Chamberlin
Encyclopedia
The Chamberlin is an electro-mechanical keyboard instrument
that was a precursor to the Mellotron
. It was developed and patented by Iowa, Wisconsin inventor Harry Chamberlin from 1949 to 1956, when the first model was introduced. Various models and versions of these Chamberlin music instruments exist. While most are keyboard-based instruments, there were also early drum machine
s produced and sold. Some of these drums patterns feature Harry Chamberlin's son Richard on them.
The Chamberlin's use as a commercial instrument in rock (or rock and roll) music was never given consideration, as Harry Chamberlin generally resented rock music and rock musicians.
The basic Chamberlin has a piano
-style keyboard. Underneath each key is an individual tape
playing mechanism. Each tape is pre-recorded with various musical instrument
s or special effect
s. When the player presses down a key, a pressure pad pushes the tape on to a tape head and a pinch roller beneath the key catches the tape and pulls it forward into storage box, (or on to a roller mechanism). As this occurs the sound of the tape is heard through an amplified speaker. When the player releases the key, the sound stops, and the tape rewinds by either metal spring rods (as on the early Chamberlins) or by a return roller mechanism (as on the later M1 models). Each tape is only a few seconds long (8 seconds on many units).
Harry Chamberlin spent considerable time (usually from sunrise to sunset) experimenting with sound and had converted a walk-in closet as his first home studio. After obtaining the right acoustics in the room and changing the acoustics of other rooms in his house, the first Chamberlin recordings were undertaken. All Chamberlin recordings were contracted and performed by members of the Lawrence Welk
Orchestra in the late '40s and throughout the 1950s. Welk was impressed with the idea of a tape playback instrument and offered to fund its manufacture if it was called a "Welk" machine. Chamberlin refused Welk's offer.
Chamberlin used Neumann U 47
microphones to record the sounds. The sounds are characterized by a very clean output and heavy vibrato which was customary of the music styles of the time. The Chamberlin sounds have little compression
and possess dynamics true to the instruments recorded on the tapes (such as the air in the flute, or the flow in of the strings). The Chamberlin instruments were designed to accurately replicate the sound of the instrument recorded on the tape. They were also meant to be physically set in one place and not moved around. Because of this, there was less attention paid to making the instrument robust and many early Chamberlins have no internal chassis and are prone to go out of adjustment.
As Chamberlin refined the build of his instruments, he began to bring them to music trade shows and competitors such as Hammond and Lowrey were often curious about the origin of Chamberlin sounds. In an effort to compete, these companies were forced to create drum rhythms and manufacture plastic tabs with orchestral instrument names on them. These tabs would generate tones that simulated the sound of the instrument selected. The American Federation of Musicians
also took notice as well and tried to limit live performances of Chamberlin instruments fearing that their members would be put out of work. Despite the controversy, musicians worldwide embraced the Chamberlin and "Mack the Knife
" singer Bobby Darin
was one of the first customers, buying a customized model 300 without the rhythm section tapes.
Chamberlin's company eventually grew with his own children working for him, and his window cleaner Bill Franson offering to become his salesman. Franson travelled the country offering the Chamberlin instruments to music stores, parlours, and cocktail lounges. Offers of larger distribution were made, but Harry Chamberlin preferred word of mouth advertising and did not like the terms and conditions of distributorship and eschewed it. Chamberlin also preferred and favoured doing business with lounges, nightclubs and musicians who embraced big band music, and disliked having his instrument associated with rock and roll music or rock musicians.
In 1962 Bill Franson had gone missing for several months. A radio could be heard playing music in his apartment but attempts to contact him proved futile. Franson had left for England by boat taking two Chamberlin 600 models with him. (One of these eventually became the possession of Todd Rundgren
's studio and appears on XTC
's Skylarking album). Franson placed an ad asking for a company that could manufacture seventy standard playback heads. Bradmatic Ltd. (an engineering company) responded to the ad.
