Talk:Wurlitzer
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[edit] Hello and welcome to the world of Wurlitzer!!!
These amazing pianos and jukeboxes are - or maybe i should say were the fad of the century
I have a Wurlitzer C Melody Saxophone. This artical makes no attempt to explain the Saxophone connection with Wurlitzer. There is not a lot of info about wurilitzer saxophones, but we need to learn all we can. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.33.68 (talk) 04:53, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
[edit] Lots of work needed
- Okay, guys and gals. We have a lot of work to do on this article! It is very rough and needs to be rewritten. Also, scant information on Wurlitzer jukeboxes, band organs/orchestrions, and electric pianos have been added. These subjects need to be split up into separate sections and expanded. It is good they have been added, but lets find more info!
A good, expanded history of the company is needed, particularly during WWII, jukebox production, and the last days of the company before it was bought up by Baldwin.
Let's get cracking! Erzahler 18:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Technological Innovations Section
I removed the "technological innovations" section, which improperly credited Wurlitzer with introducing the concept of locating the keyboards away from the instrument. Robert Hope-Jones invented, patented and implemented this concept. See the entry on Robert Hope-Jones. Erzahler 18:39, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Wurlitzer History Before Organs
If someone can do some research on this, I'd like to see a sub article on Wurlitzer's work BEFORE pipe organs. I know the Wurlitzer Company built brass and woodwind instruments in the years before Hope-Jones, and they may have even designed a harp. Erzahler 20:28, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
The Wurlitzer firm was mostly (if not completely) a retailer of musical instruments. I've seen "Wurlitzer American" saxophones that were definitely the product of firms like Martin or Buescher. The "Wurlitzer Harp" was an automatic instrument designed by a Mr. Whitlock of Rising Sun Indiana- Wurlitzer bought the patents and manufactured it. The instrument sounds very pleasant but not very harp-like.
Here's some history from a recent auction:
An upright saxhorn style Eb alto horn marked 'R. Wurlitzer Bro Manuf. Cincinnati O'. Rudolph Wurlitzer was joined by his brother in 1872 through ca 1890. This horn bears the early script signature from that period dating it to the 1870's, probably early 1870's.
[edit] Defunct?
It would appear the the Wurlitzer company is no longer in existence, although its trademarks and facilities are still in use. Is this true? The article is unclear on this point. Electrolite 05:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
The article now mentions that "Deutsche Wurlitzer, owner of the Wurlitzer Jukebox and Vending Electronics trademark, was recently acquired by the Gibson Guitar Corporation". Perhaps this is connected. Unfortunately, "recently" doesn't get us very far. Maybe whoever wrote this can provide a date (2007? 1957? 1907?) Mike Shepherd 19:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Removed copyvio
Removed "Melville Clark Piano Company (later the Wurlitzer Company... Later owned by the Wurlitzer Company, this plant was responsible for the "manufacture of the celebrated Apollo Player Piano .... facturing musical instruments and was switched to producing airplane parts for the United States Navy. After the War, regular production activities resumed" which was copied directly from [1]. --John Nagle 05:08, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] more info
There is a great video about the wurlitzer family on gibsons website. chris wurlitzer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.119.228 (talk) 20:46, August 29, 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Wurlitzer Jukeboxes
The Wurlitzer jukebox was NOT the "iconic" jukebox of the Rock and Roll era. The reign of the Wurlitzer jukebox was during the "Golden Age" of jukeboxes from the late 1930's through the late 1940's, during what is known as the Paul Fuller design years. With the introduction of the 100 play record changing mechanism in 1949, Seeburg took the lead, stood the jukebox world on end and never looked back, setting the trends for all the other brands of jukeboxes, including Wurlitzer and the German company NSM. The Seeburg brand of jukebox reigned supreme during the rock and roll era and continued to dominate the jukebox industry well into the 1980's. In movies and TV, you will see many more Seeburg jukeboxes than any other brand.
As this article is about Wurlitzer, when most people think jukebox, the one that comes to mind is the 1946 Wurlitzer model 1015. THAT is the icon of the jukebox world! With it's bubbling tubes and constantly changing colors, and the fact that more of these jukeboxes were made than any other in history, about 60,000 units, may contribute to the popularity of the Wurlitzer name. Also, many other jukebox companies copied the Wurlitzer design of the 1015, even into the 21st century.
