About The Alan Parsons Project
British Rock studio project initially formed to record a concept album about Edgar Allan Poe. They became best known for the power ballad "Eye in the Sky" and the instrumental "Sirius".
**Official band members**
● [[artist:Alan Parsons]] – production, engineering, programming, composition, keyboards, guitar
● [[artist:Eric Woolfson]] – composition, lyrics, piano, keyboards, vocals, executive production
**Notable contributors**
● [[artist:Andrew Powell]] – composition, keyboards, orchestral arrangements (1975-1990)
● [[artist:Philharmonia Orchestra]]
● [[artist:The English Chorale]] – choir (1976, 1977, 1982, 1987)
● [[artist:Ian Bairnson]] – guitar (1975–1990)
● [[artist:David Pack]] – guitar (1976)
● [[artist:David Paton]] – bass, vocals (1975–1985)
● [[artist:Duncan Mackay]] – keyboards (1977–1979)
● [[artist:Richard Cottle]] – keyboards, saxophone (1984–1990)
● [[artist:Laurence Cottle]] – bass (1987-1990)
● [[artist:Stuart Tosh]] – drums, percussion (1975–1976)
● [[artist:Stuart Elliott]] – drums, percussion (1977–1990)
● [[artist:John Leach]] – cimbalom, kantele (1976–1978)
● [[artist:Colin Blunstone]] – vocals (1978–1984)
● [[artist:Chris Rainbow]] – vocals (1979–1990)
● [[artist:Lenny Zakatek]] – vocals (1977–1987)
● [[artist:John Miles]] – vocals (1976, 1978, 1985, 1987)
● [[artist:Jack Harris]] – vocals (1976–1978)
● [[artist:Dave Townsend]] – vocals (1977, 1979)
● [[artist:Elmer Gantry]] a.k.a. [[artist:Dave Terry (4)]] – vocals (1980, 1982)
● [[artist:Graham Dye]] – vocals (1985, 1990)
Non-recurring vocalists include: [[artist:Arthur Brown]] (1975), [[artist:Allan Clarke]] (1977), [[artist:Peter Straker]] (1977), [[artist:Jaki Whitren]] (1977), [[artist:Dean Ford]] (1978), [[artist:Clare Torry]] (1979), [[artist:Lesley Duncan]] (1979), [[artist:Gary Brooker]] (1985), [[artist:Geoff Barradale]] (1987), [[artist:Eric Stewart]] (1990)
Notable instruments: Projectron - A device built by Alan Parsons as an analog sample playback device, similar in general concept to a Mellotron. The Projectron consisted of a 24-track tape machine, with each playback channel routed to a voltage controlled amplifier; each VCA was in turn gated by a key of an attached keyboard. The device was used on the albums I Robot, Pyramid, and The Turn of a Friendly Card. But preparing tapes was a cumbersome process and the device was maintenance-intensive, so as soon as a Fairlight CMI became available to Parsons, he switched his sampling activities to that. Parsons scrapped the Projectron sometime after 1980, and no photos of it are known to have survived.
