In 1975, armed with a big pile of 8-track car stereos and a whole lot of moxie, Dave Biro set out to change the sound of rock music. He failed spectacularly. This is the fascinating and tragic story of one of the rarest instruments in rock music-
The Birotron.
Even if you don't recognize the name, you've probably heard the
Mellotron. The Beatles, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, The Kinks and countless others featured the unusual sounds of the
keyboard on many of the most recognizable songs in rock music. However, despite the popularity of the Mellotron, it wasn't without it's flaws- heavy, bulky, slow, and-
most important to this post- limited to 8 seconds of sound per key before the tapes which made up the sounds needed rewinding.
Dave Biro decided to improve upon the Mellotron, and by cramming all those 8-tracks in a
case and wiring the whole mess together, he was able to create an
instrument with virtually infinite sustain. Unfortunately, his timing was a bit off: 4 years after the first Birotron rolled off the line,
the world's first polyphonic digital sampling synthesizer was introduced. That, plus some serious technical and quality control issues, was enough to kill off the Birotron after only a handful were made.
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posted by Kadin2048 at 12:21 PM on October 1, 2007