I still have my dad's old Lenco turntable, from the early 1960s, with 4 speeds: 78, 45, 33, and 16. I used to play Chipmunks LPs and the "Cinderella" soundtrack LP on 16 RPM, to hear the real voices of the Chipmunks and Cinderella's mice.
@@OofusTwillip We would listen to Cinderella too. And we had Firdanan The Bull. He would leave the Bull Fight. And he went over to sit under the Cork Tree. To Smell the Flowers 🌹🌹🌹🌼🌹🌼🌹🌼🌹🌼🌹. One of our favorites growing up.
I was in elementary school in the early to mid-60's. My school district had Califones with an oval speaker. Filling up a full classroom, they sounded great.
iTunes has (last time I checked) three Seeburg music albums, one of which is just Christmas music. Obviously having an original record is an amazing find, but if you just want to hear this type of retail store background music, it's available.
Oh my gosh, my parents bought a basic stereo in the 70’s that played 78, 45, 33, and 16 rpm, as well as 8 track tape, but this is the first I’ve seen 16 rpm in action. So regret not holding on to that stereo.
I would never have thought I'd find this interesting but when the music started to play, I was hooked. I'm old so I recognized all but two or three of the songs that you played. This was a fun video!!
Excellent video. I looked at my vintage linear Sears 564 player and noticed that it too has 4 speeds and I thought how cool it is. I have just overlooked it all these years till now.
I started kindergarten in 1975, so I remember school record players, but by then, they were already being replaced by cassette decks. Schools here in central New York State hung on to their record players until the mid-1980s, but only because some educational materials were only available on vinyl, or they didn't want to spend the money to upgrade the recordings to cassette. Fun fact: the 16rpm record format was originally invented for the in-dashboard car record player, the first of which came out in 1957. It failed, barely lasting a year, as the tonearm would bounce all over the place, even in the smoothest riding luxury cars. The 16rpm format hung around until the late 1970s, used mostly for party records (extended play dance music for parties, not those naughty comedy records) and for audiobooks (originally called talking books) for the visually impaired. My dad had a massive early 1960s 4-speed floor console record player with two 12" speakers that could play 16rpm. It looked like furniture and sounded amazing! As cassettes exploded in the 1970s, by 1980, you couldn't find a turntable or record player with 16rpm capability unless you went to Radio Shack, and even their models didn't last much longer.
3:00 - This player brings to mind those we used in high school in the early 1970s. Those had 4 spring-loaded FEET! The whole player was isolated (supposedly). I'd giggle when the teacher put on a record, the whole thing jiggled!
I was in handbell choir at my middle school. I was able to bring in a children's record I had growing up to play "My Grandfather's Clock" to the others in the choir, as it was a song we played lots.
I remember the 16rpm selection on the old turntables, but never saw a record that played at the speed! I'm left with the suspicion that these records were also used in the "closed-circuit" radio stations used by grocery stores, department stores and restaurants. Thanks so much! If not careful, you CAN learn things on RUclips.
From Wikipedia The Christmas holiday season required a special set of records. A box of 25 Christmas records was issued to be played during the month of December. This set consisted of Christmas music, interspersed with non-holiday music. The first sets of Christmas records were made separately for each existing library, but by the early 60s were replaced with a simple "Matching Christmas Library". It was the job of the machine operators to replace all the normal library records with Christmas records on December 1, and then replace the Christmas records with the standard libraries on December 26. This was a large undertaking - in New York, "the entire service and installation force, and even the office help, are pressed into service to still the sound of Christmas past for another 11 months." they obviously didnt agree with the Christian churches 12 days of christmas, and us othodox on the old calender still do christmas on the 6th Jan, when europe gets is normal weather white christmas
I have a couple of original 1960 Christmas LP''s. Frank Sinatra's 'have a Jolly Christmas' & Nat King Cole's 'the Magic of Christmas'. They were my late Parents, & I grew up with them. Both are Mono & on the Capitol label. They're in great condition & still sound superb. When I play them at this time of year, I'm instantly transported back to happy times & vivid memories !
I came across a library record player that had the 16 rpm setting. I had a few editions of audio magazines along with it. US News and World Report, I believe.
Columbia only pressed records for Seeburg between July of 1961 and December of 1963, so the Columbia set of Christmas records would have only been sent out in that timeframe, likely produced initially for Christmas of 1961 and further provided until the end of 1963.
when i was little , mum had a rca change o matic turn table that you could stack multiple records for continus play , your player reminded me of that . great find.
