 As most who know me are aware, I enjoy learning how things work, be it by taking them apart or simply reading about them. I discovered a new band during the past week (this story goes somewhere... trust me). A band that's been around for much longer than I. If any old hippies (hi mom :-) are reading this blog, you'll most likely recognize the name: Hawkwind. They've been around since the late 60s, and are still around today. I won't go on too much about the band, as the AllMusic link above has a rather good biography. Something I did notice in reading a few reviews of them, however, was mention of the Mellotron, and the fact that it was a "mechanical sampling keyboard."
By this point I was obviously rather curious as to what 60s technology had to offer in the realm of sampling keyboards (as monophonic synthesizers were just starting to appear around that time), so I did some searching online. The Mellotron used strips of magnetic tape, one per note, and a rather complex mechanism of springs, motors, and playback heads to reproduce samples stored on the tape (see image at left). The entire mechanism pictured was duplicated underneath each and every key and each strip of tape, depending on the model, stored 2-3 notes that could be selected by moving a switch which repositioned the playback heads over the correct track. My first thought was: what?! Then I realized after a while that it was an incredibly innovative technology at the time. Polyphonic synthesizer sounds could be produced even though only monophonic synthesizers were available at the time. Orchestras could be sampled and played back in the recording studio or on stage.
I don't indend to give anywhere near a complete history of the Mellotron, you can find that yourself with a quick web search. I did, however, want to use it as an example of a technology that was once "cutting edge," that now seems kludgy and even odd. Reading about it got me thinking about our technology today. Will people 30 or 40 years from now, browsing the web on their quantum computers, look back on the era of the silicon-based microchip and scratch their heads in the same way I did reading about the Mellotron? Maybe I've spent too much time watching the History Channel lately, but it's interesting to watch an idea evolve from innovation to innovation, and some of the unorthodox steps it may take along the way (think telegraph to multiplexed telegraph to telephone).
Hmm... it's getting late and my mind is wandering. I guess I'll leave it at that for now. For those in Fredericktown reading my blog, my flight home for Dave's wedding gets in around 5pm on Wednesday.
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