What it is and what it was built for
The M1 is the table-top Chamberlin, a tape-playback keyboard that appeared in 1970. It belongs to a family that Harry Chamberlin developed and patented from 1949 to 1956, when the first model was introduced, and which was a precursor to the Mellotron. Chamberlin conceived the idea as home entertainment, with big band standards and family sing-alongs in mind.
The M1 came from a new design that emerged in the late 1960s and ended the use of rhythm tapes. It is a table-top version of the earlier models and is much smaller than the competing M400 Mellotron.
How it works, in terms a player would use
The Chamberlin has a piano-style keyboard, and underneath each key is a tape-playing mechanism. Each tape is prerecorded with an instrument or a special effect. Press a key and a pressure pad pushes the tape against a tape head while a pinch roller beneath the key pulls it forward. The head’s electric signal is amplified and heard through a loudspeaker. Release the key and the sound stops.
What sets the M1 apart is the rewind. Early Chamberlins rewound their tapes with metal spring rods. The M1 uses a return-roller mechanism instead, which gave it a tape-return system described as flawless.
What it does better than anything else
The M1 has higher-quality playback heads, with no tape warble and greater bandwidth than the Mellotron. The Chamberlin recordings behind the keys were made with Neumann U47 microphones and have a very clean output, little compression and dynamics true to the instruments recorded. Mistaking Chamberlin sounds for real instruments is common, because they were recorded with no processing.
What it does badly
Each tape is only a few seconds long, eight seconds on many units, so a held note is limited by the length of its tape. The sounds on the keys are fixed recordings, and the family was designed to stay in one place rather than travel. Chamberlin instruments were never sold outside the US and Canada.
What people made with it
The Chamberlin family turned up on pop records of the 1960s by The Lettermen, Marvin Gaye, Bobby Goldsboro and The Beach Boys. Later users of the line include Mike Pinder with The Moody Blues, Edgar Winter, David Bowie from Low through Scary Monsters, and Tom Waits, who used it on Bone Machine and The Black Rider. Todd Rundgren and Mitchell Froom used one in the 1980s, and a revival followed in the 1990s.
The M1 itself stayed rare: about 130 were built. Production ended in 1981, with the last few units built in a factory in Ontario, California and later in the family garage with previously unreleased sounds.
Who should use it, and who should not
Use it if you want real instrument recordings under your fingers, in a body smaller than a Mellotron, and you are content with a fixed library of short tapes. Skip it if you need long sustained notes, rhythm accompaniment or sounds of your own.
Is it worth your time
For a collector of tape keyboards, yes. The M1 is the much more durable end of the Chamberlin line, with higher-quality heads, and only about 130 were built.