Good evening all ,🚂 some time you can find the turn table at a garage sale or rummage. If you go to Walmart and look around the electric dept have some turn table I have a Sony but I can't find the old need cartirle
Excellent video!!! I recognize the opening track. "Plople Will Say We're In Love" I believe. As for elevator music on record, I remember hearing an elevator music version of "Beth" (KISS song) believe it or not. Have not heard it, nor heard anything about it since that one time I heard it in 1978. Any info would he greatly appreciated.
Very nice! I don't know anything about old phonograph repair, but I think that one sounds pretty good. No wonder you can fit 40 minutes of music on that disc, it rotates at a snails pace. I'm a record collector of many years, but I don't have anything in the 16rpm. Nice collectable.
I had a couple of them too.I think there was one slower speed other than the 16, I think it was around 7 Not that I had it, but what I did have was a dark purple label on a 45 that mentioned 7 as the speed.
They were usually either large transcription discs of radio programs (that's why they were called "platters") or 7" records that came in albums of talking books. I don't have any of the former, although I've seen a few. I do have a 5-record Talking Books album from 1958 of Basil Rathbone reading four Sherlock Holmes stories (not the recordings that he made in 1966-67).
We had record players in our classrooms in the 80s. My favorite one was a Califone stereo in blue that had a tonearm that was fixed straight out and the headshell was on a swivel that lowered the needle onto the record.
The tunes on the record sound more 1950s and even late 40s just by what's on it. I was in grade school in the 70s and practically every classroom had a standard issue record player very much like that one! The difference was that I don't ever remember any of them having the cover attached. I guess it made them easier to set up. Maybe the lids were around in an AV storage! Very nice!
I recently picked up a number of these Seeburg discs. They are a hard sell but priced cheaply enough some people will buy. Seeburg also made a playback unit to be used with these discs. Those are harder to find and are a bit expensive.
These 9" discs were made to be played on the Seeburg 1000 system - then they had to be returned to Seeburg & were destroyed ! This is why cooies are extremely rare - although some slipped through & can be found. They fetch quite a sum nowadays. The Christmas discs were usually numbered "XMAS - (number)" . . Your disc is numbered "CH 16A" &, as such, is particularly rare !!!!
It's always interesting to see something new on RUclips. Today, I found this quite interesting site. What is your name, and what can you tell me about George Harrison's Wonderwalll album? I once owned it, but unfortunately, a captain in the US army, based it Ft. Ord, kyped it from me. Beautiful cover art. I wanna back. Merry Christmas.
I am old enough to remember classroom record players. It was also at the time when they started to transition to cassettes. In elementary school, I remember the record players, but by the time I got to high school, it was pretty much cassettes, with the occasional record. Mat did a pretty good video on his Techmoan channel about the Seeburg jukeboxes and records. If I recall, that was pretty much a subscription type of thing where every quarter (or month?), you had to turn in the records you had and got a new set of records for your playback device, so I imagine it was pretty rare to find them still out in the wild. I was going to post about using that trick to digitize the playback and using Audacity to change the speed back to the correct speed. Anyway, pretty neat video as it is indeed rare to see those old Seeburg 16 speed records these days.
One other thing you can do to play the record without the proper speed is if you had a reel to reel with a couple speeds, you could record it at 7.5 inches per second and play it back at 3.75 and it would give you the same result as far as speed goes. It would actually probably sound better going through audacity, though. For some reason, going digital with something like that seems to yield less loss in audio quality when jumping speeds like that. You would actually get the sound of the record reproduced pretty accurately with the digital, too. If you were doing a direct transfer, with the same speed, the tape transfer would give you a warmer sound, in my opinion. The Seeburg adapter is very cool, too. Merry Christmas.
I used to work for audiotronics...but that was well after their audio products. My hometown radio used to play 16rpm records as a pre-recorded show. Very large red records.
I was in a classroom in the early 1970s that had a Califone. There were wireless induction headphones. There was a wire strung around the classroom toward the ceiling and the two ends were attached to a 1/4” phone plug that plugged into the Califone. Headphones had a simple amp with volume control and on the top in the headset part was a piece of metal that served as sort of an antenna. It was a simple induction circuit that did not use radio waves. I found that it was still possible to pick up the audio outside the classroom in the hall and down a ways, it was just lower volume outside the boundary of the induction circuit. I learned about induction circuits from that, just from experience.
Also LPs in the late 50s still have the date on the LP label. I have 1959 LPs and the date is on them. They are thick and fragile, not 33 but can play on my console
I have a few old 45 records from my childhood and my children got me a turntable a few years ago! We had A Blue record player like the one you are showing!
