Tefi - Band in the UK
Very occasionally a video I make will have a positive impact beyond just providing a few minutes of ‘entertainment’. The Tefifon video(s) are an example. Today things come full circle as I get to share information as well as demonstrate a rare Tefi accessory provided to me by a chap called Markus. Markus wasn’t aware of the Tefifon before watching my video featuring it - but in the years since he has become an expert on the topic. This video wouldn’t be possible without him.
https://youtu.be/fpamZczQOTU
Markus is a Patron as well, so he might be reading this. So thanks again to him. The video only just skims some of the information he shared, but that’s the nature of compressing something into a YouTube presentation. Hopefully he’ll write the definitive Tefi book one day.
Take care and have a good remainder of the week.
UPDATE: Swapped an image to the correct model of Tefi for 1950 and did a couple of other minor nips and tucks including a new thumbnail.
Comments (54)
Thanks Mat I really enjoyed this. Best wishes.
I just got around to watching this - that Klimper-Heini song is pretty catchy, sounds like the old ragtime tunes they'd play in saloons and stuff. I googled it and can't find a copy of the song anywhere - is a lot of this stuff exclusive to the Tefi format? I would have assumed that single was a track that came out on other formats too and that a digital copy would exist online to listen to... hmm. I found this 60-minute Tefi cart rip on Archive.org that has it, starting at 28:13 - but the quality isn't great. Can you digitize yours?? https://archive.org/details/tds_2191-schlager_favoriten_iii
I’ll see what I can do - I think it’s saved as a WAV - I just need to find it.
I have resisted getting one out of curiosity. They do crop up here in Germany and some even work. I think it has a lot of charm, not only because of being unusual but also because it looks futuristic from back in the day and dissapeared without legacy.... A bit like my I3 I guess. Wonderful video though.
Ah, the i3, a big mistake from BMW in discontinuing it. It was selling well and it was just due an update. If a new one had come out last year, I’d most likely have bought one. I can’t believe they think owners will migrate to the iX1. People who bought a smart neat clever compact car don’t want to swap to the complete opposite.
Why such love for this format. Can se it’s very strange looking like tape but playing like record. But playback only. Can’t fiddle with it at all
It’s just interest in something that’s unusual.
Hi Mat, very interesting. Cuba Baion on your TefiCart is playing about a semitone high, which means the tape would've had to shrink 6% - the twelfth root of 2 - which seems like a lot. You can confirm or deny that however; there are other tracks on the cart you could find disc copies of and compare..
The 6% are the result of multiple effects: - Most KC-1 run a bit fast (and already did so in the 1950s) - At todays voltages (230V instead of 220v in Germany) the KC-1 runs a tiny bit faster (but that‘s almost neglectable) - The tapes shrunk by sweating out plasticizer The third effect is the larges contributor. I think I remember measuring about 3% on my early test runs. I already have prepared a large scale test using multiple songs, from which I know they have been pressed both on vinyl records as well as on Tefi tapes from the same master. Also I have multiple Tefi cartridges containing the same content, but being produced in different years - and sometimes even in different type of tape materials (they did change the material to resist higher temperatures). The only thing holding me back from this (and other projects) is my limited spare time. Those measurements will take me a very long time… But don‘t worry: I will do them in the end and then I will publish the results.
Finally caught the video today, it's a wonderful quasi-epilogue for a neat device like this. I do wish that I'd caught it earlier so that I could ask if you would add in a shout-out to Adam Savage over at Tested for covering it after discovering your videos recently. I know from the Oddcast that your reaction to all of it was more muted than everyone else's, but speaking as someone who's familiar with Adam and his past work, I personally think it would've been super cool, as a fan of both of you. Oh well, hindsight and etc. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ On a side note, I actually think the single playing mech is kind of ingenious in its clunky laziness. There could've been a more elegant solution, but I think it adds to its analog charm. 😲
I was very surprised at the quality of that single. Obviously part of the allure of the tefifon was its surprising quality but the single looked so shitty I couldn't believe it sounded okay.
