A unique box full of history
I guarantee you‘ll never have seen anything like this, because there is nothing else quite like this.
The ‘Schaub-Lorenz Music Center’ is getting on for fifty five years old, but is still as fascinating as the day it was made.
I aim to talk more about this video in the next patreon exclusive update and by then I hope to have some interesting audio to share with you.
NOTE: Due to an error in the 1968 tape price calculations, I’ve uploaded a new edit that replaces the original version.
Comments (117)
I know I'm late to the party on this one, but I had to tell you how much I enjoyed watching it. I've been a gadget fan and I've also worked in the electronics, broadcast, and retail record/tape businesses over many years. I've never dreamed, much less seen, anything like this ever. How on Earth did you come up with this beast? Just brilliant, and one of my favorite Techmoan episodes ever.
I’m glad you got to see it. Yes this one was really quite special, There’s a Patreon only update from July 5th with a bit more information.
Watching this on YouTube tonight, sent me to your Patreon. Fascinating product, great coverage - thanks!
I’m glad you’re here, be sure to watch the follow up video too.
This machine has an odd look to it. When I first saw it, I guessed that it was of modern manufacture but trying to be in the style of the 1970s. Once you explained it, I have to say it made me genuinely uncomfortable to know that it was full of possibly unique recordings. I'd almost be scared to touch it for fear of breaking something and making the recordings unaccessable.
Really like the way you put this together, very professional video all around!
I know you're not usually interested in this kind of thing, but you're currently the 15th "Trending" video! Hope you had a good cruise. If it was the same as my mother (Gibraltar/France/Spain/Portugal), she was moaning at wine being £9 a glass.
I noticed that - I've made "the bottom of the internet" (callback to the last puppet outro). It has happened before and it had a negligible effect. As far as the holiday goes - the places we visited were fun but I never want to use RC again. The Mrs booked this one as everything was included (Drinks, WiFi, Parking etc), but any other Cruise company is preferable to me. But yes if you were paying for the drinks $10 for a bottle of beer is barmy.
What a fantastic watch. Wouldn't it be nice if a receiver was released these days that 1) had a decent radio tuner in it (my Yamaha is easily the worst radio I have in the house, $16 Chinese radios aren't as easily overloaded) and 2) could record onto solid state storage
Great video! I wish there was more such 'out of the box' thinking these days, everyone just seems to make minor improvements to existing products and ideas these days. Listening to the radio broadcasts over the Patreon list reminds me - have you seen the movie 'Rush'? Excellent movie about the all consuming rivalry between Hunt and Lauda, directed by Ron Howard. It's well worth a watch!
Yes I’ve seen it - I’ve never really been into motor racing, however the late 70s and very early 80s were the time when I paid a bit more attention. The names from that period are much more familiar to me than any of the more recent drivers.
Great video of an awesome machine. Thanks for sharing!
To just signed up on the strength of this video. I’m looking forward to hearing any clips you got from this machine, esprcis,,y if you found more from Kenny Everett.
I’m working on getting the recordings together - it’s taking a while because the first few hours of tracks are quite fragmented and at varying volumes. I’ll post anything significant I discover here.
I know it's just a $1 (can't afford much more), but I finally signed up because I really want to hear what you find on that tape. these types of lost treasures/lost memories greatly fascinates me!
I should be able to upload clips here that would get taken down on YouTube - I’m more interested in the talking in-between the records, but nowadays a few seconds of music being faded out or talked over is still enough to hit content matches.
Great machine and great episode.... I particularly liked the fake clickbait style teaser image :D
Mat, I've purposefully avoided researching dead tape formats because I don't want to ruin the crazy stuff you put out on your channel! So crazy! A good metaphor is that this thing is like what evolutionary biologists call an "evolutionary dead end" which is basically when a body type, adaptation, etc. that doesn't appear in the modern world. It's kind of fun to speculate about what Trilobites would look like if they had survived to the modern era or whatever. Can you imagine what tape technology would look like if it progressed down this path instead of the cartridge format? We'd just have like walls of tape that we'd record stuff onto or something haha Great video as always! Thanks!
Epic video! And what a machine... Congrats. And I hope you had a good holiday and you’re doing well.
