A tape replay keyboard is a musical instrument that uses pre-recorded analog tapes to produce sound when a key is pressed. Examples of tape replay keyboards include the Chamberlin, the Mellotron, and the Birotron. The Chamberlin is an electro-mechanical keyboard instrument related to the Mellotron. ... Mellotron MK II The Mellotron is an electromechanical polyphonic keyboard musical instrument originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. ... The Birotron was an ill-fated tape replay keyboard conceived by Rick Wakeman of the progressive rock group Yes co-developed with David Biro in the late 1970s. ...

Today samplers are used to play back musical sounds from computer memory instead of analog tape. An AKAI MPC2000 sampler A sampler is an electronic musical instrument that can record and store audio signal samples, generally recordings of existing sounds, and play them back at a range of pitches. ...

Tape replay keyboards were invented in the late 1940s and were in use in the music world from the mid 1960s through the late 1970s, the most popular being the Mellotron. With the creation of more powerful and cheaper music synthesizers and samplers, tape replay keyboards became largely obsolete, although some are still in use today and are even being produced new. Mellotron MK II The Mellotron is an electromechanical polyphonic keyboard musical instrument originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. ...