'bit of a kerfuffle'. This is why I'm here. Actually, brilliant content like this is also why I'm here. That 'Tefifon single' doesn't look too bad from this distance, I guess once you've got the adaptor, it's a pretty efficient way to buy a single song. Arguably more cumbersome than a vinyl 45 though.
For those who read German: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tefifon
If this inspired Markus to take up a new hobby, I can only assume there's some kid out there who will watch the HitClips video 20 years from now and have the same reaction.
I think while we may not be as productive as Marcus, Panasonic probably saw a big jump in those cassette stereo sales of the D55. I can't believe it's still being sold.
👏👏Markus.
Thank god for super-nerds like Markus--where would we be without them? And only deep respect is meant by the super-nerd apellation and for doing all that research into a topic that is fascinating to a lot of the patrons here--super geil!
I know you got a lot of your plate. Thank you for this great video
I like Autosheningans' fall back for referring to WW2, he calls it the "second big disagreement".
Top job, M&M ! 😊👍👍👍
I’m surprised that most people don’t come back to watch tour videos, I’m always rewatching your old stuff. Always entertaining. I also missed when you’d play Cuba Baion in the videos! I loved hearing more about the song! Overall, excellent video, I love how enthusiastic Markus is about this old technology! Very impressive!
I agree, I re-watch many of the videos because the topics are interesting and the asides are amusing. One I recently re-watched said the device was now dead, or maybe it was just pining for the fjords. LMAO
One of my favourite pieces of old audio technology. Mine is the holiday BK3910 #6053155. I just wish I could get the speed to run regularly and consistently, but I haven't played with it for a while. Fascinating.
That‘s the Holiday Rekord - the most beautiful variant of the Holiday. And yours is the highest serial number that has been reported to me so far. So this lifts the estimated production figures slightly up. Thank you very much for sharing!
Fantastic video, thanks! I'm always amazed at the sound quality of those things.
Excellent video as always Matt, I bought the cart with 'Cuba Baion' on when I was in Germany at the Friedrichshafen Ham radio show some years ago, there were some KC-1s there too but they were all in poor condition so still don't know if the cart I have is actually any use!
Markus-if you are reading this, what did Herr Daniel do in the war and what happened to him after he left the Tefi company? Sounds like an interesting character…..Matt: Good to see the old techmoan style back. The familiar and welcome recipe of obscure equipment and software, beautifully researched and demonstrated. Must be the tablets you are taking. Get well soon. Looking forward to hearing the stereo player.
During the war there were a few use cases where Tefi technology was used. For example there were radio beacons playing certain audio samples to guide fighter plane pilots home. But there is not much known about that time period… After leaving the company Dr. Karl Daniel founded a new one, where he produced something like printed circuit boards.
Fantastic video that I hope gets the many views it deserves! And a big compliment to Markus. If that's not commitment at the highest level, I don't know what is. Chapeau!
Regarding the all-important thumbnail, the side view of the Kurz Band single playing on the machine is certainly the most unique and interesting image in the video. A tape playing in the open air without even a proper reel, just looped directly around its play mechanism. I'm trying to think of anything like it you've shown before.
Perhaps I should try a different thumb - do you have a timestamp for the image you prefer?
I bet they wish they'd known about Mobius strips...
Actually they did. They knew they could double the capacity by splicing the tape in mobius style. But they did not find a proper way to produce audio tapes this way.
Tefifon is what originally brought me to this channel so it is nice to see the occasional "update" as it were! Smell-o-Rama Tefi is next, I assume? Hah! (I joke, but I do recall my mother owning a "Scent Disc Player" in the 1980s. A scent diffuser wherein you'd insert what looked to all all the world like a small black vinyl record into what looked to all the world like a small CD player, and suddenly the room would smell like patchouli ! If you live in a smoker's house, you are bound to confront all matter of odor-masking devices.) It is nice to imagine a German recording enthusiast in the early days wondering if the groove-based technology of the record could be combined somehow with the magnetic tape recorder that Germany had developed in the late 1920s. Could there be a "best of both worlds" scenario,? was perhaps the thinking. But as with many developments of the industrial age, material science had a significant role to play. The polymers for the type of plastic necessary for a flexible and durable tape would have also been new to market. (Makes me wonder if someone didn't imagine records themselves could be produced in plastic at the time... maybe THAT failure informed the Tefi cartridge development?)
