The Musical Box

[HammondDave]

Joined Brother Dave last night to see Ian Benhamou and The Musical Box play their Genesis show in Oxnard, California. Awesome show!  
 

First, a shoutout to forum member Ian Benhamou for being so generous with his time to show us his onstage rig for this particular tour. Not only is Ian an amazing keyboard player who can perform Tony Banks' music note for note, he has an exceptional ear in finding the exact same tonalities of these vintage sounds. 
 

As their current tour features very early Genesis music, there are no synths in the rig. In his research he discovered some surprising decisions in the equipment that Tony was using at the time. This included a Hammond L100 (a favorite of British keyboardists of the early 70’s), a Hohner Pianet (with some fun analog effects), and of course, the Mellotron M400. (He explained that Banks actually used a Mellotron MK II on those tours, but instead, Ian loaded his M400 with MK II tape sounds.) He also includes a digital Mellotron for those times when more than three sounds are required. 
 

Surprisingly he sometimes has the Tron piped through a Leslie 760 speaker! These sound tweaks shows the attention to detail that The Musical Box  prides themselves in recreating these fantastic performances.  
 

One fun surprise was that Ian has the instruments piped through a vintage Sunn Concert Controller One mixer.  Because, Tony used that on stage as well, and you can’t get that sound through modern digital mixers. 

Regarding the show, all I can say is that it was Sublime!  Ian’s performance was spot on, and as I told him after the show, I have never heard a live M400 sound so amazing. It transformed me back to 1969 when I was a 14 year old kid sitting in the mud at the West Palm Beach Pop Festival hearing King Crimson for the first time. Mellotrons are amazing instruments, when played and mixed correctly. Do yourselves a favor and check out The Musical Box show and you will know when I mean. 
 

Over the many decades of their existence, so many people have raved about the talents of the musicians in The Musical Box. I finally got to see them last night. Thank you Brother Dave for giving me the opportunity. 

[NewImprov]

I saw them some years ago doing the "Selling England" show, this was before Ian joined, and it was absolutely amazing. I wish they'd come the the PNW again!

[David Emm]

I'm impressed by the double Mellotron. That's a risk requiring immense brass balls.  I wouldn't fault him at ALL for strictly using a digital alternative or even a laptop sporting M-Tron Pro. If they edged into "Lamb" territory, I'd likewise 'forgive' the use of Cherry Audio's Pro Soloist. I'm unsure of whether even a superior tech could make a hardware Pro Soloist seriously road-worthy.

 

As it is, Ian deserves a place in our hall of heroes for keeping it that pure. Bands that preserve the best prog are not unlike classical orchestras. The material has held up over time with good reason.    

[jerrythek]

11 hours ago, David Emm said:

I'm impressed by the double Mellotron. That's a risk requiring immense brass balls.  I wouldn't fault him at ALL for strictly using a digital alternative or even a laptop sporting M-Tron Pro. If they edged into "Lamb" territory, I'd likewise 'forgive' the use of Cherry Audio's Pro Soloist. I'm unsure of whether even a superior tech could make a hardware Pro Soloist seriously road-worthy.

 

As it is, Ian deserves a place in our hall of heroes for keeping it that pure. Bands that preserve the best prog are not unlike classical orchestras. The material has held up over time with good reason.    

I saw them doing The Lamb, and it was interesting to see Ian “wrestle” with a real Pro Soloist. It requires some serious detached note chops to get it to articulate properly. He and the band do a fabulous job.

[HammondDave]

On 11/2/2024 at 3:44 AM, jerrythek said:

I saw them doing The Lamb, and it was interesting to see Ian “wrestle” with a real Pro Soloist. It requires some serious detached note chops to get it to articulate properly. He and the band do a fabulous job.

Mellotrons are a challenge to play correctly. Primarily you have to have a properly maintained instrument. The quality of the action of the keyboard can be very susceptible to heat, weather, and of course poor maintenance.
 

From our discussions and from listening to Ian’s excellent performance, his Mellotron is obviously properly maintained while on tour. Kudos to Ian and the techs for The Musical Box. 
 