I have one or two that has 16 speed. A Truetone and a Philco Ford. P.S. I love that record and adapter. The length per side is like one side of commercial music CD'S
The only Christmas record I have is The Chipmunks. That record dates back to 1962. When I was a kid🧒my family had that one.When I moved away from mom & pop I don't know what ever happened to it. But I found one in a bargain bin at a record store, scored it for 25 cents.For a record over 50 years old the cover is in good shape and the record plays perfect. As an old vinyl junkie I have a lot of 33 & 45 rpm records. Never got into 16's or 78's.
People will say we're in loooove.....Oklahoma! wonderful to hear. Everyone should know the charm of hearing vintage music from vintage records. It's a wonderful step back in time. I cringe when I see people say use 78's for "craft projects" or glue them to teenager's walls, etc. Ugh, are you kidding! This is history, it's a beautiful reprieve from today's world for a few minutes. Merry Christmas!
I missed school record players. All we had was a piano in the corner played by the teacher. when my kids went to school in the 70's and 80's they had these and they got to choose a record to play at lunch time. I also remember the local department store had these Seeburg records playing. The daughter of one of the workers told me her mother was the one who changed the records. They also had an elevator that was still run by an operator. This was in the late 50's and early 60's.
I believe during WWII the armed services allowed servicemen to record messages on record disc's at 16 rpm which were then sent stateside to the families of those servicemen. Those records had the center hole and an offset hole to drive the record during recording because the message was cut directly onto the record (and that required much more torque to cut the groves) that was then mailed home. As a kid I used to like to put the offset hole on the center spindle. Made for great fun trying to listen to the message.
Nice post! I’ve had 5 turntables in my 70 years. I still have two usable ones now. I know one of those 5 turntables had a16 speed on it. My grandmother who passed in 1975 had an attic full of 16 rpm records. I don’t know what happened to them. All I know is that my mother didn’t inherit them!
I have a similar record player from the fifties, unfortunately I can no longer find the double needle for it. Mine also is four speeds. There is one episode of The Real McCoys where you can see the player.
I was born in '52 and I've had players with the 16 rpm setting, but I've never had a 16 rpm record. I think they were made primarily for speech, as slow speed equates to low fidelity and longer play time.
Spoken book records were actually all the way down to eight RPM… 16 2/3 RPM was primarily used for background music systems like this record I demonstrated
I remember all through grade school in the 70s, every class room had a record player like this one. They were usually used when the teacher was teaching the class a song for a Christmas show or some other presentation.
That was fascinating about the 16 2/3 rpm background music or "elevator music" records. As far as the rare Christmas recording goes all there was heard on this video was a snippet of an instrumental version of "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer".
I've been trying to find Peter Lorre's version of Jolly Old St. Nicholas for years. It was on a Christmas album my parents had. All the artists had a small photo on the jacket. I'm thinking 1965 give or take.
BTW, a handy tip for those who do want to do the "record to Audacity and slow it down" trick -- might want to set the recording settings to 88.2khz instead of the usual 44.1khz because when you slow it down, you'll lose some of the audio quality.
I'm a bit older than you, so remember these in NYC schools in the 70s. Given the 70s budget crisis a lot of old texts and tech hung around too. I found articles from 1959 and 1963 that refers to Seeburg BGM and their Christmas library. I'm not sure if RUclips lets me post links?
Hey buddy Merry Christmas I just saw your Lego photograph thing that was awesome by the way the record sounded fine to me although I was watching it on my phone so I'm not the best quality but sounded good also the crosley automatic 300 a that you reviewed online is on Amazon now I'm gonna snag that after Christmas but anyway I'll see you later bye
I remember when it was pretty standard for turntables to have four speeds -- 78 all the way down to 16 2/3. Don't know when 16 was done away with. I'd always wondered if 16 was actually a thing, but everything I ever read over the years said it was for certain spoken-word recordings. Yet, every time I've seen a 16 2/3 RPM record pop up on RUclips, it was background music for a store! I'd love to happen across a 16 record somewhere in the wild. I don't have a player that plays back at 16 2/3, but I could just record it at 33 1/3 and slow it down to 16 2/3 via Audacity or something.
Wow, I've never seen a 16rpm record, not to mention one playing. I remember some of the old record players we had, had all 4 speeds. I still miss my Show "N Tell lol. As for the player you are using, looks very similar to the school players we had back in the 60's ( I started school in '66) except the tone arm was all metal and as I recall, very heavy.