Franson removed the Chamberlin labels and sold the now re-badged "Franson" instrument to them without Harry Chamberlin's knowledge. Refining the 600 design into the Mellotron
Mark 1, Bradmatic eventually became Streetly Electronics and began manufacture of the Mellotron Mark 2 in 1963. In 1965 Harry Chamberlin became aware of this after being contacted by Mellotron distributors in America, and forced a legal arrangement with Streetly Electronics. After visiting owners Frank, Norman, and Les Bradley in person (and having an intense discussion with Franson), an arrangement was made where Mellotrons would only be sold in England and Chamberlins would be sold in the USA. Chamberlin would also receive royalty payment
s from the Mellotron company though this apparently ended in the late '60s. Through this same royalty system, Harry also allowed the Chamberlin "3 violins" sound to be used as the violins sound in the Mellotron library. This violin sound became the Mellotron's main sound used on much of the output of British Mellotron music beginning in the mid-1960s. Consequently, it can be difficult to tell whether a recording features a Mellotron or Chamberlin when the 3 violins tapes are used, other than by the country of origin of the recording. Mistaking Chamberlin sounds for real instruments is common with of all Chamberlin sounds because of the way they were recorded (no processing) and because there were fewer mixdown master tapes made compared to the Mellotron library. The M series Chamberlins also have greater bandwidth playback heads, which enhances this quality further.
It is important to note that Chamberlin instruments were never distributed for sale outside North America (USA / Canada markets). This also is helpful in determining Chamberlin and Mellotron use on records.
Chamberlin Co. continued to refine and sell their products and invested more serious effort into reliability as they had now had to compete with the Mellotron, and rock bands had adopted the instruments as a sound colour. Their sales of units to major U.S. studios resulted in Chamberlins being heard on many pop records of the 1960s including recordings by The Lettermen
, Marvin Gaye
, Bobby Goldsboro
("Honey"), The Beach Boys
, and educator Edmond S. Bordeaux.
A new Chamberlin design emerged in the late '60s and effectively and permanently ended the use of rhythm tapes in the units. This model was the M1 which emerged in 1970 and was made much more durably and had a flawless tape return roller system. This model had higher quality playback tape heads with no tape warble and greater bandwidth than the Mellotron. The unit was a table-top version of the earlier models and much smaller than the competing M400 Mellotron model. About 130 Chamberlins were built using this system and many musicians and studios embraced the improved design.
These musicians included Disneyland/Disney Worlds' live performance artist Michael Iceberg
in his shows featuring electronic instruments. Others include Skip Konte with Three Dog Night
, Olivia Newton-John
, Leon Russell
("Carney
"), Neil Merryweather
, James Taylor
, Stevie Wonder
, Ambrosia
, Mike Pinder
with The Moody Blues
on the album "Seventh Sojourn
", American progressive rock band Ethos, David Bowie
(Low through Scary Monsters), Edgar Winter
("Jasmine Nightdreams"), Joe South
, Iron Butterfly
, Chip Taylor
, New York session player Barry Frederick, Canadian musicians Joe and Gino Vannelli
, jazz/fusion group Shadowfax
("Watercourse Way"), and Bob Seger
keyboardist Robyn Robbins.
The Chamberlin M1 was the most reliable version of the instrument to date. Chamberlin Co. also continued to earn revenue by licensing certain Chamberlin patents to Mattel for their Optigan
keyboard, which used the pre-recorded loop designs by Chamberlin as well as some of the Chamberlin music tapes for the Optigan library. By the end of the 1970s, digital synths took away the market for tape based keyboards and Chamberlin ended M1 production in 1981, building the last few units out of an Ontario, California
factory, and later in the family garage with sounds that were never previously released. Harry Chamberlin died in 1986.
