My heart goes out to the parents who bought their kids one of those and then had to spend the next weeks listening to what sounds like rubber bands being tortured, over and over again. You managed to make a very entertaining video out of it though, so perhaps it was all worth it.
In my family there is a tradition of giving every newborn a very noisy and terrible "duck piano" as a gag. The parents tend to remove the batteries and "forget" where they put them.
It's a little sad that we won't see these kinds of electro-mechanical toys produced any more. There's a certain kind of ingenuity and efficiency in how these devices and designed and produced, not to mention their quaint charm!
When children inevitably disassemble toys like this, they learn a great deal about engineering. Putting them back together for the first time teaches them to be technicians. Very inexpensive education if you ask me.
Yeah it's alright if you subtract the mass amount of land waste that these trinkets create after they've hit the bin in a week. It's hard to grasp how much waste a couple nicknacks make. But it is substantial. And there are tons of fun and inexpensive STEM and STEAM kits out nowadays like Kiwico that have actually semi usefull engineering kits for kids. And they may not get chucked in the trash right away.
Literally all of these scratch that, most of retro/90s tech are hot garbage. Especially these that were marketed for kids. I mean that kind of sound ? An insult to hearing itself. They use that trash for torture in north Korea.
@@videolabguybackbone of engineering. Indeed, it's exactly what our top minds would do if an alien craft would land. Only way to back engineer is take it apart and put it together.
The audio quality of the Mighty Tiny perfectly matches the emotional tone of the box art. One is the sound of madness, the other is the image of madness.
Play the music while very slowly zooming into the box art, while also slowly fading in a harsh red filter over the video! LOL fade to black... hear screams
Friend: "What's this?" Child: "INEVITABILITY..." (demon torturing noises emit from the speakers) Child: "LISTEN TO THE MIGHTY TINY. TAKE YOUR PLACE ALONGSIDE THE DARK LORD." 👹 Friend: 😨😨😨
The Mighty Tiny scared the shit out of my cat. He was staring at the computer speakers with wide open eyes and then decided he was better off in another room.
The coffin mold was for a vintage Japanese board game called Horror House. The game had a main character called Death Head. On the board game was a this exact player but had a green Death Head mold on top. You would stick crucifix's inside his mouth and spooky sounds would play. Inside was a small record with multi sound spooky effects. I know this because I finally found the game after years of searching. I eventually restored it to perfect working order. Cool to see it as another children's toy.
Don Poynter was an incredible engineer. Yeah, these designs are simple, but they've stood the test of time with truly minimum components. That's hard to do
Did you listen to the same thing I did? I'm not sure it "stood the test of time". 😂 With all due respect to Poynter, I think this one is best left in the past.
I suspect it was roughly based on the versions used for automated voice systems at the time. There were several versions made by Japanese companies including Nissan. These had tracks and much higher quality audio though.
@@mangobrainify I meant more the designs themselves. Almost everything on that list is at least familiar to me. Actual implementation of the designs are just old. Intuitive designs may seem like they're easy to come up with, but I don't think they really are. You need to have a knack for creating stuff that is simple and makes a lot of sense that no one has already come up with. Get what I mean? Cheers
As I was watching, I thought to myself, "I sure hope he attempts to play that somehow on a regular quality turntable in an attempt to check the actual quality of the pressing!" I KNEW you wouldn't let me down! 🥰 You are, by far, my favourite UA-camr!
That's considerably bigger than the 'record player' inside the action figure I had in the 70s. It was built into the torso of the figure and the disc was removable and reversable and IIRC had several grooves so the character 'spoke' different lines each time you pressed the button (or it might have been pulled the cord, I don't think it had batteries).
I belive most of the traditional pull string toys have mini record players in them. They don't run with digital speakers. It's probably the reason why the old toys make a demonic sound when the battery is running low as the record player is slowing down.
In ending, Don Poynter passed away on August 29, 2021 at the age of 95. Not bad. "In a 1988 interview with Scripps Howard, Mr. Poynter mused about the device he wanted to invent for his own tombstone. “When you walked up to it,” he said, “you’d activate an electronic voice. And it would say, ‘Come on down.’”" RIP Mr. Poynter.
I made a "Steampunk record player" as a joke (that almost no one got). Literally a steam engine powered record player playing the Sex Pistols God save the Queen. Badly. You can find it on UA-cam. Sounds about as good as this and I got hit by a copyright match!