I could have got a klh model 11 fm portable record player with the 4 speed from a local auction. I forgot my phone to go look at xmas lightlight it went for $42 buck. It was in great condition.
junior high school 1979. We had a record player that was something like this. I got to hear the first sugarhill gang album. My first time hearing rap. At the time i wasan't impressed I'm like that when new music came out. I'm also willing to give it a chance
When you said you need a fourth speed I started thinking and somehow I very vaguely remember there might of been a 16 speed. Not sure where I encountered 16 but I remembered before you showed it. I don't think I or my parents ever had a 16 speed record or player. Still trying to figure out who had one. Maybe my school? PS. It might have been on the stereo console they had before I was born and had until I was about ten years old. They replaced that one in the late 70s. PSS. Ok never mind. We had a 45 adapter but never the 16 adapter, so it wasn't the older console. We had the 45 adapter that was a cylinder to take advangtage of the automatic drop feature beside the short 45 adapter for single record play, but those were the only two it used.
There was a time it was illegal to have these dedicated classroom players outside of a school, but once record players were phased out, that no longer was the case. Those later players have some plastic parts. In the 1970s, when I was in elementary school, the Califones we had were vintage 60s models; talk about TANKS! They had an interesting, unique sound of their own. I played records a lot as a child, and didn't quite care for the sound of those things, but I understood it was the sound of school.
Hi there, It could be a Dance practice record, unusual I must admit but yes I agree maybe around 59 or 60, Perhaps it was for breaking out a tango or a foxtrot . Yeah baby ! Many thanks 👍
That record's first two songs sound more like my parents era, the 30's/40's (I was born in 1955) that music style in the early part of the record I've only heard when watching very old movies. Even the 3rd song, Rudolf, was published in 1949, sounds far newer music style! I'd say this RECORD dates to about 1949-50. My parents played the radio all day, and this is not the sound I heard as a toddler. Maybe someone older than me (69yrs) could add to this? Thanks for the video!
I still have my dad's old Lenco turntable, from the early 1960s, with 4 speeds: 78, 45, 33, and 16. I used to play Chipmunks LPs and the "Cinderella" soundtrack LP on 16 RPM, to hear the real voices of the Chipmunks and Cinderella's mice.
Me too! Haha
@@OofusTwillip We would listen to Cinderella
too. And we had Firdanan
The Bull.
He would leave the Bull
Fight. And he went over to
sit under the Cork
Tree. To
Smell the Flowers 🌹🌹🌹🌼🌹🌼🌹🌼🌹🌼🌹.
One of our favorites growing up.
We had one when I was at school, used for the spoken word (poetry, plays etc)
I was in elementary school in the early to mid-60's. My school district had Califones with an oval speaker. Filling up a full classroom, they sounded great.
I remember those record players.
I still have one
I love this music it brings back memories of shopping as a child at department stores in the 1960's.
iTunes has (last time I checked) three Seeburg music albums, one of which is just Christmas music. Obviously having an original record is an amazing find, but if you just want to hear this type of retail store background music, it's available.
Oh my gosh, my parents bought a basic stereo in the 70’s that played 78, 45, 33, and 16 rpm, as well as 8 track tape, but this is the first I’ve seen 16 rpm in action. So regret not holding on to that stereo.
Love Seeburgs! I’m surprised the year isn’t printed on it. My set is marked “place in use 10-1-66”.
I would never have thought I'd find this interesting but when the music started to play, I was hooked. I'm old so I recognized all but two or three of the songs that you played. This was a fun video!!
I’d love to hear the whole thing considering it’s rarity, definitely a neat find. Hopefully it’s documented more online now
Excellent video. I looked at my vintage linear Sears 564 player and noticed that it too has 4 speeds and I thought how cool it is. I have just overlooked it all these years till now.
I started kindergarten in 1975, so I remember school record players, but by then, they were already being replaced by cassette decks. Schools here in central New York State hung on to their record players until the mid-1980s, but only because some educational materials were only available on vinyl, or they didn't want to spend the money to upgrade the recordings to cassette. Fun fact: the 16rpm record format was originally invented for the in-dashboard car record player, the first of which came out in 1957. It failed, barely lasting a year, as the tonearm would bounce all over the place, even in the smoothest riding luxury cars. The 16rpm format hung around until the late 1970s, used mostly for party records (extended play dance music for parties, not those naughty comedy records) and for audiobooks (originally called talking books) for the visually impaired. My dad had a massive early 1960s 4-speed floor console record player with two 12" speakers that could play 16rpm. It looked like furniture and sounded amazing! As cassettes exploded in the 1970s, by 1980, you couldn't find a turntable or record player with 16rpm capability unless you went to Radio Shack, and even their models didn't last much longer.