In the 1980s Chamberlin use was minimal with only producers like Mitchell Froom
(Crowded House
) and Todd Rundgren (XTC
's Skylarking
) using the instrument. The Chamberlin experienced a strong revival in the 1990s with a new generation of musicians using them and appreciating the unique sounds produced by playing them in unorthodox ways. These included Michael Penn
and Patrick Warren ("March", "Free For All", "Resigned", "MP4" as well as Penn's film scores like "Boogie Nights"), and singer/songwriter/producer Jon Brion
on the soundtrack to the film I Heart Huckabees. Tom Waits
also used the instrument on albums such as The Black Rider
and Bone Machine
.
Starting in the late 1990s, Chamberlin sounds were released as software samples for the first time. With the appearance of tape drop-outs, and poor analogue to digital conversion - many of these vary in quality. These sounds were embraced by musicians who could not locate original Chamberlin instruments. Only a total of under 700 Chamberlins were made from 1951 to 1981, and fewer than 50 working models are accounted for today. Because of this, most appearances of Chamberlin (dubiously or dishonestly listed in liner notes) on records made after the year 2000, are most highly likely from digital sources, and not the actual Chamberlin instruments. As a result, music students and historians generally refer to music made in the Chamberlin's heyday for authentic, pure examples of the sound. Notable exceptions include recordings made by confirmed Chamberlin owners and regular users such as Patrick Warren, Michael Penn, Jon Brion, Chris Dale, Lars Fredrik Frøislie
- Wobbler
, and producer Brian Kehew.
-based instruments as well as drum machine
s (which are called Rhythmate). Approximately 500–700 units were made, but the exact number is unknown.
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
that was a precursor to the Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
. It was developed and patented by Iowa, Wisconsin inventor Harry Chamberlin from 1949 to 1956, when the first model was introduced. Various models and versions of these Chamberlin music instruments exist. While most are keyboard-based instruments, there were also early drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
s produced and sold. Some of these drums patterns feature Harry Chamberlin's son Richard on them.
Development
Harry Chamberlin's idea for inventing the instrument came from his recording himself playing an organ. He formed the idea of playback music coming from an organ as a source of entertainment. He soon set about designing the first Chamberlin instruments as early as 1949. The intention was for the instrument to function as a home entertainment device for family sing-alongs, playing the Big Band standards of the day.The Chamberlin's use as a commercial instrument in rock (or rock and roll) music was never given consideration, as Harry Chamberlin generally resented rock music and rock musicians.
The basic Chamberlin has a piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
-style keyboard. Underneath each key is an individual tape
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...
playing mechanism. Each tape is pre-recorded with various musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
s or special effect
Special effect
The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....
s. When the player presses down a key, a pressure pad pushes the tape on to a tape head and a pinch roller beneath the key catches the tape and pulls it forward into storage box, (or on to a roller mechanism). As this occurs the sound of the tape is heard through an amplified speaker. When the player releases the key, the sound stops, and the tape rewinds by either metal spring rods (as on the early Chamberlins) or by a return roller mechanism (as on the later M1 models). Each tape is only a few seconds long (8 seconds on many units).
Harry Chamberlin spent considerable time (usually from sunrise to sunset) experimenting with sound and had converted a walk-in closet as his first home studio. After obtaining the right acoustics in the room and changing the acoustics of other rooms in his house, the first Chamberlin recordings were undertaken. All Chamberlin recordings were contracted and performed by members of the Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982...
Orchestra in the late '40s and throughout the 1950s. Welk was impressed with the idea of a tape playback instrument and offered to fund its manufacture if it was called a "Welk" machine. Chamberlin refused Welk's offer.