@@asciimation - Hilarious, thanks for that... but your Steampunk God Save the Queen is squeaky clean compared to this abomination. As a live sound & recording engineer, I was genuinely horrified by the Mighty Tiny. I felt like my ears were watching the most terrifying horror movie in human history...
That tap on the lid with the deadpan face! 😂😂😂😂😂 Never change, Mat! 😂😂😂 Also, one of the many good things about this channel is how Mat always predicts the weird questions we might have about the stuff he shows us, like how the vinyl sounds on a regular player. My Saturday lunch is always a blast with these videos to keep me company! 😀
I think that if Mat didn't tap it and we only got that half a second of noise, combined with Mat's deadpan expression, it would make the ending even more hilarious 😅
@Techmoan I actually had one of those. Grandmother gifted it and she included 5 sets of the records. When new out of the package, the sound was audible and we readily hear what was intended to be played. Sadly, due to the cheapness of the mechanism, it degraded quickly. The model you have uses a metal stylus, mine was plastic. You did bangup job getting it working again! And solids props for thinking up a way to sample the recordings from the discs. Thank You doing this one! Took me back to a time in life I had forgotten. I'll raise a toast to you, Cheers!
The fact that the image stuck with you for a decade and your only concern was getting a hold of one is just one of the many reasons I love this channel
This is easily one of your most hilarious video, the creepy art, the awful sound, what an memorable "HiFry" experience! 😄 But what's more impressive is that with your usual care and dedication, even for the ugliest device, you managed to get some nearly usable sound. Thanks for the laugh! 🙂
Don’t know if these have already been mentioned here: I had a laughing bag in the 70s, which was essentially the same kind of set up. I was thrilled to discover that the record - clear vinyl, no less - could be flipped over. The ‘B’ side was a female take on the more familiar laugh track used for standard laughing bags. I’ve yet to track another one down, it’s always the male version.
Was that those things which had a pull-cord to activate them? I remember seeing them, but never had my own! The sound was very similar to these records!
Had one myself when I was young around the late 70s / early 80s. Was the male version. I do remember taking it apart and seeing the clear disc but don't remember a female version. Long time ago and it's all a bit vague now 😊
Pretty amazing how far we've come in terms of personal music just within our lifetimes, or our parent's lifetimes. We went from "here's a novel thing: listen to 15 seconds of horrible quality music in a bulky plastic coffin" to "1000 songs in your pocket" to now, listen to basically any music at any time from anywhere, in pristine quality as good as your sound equipment can support. I'm not sure there's much farther we can go with it now, short of beaming music directly into your brain.
@@martinkfUnless the streaming service supports "lossless" audio quality (such as Tidal or Apple Music). Not sure if it's really loseless sonce I haven't had either...
This is strikingly similar to one of those early record-playing voice boxes used in talking toys (end even in some of the cars made by Datsun) before electronics took over. Of course, in this design the record is easily interchangeable.
There were actually dolls for little girls in the 70's that contained small records, where you pulled a cord to wind up a spring, and they played sound effects from the little disk, fully analog, similar mechanism to this. The sounds were the doll crying, laughing etc...
And the Talking Dalek! My brother had a talking police car, and there were several "radio backpacks" for Action Man. I think all of these were Palitoy.
Indeed, seen channels like MyMateVince disassemble and repair a number of those, as well as newer mechanisms. Those 'talking doll' mechanisms are pretty amazing insights in how far technology was being pushed at the time for what would have been very affordable toys. My favourite part about those mechanisms was how they managed to pick a random sound sample from the record with each pull. It's a toy, but it can still be genius.
At the end of 80's a neighbor's daughter had a doll that could sing. But it broke and she asked me to take a look. Imagine my shock when I opened the doll to find that it used a mini record player and a two side record to hold the song. When I turned the mini record the other side the doll sang a different song the girl had never heard before from that doll! It was the only time I saw a mini record and player.
That speed control is fascinating. I love "non component" bits like that. I dismantled a cheap milk frother where the switch was just a plastic pad that nudged a wire into the side of the motor housing, and this feels like the same spirit.
It's very good quality, but my sensitive ears do detect a trace of wow and flutter in the sound... I wish he'd hooked it up to the flutterometer so we could get a proper reading...
Matt, you never disappoint in making lemonade out of lemons when it comes to showcasing fascinating yet utterly mediocre products from a bygone era. Cheers mate!
