We’re in the sixties. Imagine a keyboard that is able to reproduce the sounds of violins, flutes, or a brass section; a machine which is totally polyphonic, at a time when digital technology does not exist yet, and when the only available keyboards are pianos, organs and the first monophonic synthesizers.
A forerunner of modern-day samplers, the Mellotron, with its pre-recorded tapes, was the key to new musical landscapes, and became a major element of a whole new musical current: progressive rock.
Now, with the fabulous Mellotron, anyone with the slightest ear for music can command his own orchestra – simply by using two fingers and a thumb – producing a wealth of orchestral sounds from a single keyboard… I regard the Mellotron as the “greatest” in home entertainment since television.
Eric Robinson, Conductor – 1967