I remember those! You were just going to school when I was graduating!! Man I feel old now!!😅
How cool!! Congratulations! It sounds great, and just in time for the season.
I am very excited about it, too!
3:00 - This player brings to mind those we used in high school in the early 1970s. Those had 4 spring-loaded FEET! The whole player was isolated (supposedly). I'd giggle when the teacher put on a record, the whole thing jiggled!
I was in handbell choir at my middle school. I was able to bring in a children's record I had growing up to play "My Grandfather's Clock" to the others in the choir, as it was a song we played lots.
I remember the 16rpm selection on the old turntables, but never saw a record that played at the speed! I'm left with the suspicion that these records were also used in the "closed-circuit" radio stations used by grocery stores, department stores and restaurants.
Thanks so much! If not careful, you CAN learn things on RUclips.
80 minutes total (40 minutes per side if I heard you correctly)? That compact disc territory.
Yep - it's a long one!
@Recordology wow that's incredible! Seberg was ahead of it's time!
5:36 - Techmoan did a great video on that Seeburg unit! - ruclips.net/video/8kCHx3_vu9M/видео.html&ab_channel=Techmoan
From Wikipedia
The Christmas holiday season required a special set of records. A box of 25 Christmas records was issued to be played during the month of December. This set consisted of Christmas music, interspersed with non-holiday music. The first sets of Christmas records were made separately for each existing library, but by the early 60s were replaced with a simple "Matching Christmas Library".
It was the job of the machine operators to replace all the normal library records with Christmas records on December 1, and then replace the Christmas records with the standard libraries on December 26. This was a large undertaking - in New York, "the entire service and installation force, and even the office help, are pressed into service to still the sound of Christmas past for another 11 months."
they obviously didnt agree with the Christian churches 12 days of christmas, and us othodox on the old calender still do christmas on the 6th Jan, when europe gets is normal weather white christmas
WOW, issued I the month of December?!! They start Christmas music on Halloween nowadays 😂
In the 50s we had a Webcor phonograph with four speeds. The main product in 16 rpm tended to be spoken word records.
I have a couple of original 1960 Christmas LP''s. Frank Sinatra's 'have a Jolly Christmas' & Nat King Cole's 'the Magic of Christmas'. They were my late Parents, & I grew up with them. Both are Mono & on the Capitol label. They're in great condition & still sound superb. When I play them at this time of year, I'm instantly transported back to happy times & vivid memories !
I was this old (60) when I learned about 16 2/3rpm. Neat.
I came across a library record player that had the 16 rpm setting. I had a few editions of audio magazines along with it. US News and World Report, I believe.
I just picked up a 1970's Radio Shack Clarinette 1 with a BSR Changer that has a 16rpm speed.
We had those classroom record players, in olive-green, when I was in elementary school, in the 1970s.
Pretty Cool 👍😎 I could listen to it all day long.....
I've got many of those ... I play them from time to time... 7 of them are Christmas ones
Columbia only pressed records for Seeburg between July of 1961 and December of 1963, so the Columbia set of Christmas records would have only been sent out in that timeframe, likely produced initially for Christmas of 1961 and further provided until the end of 1963.
when i was little , mum had a rca change o matic turn table that you could stack multiple records for continus play , your player reminded me of that . great find.
Simple stunning, beautiful sound
Good evening all ,🚂 some time you can find the turn table at a garage sale or rummage. If you go to Walmart and look around the electric dept have some turn table I have a Sony but I can't find the old need cartirle
When I was in 3rd grade back in the early 60s, we used to square dance with the class to a record player essentially like this one.
Washington 😂 did square dancing in the 3rd grade, but in the late 50s.
I wasn't even born then lol, but I had a dansette early 70s that was similar to this😊
I had one of these in my classroom when I taught in the 60s.
Excellent video!!! I recognize the opening track. "Plople Will Say We're In Love" I believe. As for elevator music on record, I remember hearing an elevator music version of "Beth" (KISS song) believe it or not. Have not heard it, nor heard anything about it since that one time I heard it in 1978. Any info would he greatly appreciated.
I also recognise the tune ‘it’s the loveliest night of the year’.
Very nice! I don't know anything about old phonograph repair, but I think that one sounds pretty good. No wonder you can fit 40 minutes of music on that disc, it rotates at a snails pace. I'm a record collector of many years, but I don't have anything in the 16rpm. Nice collectable.