In the USA we had the "Close & Play" record player in the 1960s. It was essentially the exact same thing as this little gizmo, but it played regular 45 RPM singles, and ran on two D cells, if memory serves...and (naturally) it was physically larger. It has a speed control also - just a simple rheostat.
Never thought I'd see the day where my passion for playing the Banjo and for watching videos on obscure vintage tech would appear but as usual Techmoan delivers! Thanks for this absolute treat! :-)
When I was about 7, my older sister (about 22) , bought a doll from a co-worker and it talked. It has the same mechanism in it as you've shown here. They always sounded like that. Being the smart kid that I was, I opened up that doll as soon as I heard it. I was amazed that it had a record player in it. Everyone teased that I was a boy playing with dolls. But it was 1964 and GI Joe wasn't prominent yet. And I found a doll with a record player in it. It eventually led to my career as a communication technician.
If not crowd funded at least curated. I'm sure there is a university somewhere near to him with the proper facilities and means to search and use the original to (reverse engineer, etc) in the future.
I was so hoping you would try to play it on a normal record player and (assuming the record player isn't fast enough) digitally speed it up. And you did! ❤ I just wanted to say, I really appreciate the effort you put into your videos. I'm sure applies to most of the people watching your videos. Thanks for showing interesting little things from the past, in such detail.
I love those high end audio gear videos! There's something special about the art and craftsmanship that goes into these kinds of devices. The engineering is driven by the enthusiasm for fine audio. The music they're producing has a special warmth, that simply couldn't be replicated by modern digital media.
Repent and put your trust in Jesus. We've all sinned and deserve Hell. Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected, defeating death and sin. Since we broke the law, Jesus paid our fine. Since he paid it, we can be let go. We must repent and trust in Jesus to be saved. Revelation 21:8 Romans 3:23 John 3:16 Romans 6:23 1 Corinthians 15:3,4 Revalation 3:20 Romans 10:13❤❤❤😊
Back in the early 50's Noma Plastics produced a train station sized for O gauge model trains that played 3 inch 78 rpm records announcing train departures. Both steam and diesel sound records came with the unit. It used 2 D cells for rotational power and had an acoustic reproducer with a steel needle that could be replaced.
Laughed so hard at the analogy between the box and a coffin 🤓 I admire how passionate you are in doing all the research you do and how generous in sharing the results As always thank you so much Mat
All I can think is, "lol, what a piece of crap" (and yes, I was actually laughing). It's something that kids would get a blast out of, but would annoy the living daylights out of any parents listening to the same 15 seconds over and over and over and over and over ... and over and over and over and over...
I had that very gadget in the early 1970s. The record I remember played "Turkey in the Straw" (which you can see with the little girl and wagon wheel cover and which our friend Techmoan demonstrates). How nice to see it and hear it again!
The 1982 Nissan 200SX and likely a few other nissans at the time had a tiny record player mounted behind the passenger seat that played announcement about seat belts, low oil, and other important items. At the time I found it to be pretty cool.
You should take a look at FranLab repairing her Pee-Wee Herman talking doll. Similar stylus and diaphragm, but it ran off a string in the back that needed flywheels and whatnot to regulate the speed as it retracted. It also somehow managed to randomize which phrase it played all with mechanical parts stuffed inside a doll.
After looking at the creepy girl in the picture and the coffin shape of the record player, I was hoping he he’d play some the the records backwards so we could see if a hole in the ground revealing the pity’s of hell opens up.👹👺👿🔥🪦🕳️⚰️
If this was made out of higher quality materials it would have become famous. I feel like the engineers efforts were wasted on a penny pinching company which just wanted a disposable cheap toy.
This is similar to the “record player” mechanism found in the Talking Commando Action Man (or GI Joe in the US?) When I took mine apart the tiny record system was surprisingly similar to this tiny disc thing. Great video as per usual.
Yes! My sister had a doll of Ariel from The Little Mermaid that sang when you pulled a string in its back. There were many other similar toys (eg Woody from Toy Story) and I think they used a similar mechanism.
@@wayne7521 indeed. Corporations love their filthy lucre. That’s why our rivers are currently filled with ton after ton after ton of -rotten shite- excess floodwater 😂
Thank you for covering this piece of high end, state of the art audio engineering. It is really a shame that so many people do not know what they are missing out on. Why mess around with silver cables when perfection has clearly already been achieved?