Chamberlin used Neumann U 47
U 47
The U 47 was a large-diaphragm condenser microphone manufactured by Georg Neumann GmbH during the years 1949-1965.The U 47 used the M 7 capsule originally developed for the CMV 3 microphone...
microphones to record the sounds. The sounds are characterized by a very clean output and heavy vibrato which was customary of the music styles of the time. The Chamberlin sounds have little compression
Audio level compression
Dynamic range compression, also called DRC or simply compression reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or "compressing" an audio signal's dynamic range...
and possess dynamics true to the instruments recorded on the tapes (such as the air in the flute, or the flow in of the strings). The Chamberlin instruments were designed to accurately replicate the sound of the instrument recorded on the tape. They were also meant to be physically set in one place and not moved around. Because of this, there was less attention paid to making the instrument robust and many early Chamberlins have no internal chassis and are prone to go out of adjustment.
As Chamberlin refined the build of his instruments, he began to bring them to music trade shows and competitors such as Hammond and Lowrey were often curious about the origin of Chamberlin sounds. In an effort to compete, these companies were forced to create drum rhythms and manufacture plastic tabs with orchestral instrument names on them. These tabs would generate tones that simulated the sound of the instrument selected. The American Federation of Musicians
American Federation of Musicians
The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada is a labor union of professional musicians in the United States and Canada...
also took notice as well and tried to limit live performances of Chamberlin instruments fearing that their members would be put out of work. Despite the controversy, musicians worldwide embraced the Chamberlin and "Mack the Knife
Mack the Knife
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the...
" singer Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...
was one of the first customers, buying a customized model 300 without the rhythm section tapes.
Chamberlin's company eventually grew with his own children working for him, and his window cleaner Bill Franson offering to become his salesman. Franson travelled the country offering the Chamberlin instruments to music stores, parlours, and cocktail lounges. Offers of larger distribution were made, but Harry Chamberlin preferred word of mouth advertising and did not like the terms and conditions of distributorship and eschewed it. Chamberlin also preferred and favoured doing business with lounges, nightclubs and musicians who embraced big band music, and disliked having his instrument associated with rock and roll music or rock musicians.
In 1962 Bill Franson had gone missing for several months. A radio could be heard playing music in his apartment but attempts to contact him proved futile. Franson had left for England by boat taking two Chamberlin 600 models with him. (One of these eventually became the possession of Todd Rundgren
Todd Rundgren
Todd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings...
's studio and appears on XTC
XTC
XTC were a New Wave band from Swindon, England, active between 1976 and 2005. The band enjoyed some chart success, including the UK and Canadian hits "Making Plans for Nigel" and "Senses Working Overtime" , but are perhaps even better known for their long-standing critical success.- Early years:...
's Skylarking album). Franson placed an ad asking for a company that could manufacture seventy standard playback heads. Bradmatic Ltd. (an engineering company) responded to the ad.
Franson removed the Chamberlin labels and sold the now re-badged "Franson" instrument to them without Harry Chamberlin's knowledge. Refining the 600 design into the Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
Mark 1, Bradmatic eventually became Streetly Electronics and began manufacture of the Mellotron Mark 2 in 1963. In 1965 Harry Chamberlin became aware of this after being contacted by Mellotron distributors in America, and forced a legal arrangement with Streetly Electronics. After visiting owners Frank, Norman, and Les Bradley in person (and having an intense discussion with Franson), an arrangement was made where Mellotrons would only be sold in England and Chamberlins would be sold in the USA. Chamberlin would also receive royalty payment
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
s from the Mellotron company though this apparently ended in the late '60s. Through this same royalty system, Harry also allowed the Chamberlin "3 violins" sound to be used as the violins sound in the Mellotron library. This violin sound became the Mellotron's main sound used on much of the output of British Mellotron music beginning in the mid-1960s. Consequently, it can be difficult to tell whether a recording features a Mellotron or Chamberlin when the 3 violins tapes are used, other than by the country of origin of the recording. Mistaking Chamberlin sounds for real instruments is common with of all Chamberlin sounds because of the way they were recorded (no processing) and because there were fewer mixdown master tapes made compared to the Mellotron library. The M series Chamberlins also have greater bandwidth playback heads, which enhances this quality further.