Yeah, the 16RPM records are really neat!
I grew up in the 60s but I don't recall 16 RPM!
16 was used widely for spoken word records as the fidelity wasn't as important as with music.
All 1960s record players had 4 speeds
I remember they had the 16rpm option on record players in the seventies
They were rare. Most of them were used for speech only. The slow speed had inferior sound quality.
I had a couple of them too.I think there was one slower speed other than the 16, I think it was around 7 Not that I had it, but what I did have was a dark purple label on a 45 that mentioned 7 as the speed.
I'm 57 and remember having 78s, but I've never heard of 16 rpm.
They were usually either large transcription discs of radio programs (that's why they were called "platters") or 7" records that came in albums of talking books. I don't have any of the former, although I've seen a few. I do have a 5-record Talking Books album from 1958 of Basil Rathbone reading four Sherlock Holmes stories (not the recordings that he made in 1966-67).
We had record players in our classrooms in the 80s. My favorite one was a Califone stereo in blue that had a tonearm that was fixed straight out and the headshell was on a swivel that lowered the needle onto the record.
Sounds better than I thought that it would!
BTW, that Audiotronics player has a built in 45 adapter, you just twist it and it locks into the up position.
Yes it does.
The tunes on the record sound more 1950s and even late 40s just by what's on it. I was in grade school in the 70s and practically every classroom had a standard issue record player very much like that one! The difference was that I don't ever remember any of them having the cover attached. I guess it made them easier to set up. Maybe the lids were around in an AV storage! Very nice!
My grade school had several copies of that model of record player during the '80s.
I recently picked up a number of these Seeburg discs. They are a hard sell but priced cheaply enough some people will buy. Seeburg also made a playback unit to be used with these discs. Those are harder to find and are a bit expensive.
Wow amazing score!
These 9" discs were made to be played on the Seeburg 1000 system - then they had to be returned to Seeburg & were destroyed ! This is why cooies are extremely rare - although some slipped through & can be found. They fetch quite a sum nowadays. The Christmas discs were usually numbered "XMAS - (number)" . . Your disc is numbered "CH 16A" &, as such, is particularly rare !!!!
Great find! Thank you for sharing.
Happy to share!
The 45 adapter should pop-up from the center of the turntable if you twist it.
Ah, the Audiotronics at 16rpm with a Seeburg disc...perfect background music setup! Love these machines
Thanks! I enjoyed the trip back in time.
It's always interesting to see something new on RUclips. Today, I found this quite interesting site. What is your name, and what can you tell me about George Harrison's Wonderwalll album? I once owned it, but unfortunately, a captain in the US army, based it Ft. Ord, kyped it from me. Beautiful cover art. I wanna back. Merry Christmas.
well im old enough(44) we had these,and no a/c ! just box fans! i bought a 1969 audiotronics for myself 20 years ago. still a minty player
I am old enough to remember classroom record players. It was also at the time when they started to transition to cassettes. In elementary school, I remember the record players, but by the time I got to high school, it was pretty much cassettes, with the occasional record.
Mat did a pretty good video on his Techmoan channel about the Seeburg jukeboxes and records. If I recall, that was pretty much a subscription type of thing where every quarter (or month?), you had to turn in the records you had and got a new set of records for your playback device, so I imagine it was pretty rare to find them still out in the wild.
I was going to post about using that trick to digitize the playback and using Audacity to change the speed back to the correct speed. Anyway, pretty neat video as it is indeed rare to see those old Seeburg 16 speed records these days.
One other thing you can do to play the record without the proper speed is if you had a reel to reel with a couple speeds, you could record it at 7.5 inches per second and play it back at 3.75 and it would give you the same result as far as speed goes. It would actually probably sound better going through audacity, though. For some reason, going digital with something like that seems to yield less loss in audio quality when jumping speeds like that. You would actually get the sound of the record reproduced pretty accurately with the digital, too. If you were doing a direct transfer, with the same speed, the tape transfer would give you a warmer sound, in my opinion. The Seeburg adapter is very cool, too. Merry Christmas.
Great ideas! Merry Christmas!
I used to work for audiotronics...but that was well after their audio products.
My hometown radio used to play 16rpm records as a pre-recorded show.
Very large red records.
Interesting, thanks for sharing that!