This is just an off the wall idea! Amazing for the time, magical even today.
That was fun! 😃
Fascinating stuff. Thanks, Mat!
Thank you for sharing! Please put some of the audio up, even if the audio isn't all there, it would be nice.
I will be posting anything interesting that I find here on Patreon.
Fascinating device... What will the german engineers of the 1970s think of next?
How on earth, where did you get, how did you know. I never knew such an epic device existed. iMazing 👍
I’ll try to answer as many of those as I can in the next Patreon update video.
Wow, Mat! This video was excellent! I enjoyed every minute of it! I felt a bit like watching jurrasic park for the first time where the t-rex is running after the jeep during the rewind portion, and then when it slammed stop i'm pretty sure my heart skipped a beat! I'm really glad you thought it worth making a video like this, as you're right that this is incredibly unique and as a older vintage millennial, i had no idea something like this even existed. What amazes me is that the precision of the track selector is still enough to align the head properly. I wonder back in this devices hay day how often the selector would skip a tooth from someone spinning it around too fast and then the whole machine would be out of whack. Thanks again, i hope you're enjoying (or enjoyed i forget exactly the dates) your vacation!
Thanks, I’ve been back a couple of week now, most of which has been spent on this video. I really wanted to try my best to do this one justice in one video, I was concerned it might be a bit wordy for some viewers, but I’m happy how it turned out.
Wow, what a find! This is my favourite Techmoan video for a long, long time. Great buildup full of information, and then "Let me show you the mechanism that's inside here" - and certainly didn't disappoint! Interesting point about this format having no obvious lineage - the only thing I can think of that would be comparable would be that court-proceedings recording format with very wide tape that ran ultra-slow - can't recall what it was called now, it had handles on the reels that made it look like it was hand-cranked. Wonder if this was an influence on that at all.
Now that’s one I’m unfamiliar with. If you have any links to more info I’d love to read up on it.
Fabulous. Loved this one and had no idea these machines ever existed. Hearing that chart recording took me back to Sunday nights in the 70’s, sitting down with my family and listening to it through our music centre. Thank you.
It’s been taking me back to memories I didn’t know I had. Some songs I hadn’t heard in 40 years were very familiar.
Amazing machine & great presentation ! By the way, the Seychelles coup d'état attempt took place in 1981.. (or was it the one in 1978..?)
Yes it was the 77 one, it was from the same news as the motor racing clip. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Seychelles_coup_d%27état
What a treasure !
Great video, only one question, is in a y part of the tape the song seven seas of Rhye (Queen)? 13:59
I’ve found Loverboy by Queen so far, but no others.
Thanks Mat. What a find! I really enjoyed the video especially Kenny Everett on J4. I'd pay your time to hear that one.
I'd love to get some audio samples of this!
Oh wow! I love this! Yeah, we'd love more samples of the audio!
Aaargh!!! I've been looking for information about this thing for years! Thank you so much for posting this! When I was about 10 years old, we moved from one place in the Netherlands (Eindhoven) to another place (Tilburg). We had a neighbor in Eindhoven who inspired me to learn about electronics and computers. He had a box just like this. Later on, I remember going to a local electronics (parts) store in Tilburg, and they also had one, which they used as a radio to have some music in the store. I remember mentioning to my dad that that store had a radio just like our neighbor and he asked me if I knew that thing could store (he thought) 45 hours of music on (he thought) an endless tape. I didn't even think that was possible! Anyway, I only remembered that it was a German brand so I searched the Internet many times for all kinds of brand names combined with "endless tape" or variations of it. Now I know what it was and I've seen how it works. Thanks again!
Thank you for sharing this, Mat! So incredibly, incredibly fascinating. (And the click-bait thumbnail made me laugh out loud.)
I’m glad you liked it. Hope your projects are working out for you. I could do with retiring and just doing a few voice-over gigs for pin money. ;-)
The 8-bit Guy has modified many toy musical keyboards to add a line-out to record directly from. He uses the internal speaker as the sound source with a small capacitor in series with the leads to the line-out, such as this example: https://youtu.be/XbW_5Uz9Tqs?t=523 As the speaker is external, you'll likely need to connect a speaker (or a 5 Ohm 5W resistor to match the Independence as well as dissipate the energy) in parallel with the wires to the line-out.
