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Interesting, I didn't know about Seeburg. Funnily enough, this business model is even older: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telharmonium https://en.m.wikipedia

Interesting, I didn't know about Seeburg. Funnily enough, this business model is even older: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telharmonium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telharmonium "As early as 1906, the Cahill Telharmonium Company of New York attempted to sell musical entertainment (produced by Dr. Thaddeus Cahill's "Telharmonium," an early synthesizer) to subscribers through the telephone" The business failed miserably, but the Telharmonium is remembered as an early electronic music instrument.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
Apparently there are no recordings of this telharmonium, which is a shame :/. There seem to be attempts at reproducing it though.
ksymph 2y ago
Fun fact: there was a brief period after music recording, but before copies could be made with much quality, where if you wanted them to sound halfway decent each recording had to be a unique performance. Studio musicians were paid to perform popular songs over and over. When making copies became more feasible, there was backlash from some musicians, both for financial and artistic reasons - not unlike when recorded music started becoming popular in the first place. Not hard to see the similarities with modern distribution woes like piracy and streaming too.
Animats 2y ago
The Telharmonium dated from the "if only we had gain" era of pre-electronics. The thing was a huge collection of sizable AC generators running at different frequencies, run through a keyboard, and mixed with transformers. With no way to amplify a small signal, there was no way to downsize the thing. Once amps were invented, the Hammond Organ, with its tone wheels, was the same concept in a piano-sized package. History of pre-transistor electronics: - If only we had voltage. - If only we had current. - If only we had rectification. - If only we had gain. - If only we had frequency. - If only we had power gain. - If only we had reliability. - If only we had precision. - If only we had counting.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

Apparently there are no recordings of this telharmonium, which is a shame :/. There seem to be attempts at reproducing it though.

ksymph 2y ago

Fun fact: there was a brief period after music recording, but before copies could be made with much quality, where if you wanted them to sound halfway decent each recording had to be a unique performance. Studio musicians were paid to perform popular songs over and over. When making copies became more feasible, there was backlash from some musicians, both for financial and artistic reasons - not unlike when recorded music started becoming popular in the first place. Not hard to see the similarities with modern distribution woes like piracy and streaming too.

Animats 2y ago

The Telharmonium dated from the "if only we had gain" era of pre-electronics. The thing was a huge collection of sizable AC generators running at different frequencies, run through a keyboard, and mixed with transformers. With no way to amplify a small signal, there was no way to downsize the thing. Once amps were invented, the Hammond Organ, with its tone wheels, was the same concept in a piano-sized package. History of pre-transistor electronics: - If only we had voltage. - If only we had current. - If only we had rectification. - If only we had gain. - If only we had frequency. - If only we had power gain. - If only we had reliability. - If only we had precision. - If only we had counting.