The music sounds very familiar to what you would hear on a old black and white laurel and hardy film
I was in a classroom in the early 1970s that had a Califone. There were wireless induction headphones. There was a wire strung around the classroom toward the ceiling and the two ends were attached to a 1/4” phone plug that plugged into the Califone. Headphones had a simple amp with volume control and on the top in the headset part was a piece of metal that served as sort of an antenna. It was a simple induction circuit that did not use radio waves. I found that it was still possible to pick up the audio outside the classroom in the hall and down a ways, it was just lower volume outside the boundary of the induction circuit. I learned about induction circuits from that, just from experience.
I have an original record of Gene Autrey's Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer album, along with several others from t😊he 50's to the 70's. Love them.
That's history!
LOL ! "Elevator music" is right. I an in my 70s, and remember when this kind of "MUSAK" was played as background in supermarkets.
Also LPs in the late 50s still have the date on the LP label. I have 1959 LPs and the date is on them. They are thick and fragile, not 33 but can play on my console
I have a few old 45 records from my childhood and my children got me a turntable a few years ago! We had A Blue record player like the one you are showing!
I love the instrumental music , that I know of don’t remember the album but is beautiful
I have one or two that has 16 speed. A Truetone and a Philco Ford. P.S. I love that record and adapter. The length per side is like one side of commercial music CD'S
The only Christmas record I have is The Chipmunks. That record dates back to 1962. When I was a kid🧒my family had that one.When I moved away from mom & pop I don't know what ever happened to it. But I found one in a bargain bin at a record store, scored it for 25 cents.For a record over 50 years old the cover is in good shape and the record plays perfect. As an old vinyl junkie I have a lot of 33 & 45 rpm records. Never got into 16's or 78's.
People will say we're in loooove.....Oklahoma! wonderful to hear. Everyone should know the charm of hearing vintage music from vintage records. It's a wonderful step back in time. I cringe when I see people say use 78's for "craft projects" or glue them to teenager's walls, etc. Ugh, are you kidding! This is history, it's a beautiful reprieve from today's world for a few minutes. Merry Christmas!
I missed school record players. All we had was a piano in the corner played by the teacher. when my kids went to school in the 70's and 80's they had these and they got to choose a record to play at lunch time. I also remember the local department store had these Seeburg records playing. The daughter of one of the workers told me her mother was the one who changed the records. They also had an elevator that was still run by an operator. This was in the late 50's and early 60's.
I believe during WWII the armed services allowed servicemen to record messages on record disc's at 16 rpm which were then sent stateside to the families of those servicemen. Those records had the center hole and an offset hole to drive the record during recording because the message was cut directly onto the record (and that required much more torque to cut the groves) that was then mailed home. As a kid I used to like to put the offset hole on the center spindle. Made for great fun trying to listen to the message.
I know exactly what you are referring to! Fun idea about the offset hole!
I’m 73. I think this sounded beautiful. I sometimes miss the simplicity of how music used to sound.
Very interesting and until now, I have never heard of a 16 speed... Cool 👍🏽🙂
Nice post! I’ve had 5 turntables in my 70 years. I still have two usable ones now. I know one of those 5 turntables had a16 speed on it. My grandmother who passed in 1975 had an attic full of 16 rpm records. I don’t know what happened to them. All I know is that my mother didn’t inherit them!
I have a similar record player from the fifties, unfortunately I can no longer find the double needle for it. Mine also is four speeds. There is one episode of The Real McCoys where you can see the player.
There was a great Seeburg channel, but they closed shop a couple of years ago.
I think only the app shut down….the internet feed and website are still up last time I checked.
I never knew 16 RPM existed.
I had 16s. They were thick
What were turntables that were used in radio stations? What kind of drive did the turntables have?
I was born in '52 and I've had players with the 16 rpm setting, but I've never had a 16 rpm record. I think they were made primarily for speech, as slow speed equates to low fidelity and longer play time.
Spoken book records were actually all the way down to eight RPM… 16 2/3 RPM was primarily used for background music systems like this record I demonstrated
Gotta admit, I've never seen one of those type of records before.
I remember all through grade school in the 70s, every class room had a record player like this one. They were usually used when the teacher was teaching the class a song for a Christmas show or some other presentation.
If you get jewelers pliers for those knobs your fingers will thank you. Walmart sells them for a couple dollars. And you can find small ones.
Great show!
Wow that sounds great for as old as it is.
That was fascinating about the 16 2/3 rpm background music or "elevator music" records. As far as the rare Christmas recording goes all there was heard on this video was a snippet of an instrumental version of "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer".
I remember those record players in my class rooms back in late 60's - mid70's
I've been trying to find Peter Lorre's version of Jolly Old St. Nicholas for years. It was on a Christmas album my parents had. All the artists had a small photo on the jacket. I'm thinking 1965 give or take.
