Mellotron

Evolved from the Chamberlin, The mellotron is an electro-mechanical keyboard that uses a polyphonic tape and was developed in England in 1963. The mellotron was popularly used with progressive rock with some of the most famous artists from England such as the Beatles and Genesis. The mellotron was designed to reproduce sound, replaying the tape creates the minor variations of pitch(wow) and amplitude(flutter) which seem similar to the ones we did in class on Pd-Extended. The individual notes are recorded in isolation. The mellotron does not use tape loops. Each key has a length of tape below that lasts eight seconds so each key is a crude tape machine that is dragged forward to the hand and the sound recorded on that tape is played back. However the mellotron and known as a mechanical nightmare and the limitation regarding sustain is extremely frustrating to most musicians.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDqG9agd5wc