I remember visiting my grandfather, and coming across an old doll that must have belonged to my mom or my aunt. I noticed it had a velcro seam on its back, which I opened. The thing I saw inside was something not unlike a small pink record player with discs as big as the ones you're showing. I had seen "pull-string" crying babydolls, but I never knew how they worked. Apparent this is how.
I was going to comment on the same context. My sister had a gorilla soft toy with a pull string. Inside was a little box and inside that had a tiny record with a plastic diaphragm speaker and a tiny point for a stylus. I mean... Hey It worked until the cord snapped! Audio quality was not too important. It had 3 sayings on the record each time you pulled the cord to wind it up. Very similar construction, I'm sure he got the idea from such a mechanism.
When I was a child a friend of mine had the mighty tiny record player and we also went to the school together and we listened to the mighty tiny record player after school one day after Xmas vacation.
I have some of these mini records from when I worked at Woolies in the early seventies. I managed to play them on a laughing bag machine which runs at the same speed, I still have it and yes it still works!
reportedly, Frank Zappa wanted to release Alice Cooper's first record in this format, with one song per side and a stack of discs for the whole album in a little cylindrical tin with a pull-top. The lack of players in people's homes was an issue that helped cancel that. He also wanted to release something on PlayTapes, he loved technology and was the first guy to have a fully stocked digital recording studio. Many of his recordings are at risk now from incompatible playback systems and redundant digital technology, so the effort continues to transfer archived material safely. Official release #126 was released recently, and it goes on...
This brings back memories of being a lad and taking my sister's talking doll to bits. The mechanism was pull-string and clock spring instead of motor driven, but for voice only I recall the sound quality wasn't horrible - certainly no worse than one would find in a 'talking fish' or similar modern novelties. To this day I use it as an example of engineering elegance. Thoroughly enjoyable video!
Absolutely brilliant! Why we moved beyond this and into digital audio is beyond me! That warm, soothing vinyl sound cannot be replicated 😊 (insert sarcastic emoji here) Cheers Matt!
And thát ladies and gentlemen is the reason why Techmoan clearly is the upper class when you keep thinking during the first half of the video.... " I hope he is going to find a way to play these records in a better capable system and 'brush' them up in audacity" ... 19:40 mins ...This guy always delivers. 🎉
If someone had the skills and the inclination, they could make a much better device for playing these records back, with a better speed control and so on. I think the little records and their tiny album covers are the real treasure here. RIP Don Poynter. (Also 15:07 WTH?! I knew I sucked at Etch-a-Sketch but that makes me feel like a completely useless fool to even try)
There are plenty of talented Etch-a-Sketch artists. Jane Labowitch (Princess Etch) is one example of modern Etch-a-Sketch masters and you can find plenty of her great works online. 😊
It shows that stereo reproduction isn't needed for life-like realism. If you recreate the subtle nuances in the original performance -- ones lost in the digital domain -- the material creates its own 3D soundstage.
I'm so happy that you tried playing it on a regular player. You even thought of speeding it up was about to suggest that but hay no need. Great video as always.
When I was a kid, my sister had a doll that could say something, or sing, and I vaguely remember one day I took it apart (I used to do that to all my toys to find out how they worked) and there was a tiny record player inside it, and it didn't seem to be an electronic device, it looked like it was purely mechanical. After many decades, I started to wonder whether I hadn't imagined or dreamed up the whole situation, and now, thanks to your video, I see that is a real memory, not a figment of my childish imagination!
I, too, tore all my toys apart to see how they worked. My fave was the "speak n play" things that were round with a carrying handle on top and a pull string to make it work that housed a tiny recordplayer and the "record" had many lead-in grooves so when you pointed the arrow at the corresponding picture on the toy it would set the needle for that groove! Of course i tore the recordplayer out and had more fun watching it work than playing with the actual toy itself, lol!
Wow, I remember desperately wanting one of those when I was five or six years old. Recently recalling that memory I thought maybe I had dreamed it up, never having seen one since. I see now that it was a real thing, and I must have seen it advertised somewhere way back then. At about that time I was given a crystal radio instead which probably set me on my life path in electronics. Thanks for the video.
As a kid back in the '60s, I really wanted the 'Honor House battery-operated movie-projector' I saw advertised in the back of comic-books and other publications. I finally saw one at a flea-market several years ago. What a piece of junk!
That's the sound that dreams are made of. Bad ones. Where youre being chased by horror creatures and scary machete clowns. As always, thanks for a fun and interesting review Mat!!