When Wurlitzer introduced the totally new model 3500 around 1971, which included a brand new record changing mechanism that played the records horizontaly for the first time since 1954. Well, the unreliability of the new mechanism almost single handedly put the Rudolph Wurlitzer company out of business. Consequently, a very convenient fire destroyed the U.S. company a few years later, thus ending the American Wurlitzer story.
As mentioned before, the spirit of the original Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox lives on today in the 21st century year of 2007. After being born in late 1945 with a 24 song capacity, the Wurlitzer 1015 was brought back to life in the 1980's when Wurliter introduced the "One More Time", which originally held 50 45rpm records and then later 50 CDs. Although these machines looked like the original, the formerly chromed cast metal pieces, were now actually cheap plastic. Seeburg introduced their version which had an awkward 60 CD Sony changer in it. Antique Apparatus produced a copy with first a Rowe 100 capacity 45 changer and then a CD changer. Antique Apparatus acquired the Rock-ola jukebox company and continued making the nostalgia jukeboxes, but with their own 100 CD changer. Although the CD changer remained fairly unchanged, the sound system was changed several times, the best being the "orange" Sybersonic sound system with it's down-firing sub-woofer and it's wide separation enhanced stereo setting. This system was replaced by a smaller powerful "yellow" system, but it never measured up. Currently, as of 2007, the nostalgia line has been reborn once again but this time as a hard drive system capable of holding up to 2800 CDs worth of music and controlled by a touch-screen monitor. It also has a CD player for loading the music and an iPod can be hooked up to it, and it now has Peavey sound system.
Companies like Wurlitzer, Rock-ola and Rowe still produce a 1015 clone.JUKEBOXEPRESS67.181.142.20 (talk) 08:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Acoustic Pianos?
Wurlitzer was a major manufacturer of pianos and a prominent name in the U.S. market for much of the 20th century, yet there's no acknowledgment of that product in this article. Steve Bob (talk) 15:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Do Band Organs on Carousels turn off when the ride finishes?
I went to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. I rode on the Herschell-Spillman carousel that was made in 1913. For some reason, The operator that operates the carousel has a special control switch that turns the band organ on and off. The band organ is on when the ride starts and it turns off when the ride finishes after the two songs. My guess is they want to save energy. ~User:BuddyBoy600 —Preceding undated comment added 23:53, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
[edit] External links
I dumped most of the links this evening. It had been tagged since September 2009, so I have cut it back to the official stuff and a link to DMOZ. If you want to add your link please add it to DMOZ which provides you with a full follow backlink, over adding it here. Rgds --Trident13 (talk) 19:22, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
[edit] Spelling
This article is inconsistent in its spelling of "theatre"/"theater" using both in approximately equal numbers. Most noticeably the picture navigation links to the "Theater organs" section, but the section title is actually "Theatre organs" so the link doesn't work. There may be other such pairs, but I haven't looked.
The article really ought to be consistent and use one or other spelling - perhaps the "er" as this is about an American company, but it doesn't' matter too much which is chosen as long as only one is. Thryduulf (talk) 02:21, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
[edit] Is it not needed on Wikipedia ? (section “Wurlitzer Style Designations”)
Some useful information were added by IP user, but soon reverted. I think it is very useful to confirm & verify old Wurlitzer theatre organs, so save it on here with some miner format change :) --Shoulder-synth (talk) 13:16, 16 September 2010 (UTC) ---
[edit] Wurlitzer Style Designations
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[edit] Separate article
Just wondering, I notice the sections about Wurlitzers in the U.S and UK are quite long - would it be a good idea to separate the section about the famous theatre organs and have this page about the company? Rob (talk) 19:04, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
- That's what I did - and someone keeps reinserting them! The article makes some sense now, rather than being a series of rambling paragraphs where some interested sole has inserted his 5p worth on his favourite Wurlitzer. The lists are by no means complete, but at least this way they will get some focus. Rgds, --Trident13 (talk) 23:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