It is important to note that Chamberlin instruments were never distributed for sale outside North America (USA / Canada markets). This also is helpful in determining Chamberlin and Mellotron use on records.
Chamberlin Co. continued to refine and sell their products and invested more serious effort into reliability as they had now had to compete with the Mellotron, and rock bands had adopted the instruments as a sound colour. Their sales of units to major U.S. studios resulted in Chamberlins being heard on many pop records of the 1960s including recordings by The Lettermen
The Lettermen
The Lettermen are an American male pop music vocal trio. The Lettermen's trademark is close-harmony pop songs with light arrangements. The group started in 1959...
, Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
, Bobby Goldsboro
Bobby Goldsboro
Bobby Goldsboro is an American country and pop singer-songwriter. He had a string of Pop and Country hits during the 1960s and 1970s, including his signature #1 classic "Honey," which sold well over one million copies in the United States.-Early life:Goldsboro was born in Marianna, Florida...
("Honey"), The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
, and educator Edmond S. Bordeaux.
A new Chamberlin design emerged in the late '60s and effectively and permanently ended the use of rhythm tapes in the units. This model was the M1 which emerged in 1970 and was made much more durably and had a flawless tape return roller system. This model had higher quality playback tape heads with no tape warble and greater bandwidth than the Mellotron. The unit was a table-top version of the earlier models and much smaller than the competing M400 Mellotron model. About 130 Chamberlins were built using this system and many musicians and studios embraced the improved design.
These musicians included Disneyland/Disney Worlds' live performance artist Michael Iceberg
Michael Iceberg
Michael Iceberg is an American musician. He is most noted as a performer at Walt Disney World and Disneyland in the mid-1970s to late-1980s and a highly visible early-adopter of new keyboard and synthesizer technology...
in his shows featuring electronic instruments. Others include Skip Konte with Three Dog Night
Three Dog Night
Three Dog Night is an American rock band best known for their music from 1968 to 1975. During that time the band charted 21 Billboard top 40 hits in America, three of which reached Number One...
, Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John AO, OBE is a singer and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five No. 1 and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles and two No. 1 Billboard 200 solo albums. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA...
, Leon Russell
Leon Russell
Claude Russell Bridges , known professionally as Leon Russell, is an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo career in music....
("Carney
Carney
-Persons named Carney :* Alan Carney , American actor and comedian* Art Carney , American actor best known for playing Ed Norton on The Honeymooners* Charles J...
"), Neil Merryweather
Neil Merryweather
Neil Merryweather is a Canadian rock singer, bass player and songwriter...
, James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
, Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
, Ambrosia
Ambrosia (band)
Ambrosia is an American rock band formed in southern California in 1970. Ambrosia had five Top Forty hit singles between 1975 and 1980.-Formation and inspiration:...
, Mike Pinder
Mike Pinder
Michael Thomas "Mike" Pinder is an English rock musician, and is a founding member or the British rock group, the Moody Blues. He left the group following the recording of the band's album, Octave, in 1978...
with The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues are an English rock band. Among their innovations was a fusion with classical music, most notably in their 1967 album Days of Future Passed....
on the album "Seventh Sojourn
Seventh Sojourn
Seventh Sojourn, released in 1972, is the eighth album by The Moody Blues.In Seventh Sojourn, The Moody Blues used, besides the Mellotron, a keyboard called the Chamberlin, a device similar to the Mellotron created by the original inventor of the device, Harry Chamberlin...
", American progressive rock band Ethos, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
(Low through Scary Monsters), Edgar Winter
Edgar Winter
Edgar Holland Winter is an American musician. He is famous for being a multi-instrumentalist. He is a highly skilled keyboardist, saxophonist and percussionist. He often plays an instrument while singing. He was most successful in the 1970s with his band, The Edgar Winter Group, notably with their...
("Jasmine Nightdreams"), Joe South
Joe South
Joe South is a multi-talented American singer-songwriter and guitarist.-Career:...