At about 9:45 you convert 14/- into £1.25, but a pound was 20 shillings (and a guinea 21), so I don't see how you get to £1.25 from 14 -- the decimal equivalent of 14/- is 70p. Have I missed something?
Looks like I’m heading back to the editing package. Thanks for letting me know before it went live.
Great vid, but, I'm guessing no long lost early 70's John Peel shows on the tape then? :)
I did catch a few minutes of Peel while browsing, but it was late 70s.
Great stuff, many thanks for another classic video. One has to wonder whether on the day of the announcement of his leaving Apple, whether Jony Ive is/was aware of this device?
Not necessarily. The train of thought that leaded to the machine was very good, but also inevitable. There were just too many trade offs because of the tech.
I got my first tape recorder when I was 7! The BASF trip was a competition prize and my first trip to Germany! I still have the ‘free’ 7” tape in a BASF library box to make up for me not seeing 1/4 tape being run! The reels I saw were 12” (not 8) but were slit into 3 - and this I believe was the standard width for all products coming off that line. They also laminated the 12” media onto round aluminium discs which were used by the GPO for their Test March reports and Dial-a-Disc services.
I went to the BASF factory in Ludwigshafen supposedly to see reel to reel tapes being made (1969). It was a big disappointment to see them only making specialised tape as a ‘special order’ for a client. It came off the drum as a clear acetate to be dipped in the magnetic ‘soup’, dried then slit and wound - it was in 4” width, and my guide assumed it was for data logging, but I wonder...... He told me the tape was the same, only the slitting process differed.
You’ve got a good memory - from what I read the tape this used started off as an 8” tape split in half...but that could well be wrong, it’s all third hand information.
That's astonishing, and thanks for featuring it. Only a German company would have the single minded dedication to engineer something like this and make it reliable. I doubt a Japanese version would still work after this many years. Like the others, I'd love to hear the contents, especially the Kenny Everett segments which I doubt are even in existence in the BBC archives. I was 11 in 1970 and used to adore his stream of consciousness madness.
I think there’s likely to be only a few minutes of Kenny Everett in here - most of the recordings are from after he left the BBC and of Radio City (Liverpool) - but I’ll post anything else I find. From what I read reliability was not a strong point for this machine - it was just a bit too experimental and complex for it’s time. According to the website I linked to, 90% suffered some sort of failure, so I’m very fortunate to have this one working.
I so enjoyed this video! At first, I saw how long it was, but after I started watching the time seemed to fly past, there was no unnecessary stuff in there, it all just worked. Excellent editing. As for the machine, the build quality just screams "made to be maintained", but sadly they only made them for 2 years.
Wonderful video as always, Mat. What an amazing device - is there a mode for it to automatically play through all 45 hours (or as much as was recorded), or do you have to manually increment to the next track? Love your '1970s inside' logo - very wry! PS Not having a good experience with my Gixie clock. Some of the magnets that hold the tubes in place become unattached and I had to glue them back in. Now, one of the tubes has failed completely, and at different times, one position or another won't illuminate any tube, but the position which won't work keeps changing. Very confusing.
It should automatically play the next track - but that feature isn’t working on mine. I believe that a number of these were bought by retailers and hotels and used as background music players because of their ability to play 46 hours of music over and over. - Sorry to hear about your ‘Glitchy’ clock. I haven’t got mine yet, but it doesn’t sound like I’m missing out on much.
Very cool device! The audio stored on it is amazing as well, those broadcasts haven't been heard in a very long time... Just an idea for archiving them to the PCM, maybe you could pick up a high-low converter like what they use for car audio installs and put that in-between the recorder and the speaker out? That may be able to help a lot with the poor audio quality.
I don’t really know anything about those - so I’ve just had a look. It looks that they just convert the volume, so that’s what I’m already doing with my record level. But I could be wrong, maybe there’s more going on inside those boxes - does anyone know?
That's a really interesting device. I've never heard of such a thing. I can see the appeal of having 45 hours of audio at your fingertips. I mean, how much space would that take up if you had that on individual reels? Heck, even compact cassettes would take up a lot of space. And you can get to the audio relatively quickly since there are so many tracks. I wonder if this uses the same wide reel as the Mellotron?
