The Chamberlin is an electro-mechanical keyboard instrument related to the Mellotron. It was created by Harry Chamberlin in 1946. This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... Piano, a well-known instance of keyboard instruments A keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a musical keyboard. ... Mellotron MK II The Mellotron is an electromechanical polyphonic keyboard musical instrument originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. ...

The Chamberlin has a piano-style keyboard. Underneath each key is a small tape deck. Each tape is prerecorded with various musical instruments or special effects. When the player press down a key, the tape deck begins to play through an amplified speaker. When the player releases the key, sound stops, and the tape rewinds. Each tape is only a few seconds long (on many units 8 seconds). A grand piano A piano is a musical instrument which is classified as a keyboard, percussion or string instrument, depending on the system of classification used. ... Magnetic tape is a non-volatile storage medium consisting of a magnetic coating on a thin plastic strip. ... A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ... Lasers were used in the 2005 Classical Spectacular concert Special effects (abbreviated SPFX or SFX) are used in the film, television, and entertainment industry to create effects that cannot be achieved by normal means, such as depicting travel to other star systems. ...

Some controversy exists about the origin of the Mellotron, but most of the accounts tell of Chamberlin associate Bill Fransen (sometimes described as his gardener, sometimes as an employee) bringing Chamberlin's design to England and selling the design without Chamberlin's knowledge in the early 1960s. After this somewhat dubious beginning, Chamberlin and the company that produced Mellotrons later came to a financial arrangement. The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ...

The royalty payments Chamberlin received from the Mellotrons helped Chamberlin to continue producing instruments in his garage, and later in an Ontario, California factory. In 1981 (shortly before Chamberlin's death), the company ceased production, after making approximately 700 units. Harry Chamberlin's son, Richard, later sold the original tapes and plans to the Mellotron company. A royalty is a sum paid to the creator of performance art for the use of that art. ... Ontario Mills Ontario is a city located in San Bernardino County, California. ... Mellotron MK II The Mellotron is an electromechanical polyphonic keyboard musical instrument originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. ...

The later Chamberlin model M1 is reputed to have superior sound and reliability to Mellotrons. In general, the chamberlin tapes use much less compression on their recordings, thus featuring sounds which "breathe" more and possess more dynamics and vibrato than those of the mellotron. It is rumored that several famous recordings which purportedly use a Mellotron actually use a Chamberlin. One popular music group that openly used a Chamberlin is Ambrosia. David Bowie also employed the instrument on his album Low (1977). Singer/songwriter/producer Jon Brion also used a Chamberlin in many of his scores from the film I Heart Huckabees. Audio level compression, also called compression or limiting, is a process that manipulates the dynamic range of an audio signal. ... Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and mostly distributed commercially. ... The popular music group Ambrosia was formed in the early 1970s, and have ventured into a variety of styles during their history. ... David Bowie (born David Robert Hayward-Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English rock singer, musician and actor. ... For the album by Testament, see Low (Testament album). ... Jon Brion at The Sunset Tavern in Seattle (photo by Nadja Dee Tanaka) Jon Brion is an American rock and pop multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and record producer. ... I ♥ Huckabees (pronounced I Heart Huckabees, or alternatively, I Love Huckabees) is a film released in 2004. ...

External link

• Pictures and more info on the Chamberlin rhythmate