, Iron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly
Iron Butterfly is a US psychedelic rock band best known for the 1968 hit "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida".Their heyday was the late 1960s, but the band has been reincarnated with various members. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is the 31st best-selling album in the world, selling more than 25 million copies.-History:The...
, Chip Taylor
Chip Taylor
James Wesley Voight , better known by his stage name as Chip Taylor, is an American songwriter, who is noted for writing the songs "Angel of the Morning" and "Wild Thing." He is the brother of actor Jon Voight and geologist Barry Voight...
, New York session player Barry Frederick, Canadian musicians Joe and Gino Vannelli
Gino Vannelli
Gino Vannelli is an Italian-Canadian singer, songwriter, musician and composer.-Early years:Born in Montreal, Quebec, Vannelli is one of three sons born to Russ and Delia Vannelli. Russ, his father, was a big band musician. As a child, Gino's greatest passion was music, and he began playing...
, jazz/fusion group Shadowfax
Shadowfax (band)
Shadowfax was a new age/electronic musical group, best known for their albums Shadowfax and Folksongs for a Nuclear Village. In 1988 they won the Grammy for Best New Age Performance for Folksongs for a Nuclear Village...
("Watercourse Way"), and Bob Seger
Bob Seger
Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...
keyboardist Robyn Robbins.
The Chamberlin M1 was the most reliable version of the instrument to date. Chamberlin Co. also continued to earn revenue by licensing certain Chamberlin patents to Mattel for their Optigan
Optigan
The Optigan was an electronic keyboard instrument designed for the consumer market. The name stems from the instrument's reliance on pre-recorded optical soundtracks to reproduce sound...
keyboard, which used the pre-recorded loop designs by Chamberlin as well as some of the Chamberlin music tapes for the Optigan library. By the end of the 1970s, digital synths took away the market for tape based keyboards and Chamberlin ended M1 production in 1981, building the last few units out of an Ontario, California
Ontario, California
Ontario is a city located in San Bernardino County, California, United States, 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Located in the western part of the Inland Empire region, it lies just east of the Los Angeles county line and is part of the Greater Los Angeles Area...
factory, and later in the family garage with sounds that were never previously released. Harry Chamberlin died in 1986.
In the 1980s Chamberlin use was minimal with only producers like Mitchell Froom
Mitchell Froom
-Career:Froom began his career as a keyboard player in Sonoma County, California. The band Crossfire featured two keyboards players; Mitchell on one side of the stage and brother David on the other with Gary Pihl on guitar...
(Crowded House
Crowded House
Crowded House are a rock band, formed in Melbourne, Australia and led by New Zealand singer-songwriter Neil Finn. Finn is the primary songwriter and creative director of the band, having led it through several incarnations, drawing members from New Zealand , Australia and the United States...
) and Todd Rundgren (XTC
XTC
XTC were a New Wave band from Swindon, England, active between 1976 and 2005. The band enjoyed some chart success, including the UK and Canadian hits "Making Plans for Nigel" and "Senses Working Overtime" , but are perhaps even better known for their long-standing critical success.- Early years:...
's Skylarking
Skylarking
Skylarking is XTC's eighth studio album, released on 27 October 1986 and produced by American musician Todd Rundgren. Skylarking is a "life-in-a-day" semi-concept album which displayed songwriting and arranging heavily influenced by The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Kinks...
