Wurlitzer Sideman, the first commercially sold drum machine. It’s a huge tangle of vintage electronics, original Wurliter branded vacuum tubes, tuning pots, built in vacuum amp / speakers and a unique motor operated pattern wheel. Fully operational with a big booming kick when tuned sub.
I bought this in the hopes of wiring a midi conversion but I never got around to it. I thought I’d list it here and give yawl hackers the opportunity to play with it. I’d only want to sell it to someone who would plan to hack / bend it and keep us updated on how it goes.
It’s big enough you’d definitely need a car to pick it up.
I’d like to get 50$ for it, if that’s doable to a potential hacker.
Haha! Yep. It’s here. I just posted this today. I thought this would be a good place to list this… What would you plan to do with it? (If you don’t mind I asking)
I would likely just play with it for awhile and then design a different case around it that celebrated the electronics/mechanisms inside it more.
Longer term it’d be interesting to have it linked via a computer. I’m dreaming of a programmable alarm clock… Or maybe a nice beat for when I arrive home.
I would definitely try to keep VHS up to date on the progress of whatever I’m up to with the beat machine.
Great! If @SDY doesn’t want it / get back to me or if he doesn’t have time to project and share, you can have it. I also wanted to design a clear case… It’d be great to see displayed!
I was kinda hoping it would go to someone into electronic music production, as I’d love to hear it bent and midi’fied but just seeing it get a good home on display would be dang cool too.
FYI, it weighs approximately 70lbs and is 2-3feet tall… Just a warning as when I bought it I was quite surprised by the size and weight. It’s currently located at my parents place in Burnaby.
Let’s give @SDY a couple days to come back at me and then talk about meeting up.
I’ll have to pass, too many projects already. This said, don’t trash the cabinet if you go all petroleum byproduct (plexis) on it, somebody else could use the (most likely ) nice wood…
Also, if anybody grabbing the unit for restoration requires tube for replacement, drop me a line with the number(s) and I’ll see if I have it/them in my stash…
That was a good find, do you have a story about it?
SDY
No big story, just found it on CL and jumped on it. It’s immaculate! Runs like a dream, esp for a 70 year old peice of electronics! The tubes glow so pretty…
I tuned down the kick drum and hooked it up to my amp and boomed crazy bass for blocks. I forgot to take a picture of the rotary dial… It’s crazy! Like 10 pins on 15 disks stacked. The dial alone is probably 6 inches tall inside. All the electronics in the curcuit are floating! Predates curcuit boards?!
Anyway, needless to say I’ll really miss it, even if I never used it. I just really hope the buyer will make some nice photos and maybe some video for me to remember it by…
Hello, I am new the this website.
I am about to acquire a Wurlitzer Sideman machine that needs a lot of work. I will make it work again. It’s not rocket science. There was some interest on this site for purchasing one of these machines many years ago. Is this still alive? Get back to me if you are interested.
