Peter Christopherson

John Balance says "It's true that Peter's father is a so-called Knight Of The Realm, but this is an honoury title that he was awarded in the 60's for his achedemic work in Engineering. It is non-hereditory (ie is not passed on to Peter), and has got nothing to do with wealth or political power. Peter's family have never been rich or landed gentry. Incidentally his mother died in 1988 and his dad who is now 82, is in a Hospice suffering from Altzheimer's Disease. The suggestion that they somehow manipulated the political situation against Gen is absurd.

"Peter was a very creative partner in the Hipgnosis design team in the 70's, and he was paid well it at the time. In fact, he paid for many of the early TG records himself."

In reference to his own history of sampling, Peter says "The mellotron employed sets of pre-recorded 1/4" tapes looped around large frames, each one containing a recording of an instrument playing a single note, which was brought into contact with a playback head when a key was pressed.

These tape sets were very difficult to change and did not lend themselves to customisation. I believe the company claimed to offer a service of recording and producing custom sets for Mellotron owners but I never heard of any one who had it done. Maybe someone out there has?

Chris Carter of TG made a small keyboard to my specification which would switch on and off, and also sequence the multiple inputs from a number of car cassette decks, each modified to produce four tracks simultaneously, and running at varying speeds and capable of instantly reversing direction. Technically this is not sampling since the sound was on tape (though it was more flexible because you could use any cassette).

I began using an Apple 2 computer which did have a bone-fide sample program (although it was designed for speech reproduction) with samples triggered by the computer keyboard, on stage."