 

 

[Dave Bryce]

9 hours ago, HammondDave said:

From our discussions and from listening to Ian’s excellent performance, his Mellotron is obviously properly maintained while on tour. Kudos to Ian and the techs for The Musical Box. 
 

 

...and brother Antoine Baril (yes, the One Man Genesis/ELP/Rush guy), who I believe did the restoration for Ian.

 

For those of you who’s never seen any of his vids, check this out:
 

 

The man has mad skillz.  😎😳🔥

 

dB

[HammondDave]

Oh YEAH!

[mcgoo]

On 11/1/2024 at 7:19 PM, David Emm said:

I'm impressed by the double Mellotron. That's a risk requiring immense brass balls.  I wouldn't fault him at ALL for strictly using a digital alternative or even a laptop sporting M-Tron Pro. If they edged into "Lamb" territory, I'd likewise 'forgive' the use of Cherry Audio's Pro Soloist. I'm unsure of whether even a superior tech could make a hardware Pro Soloist seriously road-worthy.

 

As it is, Ian deserves a place in our hall of heroes for keeping it that pure. Bands that preserve the best prog are not unlike classical orchestras. The material has held up over time with good reason.    

 

TMB was just in Indy doing the Selling England by the Pound tour. He had to use the digital Mellotron for that show because the M400 was picking up a radio station during sound check! He said that had only happened one other time on that tour. 

 

As for the Pro Soloist, they indeed have a real one that he uses when whichever tour they're doing calls for it. And he runs it thru an Echoplex. Sounds glorious. 

 

Ian's a great, friendly guy. Very approachable. And a seriously bada$$ player! 

[Tusker]

Ian was kind enough to generously fund the tickets for my son and me to attend an amazing show by the band several years ago. The music was stellar and my favorite bit was the ending of Seven Stones, where the Mellotron solo gently brings the song down to earth. A hush went through the crowd, as if they understood what Tony Banks had been yearning to say, and I felt the pull of the magic too.

 

The most surprising thing (at least for my college-age son) was the climax of the Musical Box, when it seemed the entire audience stood up to yell Now! Now! Now! Now! Now! along with Denis Gagné, the lead singer. My son had no idea the moment was coming. He kept looking around at these previously mild mannered people around him. His education was in jazz concerts. Ha Ha 😅

 

Ian's a brilliant player. No short cuts. Passion and discipline. The real thing. To quote Phil Collins, "I think these guys play it better than we did." Catch them if you can. 

[tonybanksfan]

On 11/1/2024 at 11:25 AM, HammondDave said:

As their current tour features very early Genesis music, there are no synths in the rig

Just saw TMB in Winnipeg, Canada Oct 18th. Oddly, compared to his rig setup that he showed you, here in Winnipeg, he had the Hohner on top of the Mellotron, and the Pro-soloist on top of the Hammond which sounded phenomenal during The Cinema Show.

[Dave Bryce]

3 hours ago, tonybanksfan said:

Just saw TMB in Winnipeg, Canada Oct 18th. Oddly, compared to his rig setup that he showed you, here in Winnipeg, he had the Hohner on top of the Mellotron, and the Pro-soloist on top of the Hammond which sounded phenomenal during The Cinema Show.

 

That was a different show - Selling England, IIRC.  

 

What we saw was the Genesis Live show.  No synths on any of the tunes in that set list, so no Pro Soloist.

 

dB

[joannchr]

Indeed the Musical Box is a fantastic band . I attended the SEBTP  tour in Lisbon in 2024 and they reproduce with extraordinary precisions the performance of the original Genesis Band . The fact they play with period instruments and also work originally with members of the band , in particular  Tony Banks to get the original presets used by the band . As a classical pianist and fan of progressive rock , Genesis has always been my favourite group specially in the Peter’s Gabriel era. 

Also I can recommend  the following video made by David Myers , classically trained pianist who was the keyboardist of ‘The Musical Box’ from 1994 till 2010 . He also wrote arrangements of early Genesis work for piano only.  The videos ( two videos) explains the setup and tricks he used on stage to perform some difficult passages . Enjoy .