Lid off, showing the tape frame, at the Museum of Making Music. Photo: doryfour, edited by a Commons user, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Mellotron M400
Discontinued 1986Released 1970
The Mellotron most people picture, and the one you can actually get into a van: 35 keys, three sounds per removable tape frame, and about 55 kg. Around 2,000 were built, including 100 by EMI. After the 1977 collapse Streetly sold it as the Novatron 400 (also in black), which is the same machine with a different badge. Its 3 Violins and 8 Voice Choir define 1970s prog.
Specifications
General
- Manufacturer
- Mellotron
- Status
- Discontinued
- Released
- 1970
Keyboard
- Keys
- 35
- Aftertouch
- None
- Keybed
- Single 35-note manual, G to F
Sounds
- Sections
- Sample playback
- Drawbars
- None
- Sound engine
- Tape replay: one 3/8-inch tape strip per key, three tracks (A/B/C) per removable frame, about 8 seconds per note
- Organ models
- None
- Polyphony
- Full polyphony (35 notes)
Connections
- Outputs
- 1/4-inch unbalanced, XLR balanced
- Pedal inputs
- Volume
Features
- Features
- Tape replay, Pitch control, Removable tape frame, Tone control, No built-in amplifier, Sold as the Novatron 400 from 1978
Size & weight
- Colours
- White
- Dimensions (W × D × H)
- 860 × 570 × 820 mm
- Weight
- 55 kg
Heard on
Artists and records that used it, as Mellotron tells it.
- Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Architecture & Morality – a second-hand M400, across the album
