Cómo funcionan las máquinas de discos

Gracias a las innovaciones digitales, Internet , los diminutos reproductores de MP3 y los teléfonos inteligentes, podemos elegir sumergirnos en un mar de música, todo el día, todos los días. De hecho, si llegó a la mayoría de edad durante la revolución de MP3 y YouTube, puede que le resulte difícil imaginar no tener acceso casi instantáneo a todas las canciones jamás grabadas. Pero el concepto de reproducir canciones específicas bajo demanda comenzó con la máquina de discos .

Desde principios hasta mediados del siglo XX, las máquinas de discos eran literalmente el alma de la fiesta, en bares clandestinos y cafeterías de todo Estados Unidos. Todo el mundo quería música, pero la radio no se adaptaba a todas las situaciones; Las transmisiones no permitían que la audiencia eligiera de inmediato las melodías necesarias para convertir las fiestas de baile en un tono febril. Las bandas en vivo siempre fueron una opción, por supuesto. Pero reservar una banda tomó tiempo y dinero que muchos establecimientos no tenían.

En esta era anterior al iPod, reproducir una versión de "In the Jailhouse Now" no era tan simple como desplazarse por un dispositivo a batería que cabe en la palma de la mano. En lugar del brillo de una pequeña pantalla digital, la gente disfrutaba del brillo multicolor de las máquinas de discos que medían en pies en lugar de centímetros. No hicieron clic furiosamente a través de una serie de submenús jerárquicos en una pequeña caja plateada; se apoyaron con los antebrazos apoyados en gabinetes de madera, vidrio y acero ornamentados para leer detenidamente una lista de canciones de las máquinas de discos.

Como tantos juguetes musicales digitales en la actualidad, la máquina de discos revolucionó la música en términos de cultura y tecnología. Es en parte debido a esa revolución que tantas personas idealizan y anhelan con nostalgia los días en que una sola máquina reproductora de música podía transformar una taberna monótona y tranquila en un lugar mágico alegre (o a veces triste) que llenaba los oídos y los corazones con el poder de musica.

Siga leyendo y verá cómo las máquinas de discos surgieron de las tecnologías de la vieja escuela y capitalizaron los cambios sociales, convirtiéndose en uno de los símbolos más reconocidos de la década de 1950.

1. De Fono a Mono
2. Revolución del 78
3. Potenciando la cultura pop
4. roca y carga
5. Jugando hacia una nueva era
6. Nota del autor

Antes de las máquinas de discos, hubo fonógrafos, una creación de nada menos que Thomas Edison . Estas máquinas aceptaban cilindros de cera ranurados, en los que los surcos representaban grabaciones. A medida que el cilindro giraba, una aguja trazaba las ranuras y vibraba para reproducir sonidos en los cilindros. En resumen, funcionaban de manera similar a los tocadiscos de vinilo contemporáneos .

Los fonógrafos eran dispositivos simples, pero ayudaron a introducir una nueva forma de pagar por la música. Todo comenzó con las bien llamadas máquinas "nickel-in-the-slot" (más tarde conocidas como nickelodeon o fonógrafos automáticos ) construidas por Louis Glass en San Francisco.

Glass presentó por primera vez su fonógrafo que funciona con monedas en el restaurante Palais Royal en 1889. Los clientes curiosos se pararon alrededor de la máquina, insertaron una moneda de cinco centavos y luego escucharon canciones cortas (aproximadamente dos minutos). Las máquinas a menudo eran de cuerda manual y usaban resortes para mover los mecanismos internos, pero también había disponibles tipos que funcionaban con baterías.

En este tiempo antes de los amplificadores, los grandes parlantes y los auriculares electrónicos, solo los auriculares con forma de estetoscopio hacían que la música fuera audible. Una vez que terminó la canción, limpiaste los auriculares con una toalla y el siguiente grupo de ansiosos oyentes tomó asiento. Otros presentaban una pequeña bocina que reproducía música lo suficientemente alta para una habitación pequeña y relativamente tranquila. Las grabaciones eran limitadas y los cilindros se intercambiaban manualmente, por lo que las canciones cambiaban solo periódicamente.

La tecnología podría haber sido bastante rudimentaria, pero el concepto de pago por juego fue revolucionario. Glass fabricó más y más máquinas para satisfacer la demanda de este nuevo tipo de reproductor de música. Como resultado, se volvieron más confiables, más fáciles de hacer y el precio de compra se redujo hasta el punto de que incluso los bares pequeños podían pagarlos.

