M2K Memotron Keyboard

Back in the 1960s, the Mellotron brought orchestral magic to rock icons like The Beatles and King Crimson through its quirky tape loops—now faithfully revived in digital form without the maintenance headaches.

This 37-key Fatar keyboard packs a sample-based engine with 111-voice polyphony, letting you layer up to three sounds at once for lush blends no original could match. Hands-on knobs handle volume, tone via a 12dB/octave low-pass filter, pitch shift, ABC blending between slots, frame presets for quick settings recall, and a half-speed switch that drops pitch an octave while thickening the vibe. A built-in effects chain covers chorus, distortion, delay, echo, flanger, phaser, tremolo, and reverb, all tweakable from the menu via data wheel and LCD display. Housed in a sleek, rugged metal chassis measuring 870 x 335 x 80 mm and weighing 10 kg, it connects via stereo 1/4" outs, headphone jack, MIDI In/Out/Thru, volume pedal input, and SD card for loading from its 700-sound library.

Players love its authentic feel and vast tape-sample collection, from choirs to flutes, making it a studio and stage staple—though some note the lightweight action suits swells over aggressive playing.