@@st0rmforce ... With bagpipes. Still, I think I'd rather get hot over the head by a banjo.... But I'd rather listen to a machete.... Hmmm tough choices.
I along with others appreciate you mounting the records on a turntable and playing them so we could hear them a bit better. Earlier I kept expecting you to pull out your little scale and measuring how many grams effective force that stylus pressed against the records! But then, when the device started to play... just like parents in the 1970s, we were thankful for its blessedly short playing time!
The case remains me of the shape of a 1930s microphone , and if nothing else it proves we were easily entertained back then . Being a product of the early 50s , I had to make do with a spud gun and two bake bean tins and a length of string . 😂. What a wonderful channel this is and how it can evoke such childhood memories . Best wishes and kind regards
Reminds me of the laughing/crying doll my sister had in the early eighties. That had a tiny record player inside, very similar to this, with laughing and gurgling happy baby sounds on a loop on one side of the disk and crying sounds on the other.
There were also toys circa 1970's with a pull cord or windup mechanism which played a few seconds of sound when operated. Inside there's a tiny record player mechanism with one record permanently fitted and working on the same principle as this.
Your mention of that brought back an early childhood memory. I remember having a toy as a kid, also a novelty item like this, of a similar nature. It was a "bag of laughs", a small canvas bag which, when you shook it (or pushed a button on the thing inside, I don't quite remember), would emit a sound byte of cartoonish laughter. Inside was a plastic contraption containing a battery and a small electrical record player. The record was quite thick and two sided, so it could be flipped around. The other side of it contained a sound byte of birds chirping.
My heart goes out to the parents who bought their kids one of those and then had to spend the next weeks listening to what sounds like rubber bands being tortured, over and over again. You managed to make a very entertaining video out of it though, so perhaps it was all worth it.
No it doesn't stop the fake courage
My dad would have smashed it to bits lol
rubber bands being tortured is a perfect description
Something sounding like this is called a "mice chorus" over here. But tortured rubberband is a more fitting description XD
In my family there is a tradition of giving every newborn a very noisy and terrible "duck piano" as a gag.
The parents tend to remove the batteries and "forget" where they put them.
That sounded even worse than I expected. Although I'm not sure why I had any expectations at all :-)
I mean I at least expected it to be audible 🤣
It's a little sad that we won't see these kinds of electro-mechanical toys produced any more. There's a certain kind of ingenuity and efficiency in how these devices and designed and produced, not to mention their quaint charm!
When children inevitably disassemble toys like this, they learn a great deal about engineering. Putting them back together for the first time teaches them to be technicians. Very inexpensive education if you ask me.
@@videolabguyyes!!! I would have LOVED this as a kid, and loved to take it apart.
Yeah it's alright if you subtract the mass amount of land waste that these trinkets create after they've hit the bin in a week.
It's hard to grasp how much waste a couple nicknacks make. But it is substantial. And there are tons of fun and inexpensive STEM and STEAM kits out nowadays like Kiwico that have actually semi usefull engineering kits for kids. And they may not get chucked in the trash right away.
Literally all of these scratch that, most of retro/90s tech are hot garbage. Especially these that were marketed for kids. I mean that kind of sound ? An insult to hearing itself. They use that trash for torture in north Korea.
@@videolabguybackbone of engineering. Indeed, it's exactly what our top minds would do if an alien craft would land. Only way to back engineer is take it apart and put it together.
Analogue audio enthusiasts will appreciate the price and warm sound quality of these; clearly superior to mini-discs.
Ooooow-snap!
Vinyl is always better than digital.
Well, it has a lot better longevity and repairability than any mini-disc player I've ever owned.
Totally agree. Far superior to CD’s with its analogue nature and infinite range, rather than CD’s digital limitations.
The only thing needed here are better audio cables. :-)
The audio quality of the Mighty Tiny perfectly matches the emotional tone of the box art. One is the sound of madness, the other is the image of madness.
I've never heard a more thematically-appropriate rendition of Dixie.
Play the music while very slowly zooming into the box art, while also slowly fading in a harsh red filter over the video! LOL
fade to black... hear screams
I now know the root of my childhood trauma.....
What would happen if the record could be played backwards?
@@doktorspock8910the end of humanity
I love the way every record sounds pretty much the same regardless of what is meant to be on it.
Huge advantage of this one : absolutely no risk of content match !
I dunno... when it comes time for me to listen to Oh! Susanna, this is definitely gonna be my 'go to' spot. Take *that* music industry!
