The Seeburg 1000 - Incredible 1961 Record Player for Industrial Settings

[Teasing the Korean]

This is really fascinating.  I had never heard of these. 

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[JSngry]

Yeah, I learned about them years after having heard them in department stores for the better part of my childhood/early adolescence. Very unmistakeable instrumentation and low-fi sound that got wobblier and wobblier as the years wore on and the machines weren't maintained.

[Teasing the Korean]

Do you know if Seeburg was a Muzak competitor, or was that technology used by Muzak?

[JSngry]

That I do not know. But Seeburg was a big jukebox company, so I would guess that it was a competitor.

[Daniel A]

TTK, have you read this book? I have it, and it has lots of information (some of which you already know, I'm sure).

Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong

[Teasing the Korean]

On 1/10/2022 at 6:07 PM, Daniel A said:

TTK, have you read this book? I have it, and it has lots of information (some of which you already know, I'm sure).

Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong

I know of this but I have not read it.  I do have the book on library music.

 

[JSngry]

I used to ignore elevator and other canned music until it suddenly dawned on me that there were real people playing those charts is a studio somewhere, and what did THAT look like?

[Dub Modal]

60 Minutes or some similar show did a piece on the musicians who recorded Muzak. Maybe it was MTV news? It was decades ago so I don’t remember who produced it but it was interesting and probably on YT somewhere. 

[Teasing the Korean]

And many A-list composers and arrangers did library music between assignments.  Ennio Morricone, for example.