I had one of those scent disc things. Bought it for the family as a Christmas present at the time. Clever looking thing.
At 9:40 pretty sure this melody was used later in Puttin' on the Ritz?
I have waited for a video that covered the Tefi-Band and I am stoked to see you got the parts and were able to show it off. Some comment you made somewhere (can't remember where) lead me to believe that this was coming. As soon as I saw the title of the video, I had to watch it. I say the following with a great deal of respect for you Mat and the other things going on in your life, but your energy was low in this video. I enjoyed the humor sprinkled throughout, but compared to the first Tefi video "A Tefi-what? a Tefi-Fon" I felt you needed a little more "umph" to launch this one. Again, I have great respect for what you do, so you do you. My support does not waver.
Sorry, that’s the best I could do this time.
Fantastic stuff, great to see and hear even more of this fascinating format. I'm really impressed with what Markus has achieved, sure I'm not the only one that would love to see more of those custom cleaning/ironing/digitising machines
Thanks Markus! Listened to the video while driving from Des Moines to Faribault Minnesota, so a short comment from me this afternoon. Super awesome retro-tech here; I wanted to dance the Charleston during the first song. 💃. But I didn't because I was in my car. 😀 Those darn teenagers keep trying to generate the latest trends, eh? It makes me sad that Tefi did not take off because it 's a really cool physical audio method. How did you 'enjoy' your MRI? A bit loud? As always, take care 🤍.
I’m normally pretty good with these things - but as time wore on it started to drag and by the time they’d nearly finished (about 30 mins) the last few noises started to make me feel nauseous. Fortunately a few deep breaths avoided vomiting in the worse place possible. Unfortunately there are some v.unpleasant invasive tests still to come. I’d tell them where they can stick em - but they’re way ahead of me on this one.
That tape looks like liquorice rope. 🤣
Great to have some of the gaps filled in, in the Tefi story. Those Tefi "singles" are particularly interesting. Literally just a loop of tape in a cardboard box. It doesn't get more minimal than that.
You can see the disadvantages. Anyone else remember when you would sometimes get a Flexidisc included with a magazine ? That would never work with a 3D loop of tape.
Mat, I am totally blown away! I am thrilled and very happy that you were able to use my material so well! Thank you so much for making an enormous contribution to ensuring that the memory of Tefi is not lost so quickly! And at this point, thank you again for introducing me to this wonderful hobby with your Tefifon videos! And also for promoting the collection of factory numbers! Every single number takes me further. But what puzzles me the most: how do you always manage to pack so much material into such a compact, exciting and entertaining video? It's totally brilliant and I'm looking forward to many more videos from you - regardless of the topic. totally flashed Markus
Sounds great! Since I am not sure about how to correctly assemble your E-Mail, please contact me via tefi at jave.de And I am located in Germany.
I don't know much about Tefi or Klimper-Heini, but I know that tune is "Alexander's Ragtime Band" done in the style of Winifred Atwell.
I wonder if Klimper-Heini is actually Crazy Otto - he is on Spotify and you can read about him online. We had a couple of 78s with him when I was a kid
Gah. I was supposed to go through all your videos and take note of notable equipment without a proper image on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, RL kicked me suitable in the behind, so I haven't had the opportunity to do so. So sorry, Mat. :(
The inspiration of Techmoan: a DCC-Museum, and now there's also a book coming about the Tefifon, good work!
Markus isn’t planning on writing a book - it’s just my wishful thinking.
Thanks Markus!
That's pretty awesome. Shout out to Markus!
I can't help but see the name of the video and say/sing it like Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA. 🤭