Channeling some of that Rocky 8-track energy. 😂
I think the YT content bot is still smoking...
BBC is already at work copyrighting it.
That's exactly what i thought too
The box art accurately depicts the look of horror any kid would have when they hear the sounds emitted by one these little coffins.
hahaha little coffins! got me there.
we need a compilation video, like "10 hours of Mighty Tiny music to chill to" with just a still image of that box art
Friend: "What's this?"
Child: "INEVITABILITY..."
(demon torturing noises emit from the speakers)
Child: "LISTEN TO THE MIGHTY TINY. TAKE YOUR PLACE ALONGSIDE THE DARK LORD." 👹
Friend: 😨😨😨
Kid pictured is torturing another kid.
@@alexkuhn5078 With runtime of less than 30s per record and only 40 titles listed on discogs there's going to be a few repeats in there.
I love that you pushed this thing that little bit further by playing it on a regular record player. As always, Techmoan, your content is superior 🙏🏻
I wanted to see a Wow and Flutter test 😂
Plus pushing it even further by recording it and speeding it up to the correct speed.
I was genuinely surprised at how good it sounded
it would explode the Meter @@EeekiE
The Mighty Tiny scared the shit out of my cat. He was staring at the computer speakers with wide open eyes and then decided he was better off in another room.
Oh i can imagine that, poor cat. But still very funny, this comment made me laugh so hard 😂
Startled my one too. He didn't leave the room but he did react much like your one did.
Well duh. Would you want to stick around and listen to one of _your_ kind getting brutally murdered like that?
🤣🤣
You are a monster for subjecting your cat to this horrible noisy torture! :D
The comic timing and facial expression on needing to tap it to start playing at the end, was spot on.
That was a truly perfect ending. 😄
I had a chuckle at that expression too! 😂 Perfect end to another video about a dodgy sound outputting kids music toy!
That's the subtle humour I so much love about this channel.😄
That sound will haunt my dreams for days to come now
@@leonerduk Just your dreams? I'm hearing it still.
The coffin mold was for a vintage Japanese board game called Horror House. The game had a main character called Death Head. On the board game was a this exact player but had a green Death Head mold on top. You would stick crucifix's inside his mouth and spooky sounds would play. Inside was a small record with multi sound spooky effects. I know this because I finally found the game after years of searching. I eventually restored it to perfect working order. Cool to see it as another children's toy.
Somehow, I knew it was a factory parts bin thing, Mat nailed it!
the lengths you went to in order to play it on a standard sized player and make it (roughly) listenable was admirable. thank you for your efforts.
Don't recall if you've ventured into 3D printing, but a one-off adapter for this setup would be quick and easy.
@@downumop or you know, just some tape...
@@downumopthere is no point in printing an adapter... It's a kids toy. Pretty much a nail on a "record", precision is not in the design.
Next we need to play a full-sized record on the toy
@@totalmarhYes, perhaps cut it down slightly in size? Drill a larger hole in the centre. Oh wait. why are all those pesky grooves so far away?
Don Poynter was an incredible engineer. Yeah, these designs are simple, but they've stood the test of time with truly minimum components. That's hard to do
Did you listen to the same thing I did? I'm not sure it "stood the test of time". 😂
With all due respect to Poynter, I think this one is best left in the past.
@@mangobrainify Not this one, maybe, the other ones! 🤣
I suspect it was roughly based on the versions used for automated voice systems at the time. There were several versions made by Japanese companies including Nissan. These had tracks and much higher quality audio though.
Stood the test of time? Not exactly
@@mangobrainify I meant more the designs themselves. Almost everything on that list is at least familiar to me. Actual implementation of the designs are just old. Intuitive designs may seem like they're easy to come up with, but I don't think they really are. You need to have a knack for creating stuff that is simple and makes a lot of sense that no one has already come up with. Get what I mean? Cheers
As I was watching, I thought to myself, "I sure hope he attempts to play that somehow on a regular quality turntable in an attempt to check the actual quality of the pressing!" I KNEW you wouldn't let me down! 🥰 You are, by far, my favourite UA-camr!
That's one of the best Banjo recordings I've ever heard. Terrifying. It was like watching Deliverence.
Oh Suzanna however did sound how I remember it being played on an old wind up record player.
It's the first time I've ever heard a banjo in-tune!