Esos bares y cafés a menudo se llamaban juke joints , especialmente en el sureste de los Estados Unidos, donde la palabra juke había sido parte del léxico afroamericano durante muchos años. Juking era la jerga para bailar, o en última instancia, simplemente soltarse, después de un largo y agotador día de trabajo.

Los juke joints se ganaron la reputación de ser lugares bulliciosos con música a todo volumen y fiestas ruidosas, gracias en parte a las nuevas máquinas musicales que alimentaban la diversión, incluso cuando la banda estaba demasiado cansada para tocar o demasiado cara para alquilar. Con el tiempo, estas máquinas se conocen como jukeboxes.

Pero hubo algunos desarrollos notables que ocurrieron antes de que las máquinas de discos realmente llegaran a la corriente principal. En la página siguiente, verá cómo otras tecnologías le dan un toque realmente serio a los tocadiscos.

Fonógrafos y cilindros de cera dieron comienzo a la jukebox party. Pero los discos de gramófono y los amplificadores catapultaron a las máquinas de discos al estatus de estrellas de rock.

Gramophone discs had the same kinds of grooves as cylinders, but they came in flat disc form, making them less unwieldy and cheaper to manufacture. A format war of sorts (think cassettes versus CDs) ignited for a few years in the early 1900s but discs quickly won out, specifically 78 RPM (revolutions per minute) discs that became the go-to standard.

Disc format made record changing easier, too. Machines like Gabel's Automatic Entertainer even had a record changer so that customers could choose from multiple 24 recordings. Thanks to its totally automatic machine functionality, the Entertainer is considered the forerunner of all modern jukeboxes.

Yet even fancy song selection capabilities couldn't propel the jukebox into true popularity, for a couple of reasons. One, coin-operated player pianos were exceedingly popular throughout the country, and people gathered en masse to watch these curiosities. The second problem was volume. Even with clunky earphones, phonographs produced tinny, soft sound that was often overwhelmed by ambient public noise, much less the chaos of beer-soaked patrons. Coin-operated phonograph production stalled.

It wasn't until 1927 that the jukebox boom, figuratively and literally. That's the year that Automated Musical Instruments (AMI) first integrated an electrical amplifier into a jukebox. Now, customers could bypass ridiculous earphones and pump loud music just about any place. Instead of standing or sitting stationary, they could dance, flail about and generally unleash their rock-and-roll demons at full volume, especially as Prohibition ended in 1933.

But just as better jukebox technology and more abundant records were catching fire with café and bar owners and their patrons, the Great Depression took hold. Music sales nosedived for years, down from $75 million in 1929 to only $5 million four years later [source: Encycopedia].

In spite of the Depression, the sales of amplifier-equipped jukeboxes actually increased. And then jukeboxes happened to be at the right place at the right time. On the next page, you'll see how social and technological forces collided into a flashpoint for a jukebox explosion.

During the Depression, jukebox makers struggled onward, and their persistence paid off. In 1933, there were maybe 25,000 machines in the United States. By 1940, there were well over 300,000 [Source: Segrave].

It was then that the big names in jukeboxes showed their domination: AMI, Wurlitzer, Rock-Ola and Seeberg. With edgy marketing campaigns and hordes of salespeople, all of them pushed to stay ahead of each other in a music technology arms race.

Then a real-life arms race, in the form of World War II, roiled the industry. Jukebox manufacturing stopped as the federal government rationed materials like metal, which could be used for military purposes. Rather than idle their workers and machines, companies like Wurlitzer retooled their factories to produce war goods instead of music machines.

Once the war ended, though, military men returned home in droves, and post-war partying began in earnest. The jukebox was there, and its fortunate timing helped turn these music machines into an icon of a generation that grew up in the 1950's.

Jukeboxes are so ingrained into post-World War II culture that period films and TV shows set in the 1950's frequently use jukeboxes as props. These machines weren't passive furniture. They were gaudy, loud centerpieces of social interaction.

Early jukeboxes were designed in the likeness of the first radios, often featuring wooden cabinets. But jukebox manufacturers wanted their products to scream out their technological edginess and modernity. Wurlitzer, in particular, became known for pushing the boundaries of machine designs. They often featured mesmerizing bubble tubes, polarized and pulsating lights and artful cabinets. The most beautiful are now collector's items worth many thousands of dollars.

One of the most popular jukeboxes of all time is the Wurlitzer 1015, which blended wood cabinetry with space-age lights and chrome flourishes, as well as a see-through dome that let customers watch the changer move between albums.

