a direct 
> idea lift from the multi turn pitch knob of the Double Tron, and there 
> is some "comparison crossover" between the two.
> The unit is visible on the front cover of the Journey Album supporting 
> two minimoogs, and appears in Yesyears, and in a Rockschool video, as 
> well as the Rock Hardware book. Wakeman seems to have special affinity 
> for it over his other Trons.
> I initially received the machine as a mouldy and rusted wreck when 
> purchasing a broken Chamberlin. I was threatened that if I didn't take 
> it very soon, it would be in the Detroit city dump. I didn't believe 
> the seller at first, but then he called and screamed nightmarishly 
> down the line at me, and I went back to get it thinking he was 
> probably lying about it being Wakeman's old machine and I was being 
> suckered, though I still felt sympathetic because he was going through 
> a divorce / losing his business etc. I've since heard he's died of cancer.
> After cleaning the rust, mould, food spills, dirt, and corrosion I 
> took some pictures and began to wonder after seeing what looked like 
> the same machine on an old Wakeman concert video. I contacted Wakeman 
> to verify that it used to be his. He told me it was and that he was 
> shocked I had it, because it went missing years before.
> I've copied the details from two interviews:
>
> RW:
>
> The RMI, I have a lot of equipment stolen, about eight years ago. My 
> RMI was stolen, a lot of it was stolen. I have heard that some of it 
> is in private collections. In the same way I was speaking to Keith 
> Emerson <http://www.interstellar9.com/emerson/> about this last year, 
> who's friend of mine, you know there's certainly a situation where ... 
> almost like people who collect paintings, there are people who 
> collects equipment. I mean, I had a double Mellotron 
> <http://www.mellotron.com/> that was made for me. It was stolen many 
> years ago, and just recently a man wrote to me in America, and he just 
> bought it and he wanted me to authenticate it. And it was in a quiet 
> bad condition and he wanted to repair. So I wrote him back and I said: 
> "You know, I'm really glad you've got it. Actually it was stolen. But 
> don't worry, I'm not asking to give back, I don't want it back, but it 
> was stolen from me.
>
> The above is from http://yesmuseum.org/WakeView3.html
>
> So what sort of stuff did you lose?
>
> RW: \ufffdI lost about six minimoogs, a couple of Mellotrons, a Fender 
> Rhodes, a huge long list of stuff. And some of it\ufffds resurfaced. One of 
> the Mellotrons, the famous double Mellotron resurfaced. And a guy got 
> hold of it and rebuilt it, and that\ufffds in a museum somewhere in 
> America. And he contacted me to verify that it used to be mine, and I 
> wrote back to him and said, \ufffdYeah, it was stolen in nineteen whatever 
> it was.\ufffd And it completely freaked him out. He called up and said, \ufffdI 
> didn\ufffdt steal it.\ufffd And I said, \ufffdI know you didn\ufffdt, \ufffdbecause you\ufffdre 
> hardly likely to have stolen it and then ring me up.\ufffd And he said, \ufffdDo 
> you want it back?\ufffd And I said, \ufffdNo, if you\ufffdve rebuilt it, good for 
> you. I\ufffdm glad that it\ufffds got a good home, and I\ufffdm glad that it\ufffds in a 
> museum.\ufffd So there you go.\ufffd
>
> This is from http://www.pertout.com/Wakeman.htm
>
> Somehow he heard of my other things and believes my place is a museum. 
> (I don't recall telling him, but I might have.)
>
> After getting it working, I recorded the the Double Mellotron sounds 
> on DAT tape which over time I gave to him backstage at several YES 
> concerts. I thought it only right that he have his old sounds back as 
> there was some custom stuff that's not available elsewhere. I was able 
> to meet all of YES several times and had them autograph the underside 
> of the lid. I showed them the pics of the almost decade long 
> restoration process and Jon Anderson was quite surprised, uttering the 
> word "AMAZING!!" as he looked them.
>
> There's a lot more to tell, but I intend to do this on a proper 
> website at some point and not monopolize everyone's time here.
>
> I've attached some before and after pics (the control panel was being 
> examined by YES tech Frank Levi.at the time)
>
> I hope I've answered a few questions.
>
> Chris
>
>