Apparently the tape was unique to this device, with two being cut from an original roll that was twice the width. 1/4” tape pancakes are sliced from a wider roll, but I don’t know if it’s 8” though...I’ll have to go and have a read up.
I agree with Arthur Robillard: This presentation and the Tefifon are remarkable both for your production quality, and for the ingenious technology you share with us. Got me wondering if the grandson or -daughter of Mister Schaub Lorenz went to work at Apple in 2001 .... Thank you, Matt!
I've got some late 70s charts on some reel-to-reels (not recorded by me, as I'd have been a toddler!), but the most interesting thing is a BBC recruitment ad for secretaries and typists, voiced by, I think, David Hamilton.
Oh, this one is a little bit special. I love hearing about the old tech, but the thing I really get excited for is old TV and audio oddities like this. I wish I knew about this before the techmoan effect kick in and pushes the prices higher. Loved the report from the Swedish Grand Prix at the end, I think when that video goes live at the weekend I’ll share that with some fellow racing fans, who I think will love it as much as I did. Another great video, but I keen to know Matt how you find out about these old audio and visual oddities? Great work
There’s a non-functional one on eBay (or at least there was last time I looked) it’s been repeatedly relisted for the last year or so. As far as finding out about these things - One thing leads to another and while reading up on that thing I find out about something else. I might be holding back this one from release until June 1st - hoping to catch the new month’s ad budgets.
Well this was delightful! Soon as you opened up the back of it showing the tape my jaw dropped. What a beast of a machine.
Glad you found the time to watch it. I’m really just sponging off the hard work of engineers from 55 years ago.
Now THAT is why I'm a Techmoan Patron! :-) Fascinating. I have never heard of that before and didn't imagine such a thing could exist. Way back I used 2" video tape and I was certain that was the widest ever made. What a fascinating mechanism, rim drive and a dead scary rewind speed! Your analogy with the iPod is one that probably would not have occurred to me, but you're right! Thank you so much for that one, Mat and if you'd care to dump the Kenny Everett section to a file, I'd be dead chuffed. Cheers, Pal. S.
I’ve only found a bit of Kenny so far - but I’ll post all I find. Glad you liked it. There’s plenty more Kenny Everett to follow in the future as I found a bit of a goldmine of his stuff.
That was so cool. I love listening to old radio programmes, seems to be something that's lost as they were rarely recorded in the first place. I reckon the best source for radio programmes from the 80's or 90's was from TV recordings after evening closuredown when they showed a few pages of teletext with radio playing in the background.
Mind blown. This one rivals the Tefifon video.
The first played of the unit in the end: 1st; Gunnar Nilsson (Lotus-Ford), 2nd; Niki Lauda (Ferrari), 3rd; Ronnie Peterson (Tyrell-Ford) on 5 June 1977 The ONLY time two SWEDES were on the podium at the same time! And to hear about it HERE!! Keep on digging! Macho-hugs from Sweden Johan
I figured out the year (roughly) from the mention of the 6-wheel Tyrrell. :-)
It seems the value of this piece is the vintage 1960's-1970's rare radio programs that lurk on the tape, rather than the rather forgettable hardware.
something seems a bit off - as US$288 in 1965 is only US$2,334 today - hard to believe that England had double the inflation rate of America over the last 54 years
Early to mid 1970s inflation in the UK was crazy. There’s a whole back story with strikes and unions and 3-day weeks that’s too complicated to go into in a few words.
Have to love odd tech. I need more!
Wow! What a neat machine! I am really looking forward to the music radio recordings from back in the day!
Now i am intrigued, how would you pronounce "Wiedergabe"? 😹 (In before some evil word we Germans struggle to pronounce ;) )
You’ll notice I played a sample of a Schaub Lorenz advert - that was to pre-empt everyone telling me I was pronouncing Schaub Lorenz wrong - if I’m copying the way they say it themselves in their own promos - I’m off the hook.
As usual Mat, you find the best things. I'd never even imagined a 4-inch tape with a moving head assembly like that beast.
10cm wide tape...amazing!
What color is the front of the unit? On my screen is looks to be a very pleasing pale blue.