Oh my grade school days doing the square dance with this record player
BTW, a handy tip for those who do want to do the "record to Audacity and slow it down" trick -- might want to set the recording settings to 88.2khz instead of the usual 44.1khz because when you slow it down, you'll lose some of the audio quality.
That is a great tip for audio quality!
Back in the late 50s/early 60s, my sister had a half dozen 7 inch records on colored vinyl that played at 16 rpm.
I have an original 78 of the "Singing Dogs" Besides the dogs doing Jingle Bells, it also do three blind mice and the dogs singing scales.
the metallic purple looks very cool
I'm a bit older than you, so remember these in NYC schools in the 70s. Given the 70s budget crisis a lot of old texts and tech hung around too. I found articles from 1959 and 1963 that refers to Seeburg BGM and their Christmas library. I'm not sure if RUclips lets me post links?
Hey buddy Merry Christmas I just saw your Lego photograph thing that was awesome by the way the record sounded fine to me although I was watching it on my phone so I'm not the best quality but sounded good also the crosley automatic 300 a that you reviewed online is on Amazon now I'm gonna snag that after Christmas but anyway I'll see you later bye
Merry Christmas! Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoy the Crosley!
I remember when it was pretty standard for turntables to have four speeds -- 78 all the way down to 16 2/3. Don't know when 16 was done away with. I'd always wondered if 16 was actually a thing, but everything I ever read over the years said it was for certain spoken-word recordings. Yet, every time I've seen a 16 2/3 RPM record pop up on RUclips, it was background music for a store!
I'd love to happen across a 16 record somewhere in the wild. I don't have a player that plays back at 16 2/3, but I could just record it at 33 1/3 and slow it down to 16 2/3 via Audacity or something.
Apparently there were also 8 rpm records of books being read!
Wow, I've never seen a 16rpm record, not to mention one playing. I remember some of the old record players we had, had all 4 speeds. I still miss my Show "N Tell lol. As for the player you are using, looks very similar to the school players we had back in the 60's ( I started school in '66) except the tone arm was all metal and as I recall, very heavy.
That sounds like from the mid 50's.
Reminds me of the player my folks bought back in the '50s. It was cool because you could lay on the floor and listen to it.
I could have got a klh model 11 fm portable record player with the 4 speed from a local auction. I forgot my phone to go look at xmas lightlight it went for $42 buck. It was in great condition.
At home we had an RCA. My Dad bought at the local Music Store
junior high school 1979.
We had a record player that was something like this.
I got to hear the first sugarhill gang album.
My first time hearing rap.
At the time i wasan't impressed
I'm like that when new music came out.
I'm also willing to give it a chance
I forgot about the 16 2/3 rpm...we had 78 albums when I grew up. We never had 16 that I remember
When you said you need a fourth speed I started thinking and somehow I very vaguely remember there might of been a 16 speed. Not sure where I encountered 16 but I remembered before you showed it. I don't think I or my parents ever had a 16 speed record or player. Still trying to figure out who had one. Maybe my school?
PS. It might have been on the stereo console they had before I was born and had until I was about ten years old. They replaced that one in the late 70s.
PSS. Ok never mind. We had a 45 adapter but never the 16 adapter, so it wasn't the older console. We had the 45 adapter that was a cylinder to take advangtage of the automatic drop feature beside the short 45 adapter for single record play, but those were the only two it used.
There was a time it was illegal to have these dedicated classroom players outside of a school, but once record players were phased out, that no longer was the case.
Those later players have some plastic parts. In the 1970s, when I was in elementary school, the Califones we had were vintage 60s models; talk about TANKS!
They had an interesting, unique sound of their own. I played records a lot as a child, and didn't quite care for the sound of those things, but I understood it was the sound of school.
Hi there, It could be a Dance practice record, unusual I must admit but yes I agree maybe around 59 or 60,
Perhaps it was for breaking out a tango or a foxtrot . Yeah baby !
Many thanks 👍
Thanks for listening
The "christmas" series of discs had other tunes on so as not to bore the public too much
That record's first two songs sound more like my parents era, the 30's/40's (I was born in 1955) that music style in the early part of the record I've only heard when watching very old movies. Even the 3rd song, Rudolf, was published in 1949, sounds far newer music style! I'd say this RECORD dates to about 1949-50. My parents played the radio all day, and this is not the sound I heard as a toddler. Maybe someone older than me (69yrs) could add to this? Thanks for the video!
I thought you were going to say it was an inside start. I did not know about 16rpm. Good to know.
I still need to find an inside start record.