) using the instrument. The Chamberlin experienced a strong revival in the 1990s with a new generation of musicians using them and appreciating the unique sounds produced by playing them in unorthodox ways. These included Michael Penn
Michael Penn
Michael Penn is an American singer, songwriter and composer. He is the eldest son of actor/director Leo Penn and actress Eileen Ryan, and the brother of actors Sean Penn and the late Chris Penn.-Career:...
and Patrick Warren ("March", "Free For All", "Resigned", "MP4" as well as Penn's film scores like "Boogie Nights"), and singer/songwriter/producer Jon Brion
Jon Brion
Jon Brion is an American rock and pop multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and record producer.-Early life:...
on the soundtrack to the film I Heart Huckabees. Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
also used the instrument on albums such as The Black Rider
The Black Rider
The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets is a self-billed "musical fable" in the avant-garde tradition created through the collaboration of theatre director Robert Wilson, musician Tom Waits, and writer William S. Burroughs. Wilson was largely responsible for the design and direction....
and Bone Machine
Bone Machine
Bone Machine is a critically acclaimed and award-winning album by Tom Waits, released in 1992 on Island Records. It won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album, and features guest appearances by Los Lobos' David Hidalgo, Primus' Les Claypool, and The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards.Bone...
.
Starting in the late 1990s, Chamberlin sounds were released as software samples for the first time. With the appearance of tape drop-outs, and poor analogue to digital conversion - many of these vary in quality. These sounds were embraced by musicians who could not locate original Chamberlin instruments. Only a total of under 700 Chamberlins were made from 1951 to 1981, and fewer than 50 working models are accounted for today. Because of this, most appearances of Chamberlin (dubiously or dishonestly listed in liner notes) on records made after the year 2000, are most highly likely from digital sources, and not the actual Chamberlin instruments. As a result, music students and historians generally refer to music made in the Chamberlin's heyday for authentic, pure examples of the sound. Notable exceptions include recordings made by confirmed Chamberlin owners and regular users such as Patrick Warren, Michael Penn, Jon Brion, Chris Dale, Lars Fredrik Frøislie
Lars Fredrik Frøislie
Lars Fredrik Frøislie is a Norwegian musician. His main instruments are keyboards and drums. He has also done some producing and runs Termo Records together with Jacob Holm-Lupo...
- Wobbler
Wobbler (band)
- History :The band was formed near Hønefoss , in the spring of 1999 with a burning desire to create or perhaps recreate some of the musical expressions of the early seventies, especially in the use of the instruments of that time and the somewhat "strange" compositions of the progressive rock...
, and producer Brian Kehew.
Models
Various models exist of the Chamberlin. There are both keyboardKeyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
-based instruments as well as drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
s (which are called Rhythmate). Approximately 500–700 units were made, but the exact number is unknown.
| Model | Years produced | Number made |
|---|---|---|
| Chamberlin 100 | 1948–1949 | 4–10 |
| Chamberlin 200 | 1951–1959 | 100 +/- |
| Chamberlin 300/350 remotes | 1960–1969 | 200 +/- |
| Chamberlin 400 | 1961 | 1 |
| Chamberlin 500 | 1961 | 2 or 3 |
| Chamberlin 600/660 | 1962–1969 | 200+ |
| Chamberlin 25/35/45 Rhythmate | 1960–1969 | 100+ |
| Chamberlin 20/30/40 Rhythmate | 1975–1980 | 10+ |
| Chamberlin 800 Riviera | 1970 | 2 |
| Chamberlin M1, M2, M4 | 1970–1981 | 100+ |
Sounds
- Keyboards: Marimba, Piano, Vibes (w/vibrato), Bells (glockenspiel), Organ, Tibia Organ, Kinura Organ, Harpischord, Accordion, Electric Harpsichord and Flute/String Organ.
- Brass: Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Trombone, Trumpet, French Horn, Do Wah Trombone, Slur Trombone and Muted Trumpet.
- Wind: flute, oboe, and bass clarinet.
- Voice: Male Voice (solo) and Female Voice (solo).
- Strings: 3 violins, Cello and Pizzicato violins.
- Plucked strings: Slur Guitar, Banjo, Steel Guitar, Harp solo, Harp Roll, Harp 7th Arpeggio (harp sounds were not available to the public), Guitar and Mandolin.
- Effects: Dixieland Band Phrases and Sound Effects.
External links
- The six Chamberlin/Mellotron patents accessed 12 July 2009
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