It’s a colour my camera had difficulty capturing - half-way between cream and grey.
You really find some gems for this channel, very happy that I can help contribute to these videos. I wasn't aware of this machine and wouldn't believe anyone who described it to me, it doesn't seem feasible. Regarding the 22 minute tracks, could German radio at the time have used 20 minute programmes with a break?
I don’t think commercials were allowed in the 1960s - however I’ll leave this to the German patrons to confirm.
Absolutely fascinating! I would put this alongside the videos for the Panasonic RS-296US, the MB Omni games system, and the Vectrex Christmas lecture as my favorite Techmoan joints! What you have here is very special and, frankly, a goldmine for fans of old radio. I especially appreciate your discussion near the end about the two paradigms of content control... the cassette player/iPod paradigm, and in-home "mainframe" paradigm. I see this pattern throughout the 20th and 21st centuries: instead of going to the room in the house where the phone, stereo, TV, or computer is, we tend to evolve towards the paradigm of portability. It perhaps as much to do with the advent of a commuter culture in the west as anything else. I look forward to hearing about what you find on those massive reels! Hopefully other hobbyists will follow your lead and track down the hundreds of other units that are out there. Top five video for sure!
Thanks for the positivity - this one means a lot to me and I’m glad I seem to have done it justice.
Very interesting product - a great find! I'm looking forward to the additional audio you share.
Anything I find will be posted in future Patreon updates.
This was super cool! Never heard of such a thing before. Loved the new shirt and the fake thumbnail was quite a laugh. Also, saw the DCC movie today and quite enjoyed it. Even though the Philips guys had great stories to tell, your segments were the most engaging. Great job all around.
I’ve yet to see it myself, it’s been a busy week.
Love the fake thumbnail, you should use it.
I might try it when the views inevitably fall into the toilet after 48 hours.
5001, when 5000 isn't futuristic enough.
Fascinating. I love hearing old radio recordings. I think you should definitely get in touch with museums that curate audio recordings. The collection in this machine is likely unique. I believe that the Internet Archive (archive.org) would also host them.
There’s a lot of music in here that can still be heard anywhere - it’s the bits inbetween that really interest me. It’s going to take me a few weeks to copy it all across.
Great video, that rewind was faster than I'm comfortable with. I liked the fake thumbnail, and the subtle real thumbnail.
I know which thumbnail would attract more views - but it’s the same one that would mean selling my soul.
This was a blast! Can't believe they actually used 4" tape!
This is a wonderful time capsule. Thank you so much for sharing. Will you make the audio on it available?
Anything interesting will be shared here on Patreon.
Oh my God, you own a time machine! Does the room spin when you turn that wheel? ;-) I hope you won't get lost in the past. What a fascinating device.
Awesome machine! Thank you for, once again, revealing another gem. Also, nice reference to Ace of Spades. 🤘🏻
Lemmy is also the reason there’s a big box under a blanket in my garage that will be the subject of a future video. It’s an odd tale...
I love this thing. So odd. The 22 minute limit is odd. I'm sure it's an english/metric thing. ;) Besides, guineas? That was really confusing! Actually, when you mentioned it, I was back in my days of recording albums onto 8-tracks for my friends. A 45 minute tape would do a whole album, so 22 minutes was about one side of an LP.
That makes a lot of sense - record one side on one track.
THANK YOU! This is why support the channel - I recall someone describing it to me, and the press adverts but never saw or heard it in the flesh! I've had to wait nearly 50 years - but It's made an old man so very happy... Cheers Mat, you're an absolute star! 👏🏻👏🏻👌🏼👍🏻
I’m glad you got to see it too - it’s one on its own.
Funny, my father told me once about such a machine, I referred him to some of your other videos, about the 3M Cantata and the Seeburg Background Music System, but now it is clear to me what he meant ;-). Thank you very much, Mat!
I glad I could help solve the mystery.
Absolutely incredible piece of technology history. Thank you for sharing!
This one has been a bit of a passion project for me.
I've seen a few of these on YT..I know I also spent a few hours going through a detailed website about them...I was wondering when you'd get hold of one, they're quite hard to get hold of, apparently!
I’ve owned this one a couple of years - I really thought I should get finally around to featuring it.