What are the differences between the Chamberlin and the Mellotron?
Chamberlin made the instrument in his home in Southern California, and sold it to local music shops. He had a salesmen, Bill Franson, who thought it was a really good idea, but felt he wasn’t getting enough out of it, so he took the idea to England where he had it manufactured professionally, and thus was born the Mellotron. The difference between the two instruments is very interesting. The Chamberlin is kind of shoddily put together as a physical object, very homemade, but the sounds are very, very well recorded. He used a Neumann microphone and had the Lawrence Welk Orchestra record the samples. The Mellotron is very professionally made furniture, made in a factory in England, but didn’t have as much effort into its sounds, so the fidelity is worse. They both, though, have very interesting, unique sounds, and neither one of them sounds like an orchestra. It’s funny to look back at that, because when it came out the musician’s union was concerned and tried to ban them because they we