I really enjoyed the video. It’s by far the worst sound quality of any device you’ve ever demonstrated. It sounded fine on the Numark.
This was bad, but I still think the mikiphone was the worst sounding device he ever had
Maybe it would have sounded better with a direct feed 😅
He did run his finger on the needle several times, I bet that didn't make things any better
That's considerably bigger than the 'record player' inside the action figure I had in the 70s. It was built into the torso of the figure and the disc was removable and reversable and IIRC had several grooves so the character 'spoke' different lines each time you pressed the button (or it might have been pulled the cord, I don't think it had batteries).
I belive most of the traditional pull string toys have mini record players in them. They don't run with digital speakers. It's probably the reason why the old toys make a demonic sound when the battery is running low as the record player is slowing down.
My brother used to have a dalek with a small record player in it. Think it was battery powered.
In ending, Don Poynter passed away on August 29, 2021 at the age of 95. Not bad. "In a 1988 interview with Scripps Howard, Mr. Poynter mused about the device he wanted to invent for his own tombstone. “When you walked up to it,” he said, “you’d activate an electronic voice. And it would say, ‘Come on down.’”" RIP Mr. Poynter.
Aww how sad he went but I hope he did manage that for his tombstone. I for one would buy one for my own
So maybe the coffin shape was deliberate all along...
That or "Room for one more, honey!" (Twilight Zone - episode title '22', 1960)
95 is a helluva good run.
I'm amazed this video hasn't been tripped up by copyright matches. The quality of the reproduction is astounding!
I read this before watching. Now this comment is hilarious lol
@@rockerseven Same 😂
The idea of Banjo Pete's Greatest Hits being on Spotify is hilarious to me.
I made a "Steampunk record player" as a joke (that almost no one got). Literally a steam engine powered record player playing the Sex Pistols God save the Queen. Badly. You can find it on UA-cam. Sounds about as good as this and I got hit by a copyright match!
@@asciimation - Hilarious, thanks for that... but your Steampunk God Save the Queen is squeaky clean compared to this abomination. As a live sound & recording engineer, I was genuinely horrified by the Mighty Tiny. I felt like my ears were watching the most terrifying horror movie in human history...
I liked the fact that you could play the entirety of the records without any chance of hitting a copyright strike.
No Wow & Flutter measurements? 😊
>100% wow & flutter. 😆
and infinite harmonic distortion.
That tap on the lid with the deadpan face! 😂😂😂😂😂 Never change, Mat! 😂😂😂
Also, one of the many good things about this channel is how Mat always predicts the weird questions we might have about the stuff he shows us, like how the vinyl sounds on a regular player. My Saturday lunch is always a blast with these videos to keep me company! 😀
Yeah, Mat surely knows his audience by now :D
Saved me having to leave a comment. But now I've gone and left one anyway. Dang it all!
@@Robert08010 We all gotta do our part to help with the algorithm! 😊👍
I think that if Mat didn't tap it and we only got that half a second of noise, combined with Mat's deadpan expression, it would make the ending even more hilarious 😅
@Techmoan
I actually had one of those. Grandmother gifted it and she included 5 sets of the records. When new out of the package, the sound was audible and we readily hear what was intended to be played. Sadly, due to the cheapness of the mechanism, it degraded quickly. The model you have uses a metal stylus, mine was plastic. You did bangup job getting it working again! And solids props for thinking up a way to sample the recordings from the discs. Thank You doing this one! Took me back to a time in life I had forgotten. I'll raise a toast to you, Cheers!
It has to be that warm analogue sound that vinyl enthusiasts always rave about.
Which is why they're listed on Discogs.
Yes, "warm", in the way a friction burn is "warm"...
What a super cool yet horrid little thing. Love it.
Definitly needed a wind up key on the outside like the old Disney player had.
@@chinabluewho that would have been perfect.
The fact that the image stuck with you for a decade and your only concern was getting a hold of one is just one of the many reasons I love this channel
This is easily one of your most hilarious video, the creepy art, the awful sound, what an memorable "HiFry" experience! 😄
But what's more impressive is that with your usual care and dedication, even for the ugliest device, you managed to get some nearly usable sound.
Thanks for the laugh! 🙂
That's why I adore this channel. The care that goes into these videos, even for crappiest of gadgets, is awesome.
Don’t know if these have already been mentioned here: I had a laughing bag in the 70s, which was essentially the same kind of set up. I was thrilled to discover that the record - clear vinyl, no less - could be flipped over. The ‘B’ side was a female take on the more familiar laugh track used for standard laughing bags. I’ve yet to track another one down, it’s always the male version.