Aesthetics were one thing – but the social impact of jukeboxes was perhaps even more profound. After the turn of the century, music, like the rest of society, was segregated by race lines. Radio stations often refused to music recorded by black artists.

But jukeboxes helped to level the playing field, as individual business owners could stock their machines with any music that they thought might draw more customers. In doing so, jukeboxes introduced untold numbers of people to a minority group's tastes. In short, jukeboxes provided financial incentive for black artists to share more and more of their artistry, all of which made pop music more diverse.

Creating a machine that could accept coins, allow customers to select specific songs and then play them loud and clear enough to fill an entire building was in itself an amazing engineering feat. That's especially true when you consider that this was an era devoid of microchips, robots and in many places, electricity.

Developing dependable coin activation wasn't easy. A machine had to work when a customer dropped a valid coin into its slot, but it had to reject cleverly designed fakes, or slugs. They also had to resist vandalism and dirty environments. All of this was just for starters.

Customers pressed buttons that corresponded to the songs they wanted to hear. Then jukebox had to play those tunes in the right sequence.

Records were stacked inside the machine, suspended in individual rings called carriers. When a customer made a selection, a select bar rose along the stack until arriving at the right record; then the appropriate carrier swung out from the stack. Finally, the turntable would rise up to the record, begin spinning it and lower the needle to begin playback.

The real trick was making a machine that remembered which songs to play and when to play them, and this was a matter of clever mechanical engineering. Many jukeboxes had gear-like components (called cams) organized onto a memory drum. Just like the record stack, this drum was a cylinder and stacked with cams that corresponded to each record's carrier.

Selecting a record caused the cam for that album to rotate. As the select bar moved up and down the record stack, it stopped when it reached a cam that had been rotated. Once the song played, that cam returned to its original position and the select bar moved on to the next album. Fancier jukeboxes had additional mechanisms that flipped each record, allowing the turntable to play both sides, ultimately doubling the number of songs that the machine could play.

As compact discs replaced records in the 1990's, the mechanisms for changing discs actually remained somewhat similar to those used in previous decades. But the CD format offered far more songs and more consistent playback.

You're in a murky, smoke-filled biker bar, one that's way off of the main highway in West Texas. Tattooed, grungy men and women play a quiet game of pool . They exchange menacing glances with outsiders. Suddenly, the Spice Girls begin blaring from the Internet jukebox. Shortly thereafter, the clueless dolt who played "Wannabe" is dying a slow, painful death in the bar's back alley.

Contemporary jukeboxes are often wall-mounted boxes with a touchscreen that let you choose from songs stored to a hard drive . Some might take quarters, but they all accept credit cards. Many are connected to the Internet and let you pick from thousands of additional songs, although those selections might cost you twice as much as those on the local drive.

Plenty of people are ambivalent about Internet jukeboxes, in part because some feel that these machines homogenize gathering places. Now, you can play Britney Spears in a biker bar (at your own risk), whereas in the past, that same bar may have stocked only CDs with Hank Williams and Slayer.

There's also a weird flip side to the idea that Internet jukeboxes offer a bigger selection of songs. Due to copyright and licensing issues, many artists and songs just aren't available. With a CD jukebox, though, a bar owner could load discs with just about any music they preferred.

But digital is just easier. Because of digital music's proliferation and convenience, jukeboxes that play vinyl records and even CDs are getting rarer by the day. Mechanical parts break, and it's harder and harder to find replacements and people with the expertise to repair them.

Plus, newfangled jukes have features like built-in karaoke, as well as the ability to capture and print pictures on the spot. Those kinds of features hold great appeal to a generation accustomed to always-on multimedia.

Some contemporary jukeboxes are built to recall their glory days, complete with fanciful curves, lights and glass ... but with a digital twist, in which you can connect a handheld music device. These machines make not give new life to jukeboxes, but they harken to a different era – one in which music-on-demand first captured the attentions of music-starved people the world over.

Even though I'm an ardent, lifelong music fan, I've had only occasional brushes with old-school mechanical jukeboxes. Always-on Internet radio, CDs and MP3s I understand; records, well, not so much.

I have a hard time imagining a world in which I can't always find and play the exact song I want, anytime and anyplace. But it's not hard to see how the glowing lights and big sound of jukeboxes could entrance an entire generation. Their high-tech visual appeal and the ability to play some of your favorite songs – on demand – must have been entirely intoxicating for the young and old alike.

These days, our digital music contraptions let us listen both in solitude and huge social gathering places. Such tiny personal jukeboxes definitely change the way we hear songs, and they'll likely alter the course of music culture, too, just like big old Wurlitzer jukeboxes once did.

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