Was that those things which had a pull-cord to activate them? I remember seeing them, but never had my own! The sound was very similar to these records!
Had one myself when I was young around the late 70s / early 80s. Was the male version. I do remember taking it apart and seeing the clear disc but don't remember a female version. Long time ago and it's all a bit vague now 😊
Was it that thing used by Nicolson Joker?
That's one way to avoid copyright strikes! Imagine what vocals would have sounded like.
Pretty amazing how far we've come in terms of personal music just within our lifetimes, or our parent's lifetimes. We went from "here's a novel thing: listen to 15 seconds of horrible quality music in a bulky plastic coffin" to "1000 songs in your pocket" to now, listen to basically any music at any time from anywhere, in pristine quality as good as your sound equipment can support. I'm not sure there's much farther we can go with it now, short of beaming music directly into your brain.
And brain-music beaming is probably on the way in our lifetimes, too! 😂
I'm not so sure about the "pristine quality as good as your sound equipment can support" about streaming, bro
For most people at most ages that is true.
@@martinkfStreaming is not a measurement of audio quality.
@@martinkfUnless the streaming service supports "lossless" audio quality (such as Tidal or Apple Music). Not sure if it's really loseless sonce I haven't had either...
Well it definitely holds the title for "Worst Audio quality in the world".
Oh how I wish that were true.
I've seen some systems that would compete on that score.
Oh I don’t know, the Crosley record players give it a close run for it’s money.
The problem is that he didn't shave off the outer edge of the little records, of course that will make the audio quality worse
This is strikingly similar to one of those early record-playing voice boxes used in talking toys (end even in some of the cars made by Datsun) before electronics took over. Of course, in this design the record is easily interchangeable.
There were actually dolls for little girls in the 70's that contained small records, where you pulled a cord to wind up a spring, and they played sound effects from the little disk, fully analog, similar mechanism to this. The sounds were the doll crying, laughing etc...
Same as my Palitoy action man talking commando.
_”ENEMY TANKS APPROACHING!!!”_
And the Talking Dalek! My brother had a talking police car, and there were several "radio backpacks" for Action Man. I think all of these were Palitoy.
Yes, i've seen similar mechanisms in toys. Good old days!
Indeed, seen channels like MyMateVince disassemble and repair a number of those, as well as newer mechanisms. Those 'talking doll' mechanisms are pretty amazing insights in how far technology was being pushed at the time for what would have been very affordable toys. My favourite part about those mechanisms was how they managed to pick a random sound sample from the record with each pull. It's a toy, but it can still be genius.
there was also a Dalek toy that worked the same way, recording of Exterminate etc
“What’s the wow and flutter level?”
“Yes”
😅
At the end of 80's a neighbor's daughter had a doll that could sing. But it broke and she asked me to take a look. Imagine my shock when I opened the doll to find that it used a mini record player and a two side record to hold the song. When I turned the mini record the other side the doll sang a different song the girl had never heard before from that doll!
It was the only time I saw a mini record and player.
That speed control is fascinating. I love "non component" bits like that. I dismantled a cheap milk frother where the switch was just a plastic pad that nudged a wire into the side of the motor housing, and this feels like the same spirit.
a record player for true audiophiles! sounds best with oxygen-free batteries :P
It's very good quality, but my sensitive ears do detect a trace of wow and flutter in the sound... I wish he'd hooked it up to the flutterometer so we could get a proper reading...
In an oxygen-free room.
yeah none of this digital crap you get these days
@@mrphlip Yeah, shame that he skipped that step!
It's incredible to see them working on a full sized player!
Matt, you never disappoint in making lemonade out of lemons when it comes to showcasing fascinating yet utterly mediocre products from a bygone era. Cheers mate!
Just when you think there couldn’t be any other interesting formats to have a look at - Techmoan pulls this thing out of history! Thanks!
This is so cool! I love that it can make sounds that somewhat kind of resemble music if you had perhaps some sort of horrific ear-related injury
In the USA we had the "Close & Play" record player in the 1960s. It was essentially the exact same thing as this little gizmo, but it played regular 45 RPM singles, and ran on two D cells, if memory serves...and (naturally) it was physically larger. It has a speed control also - just a simple rheostat.
Kenner's "Close 'n Play". Here's a 1967 commercial for them:
ua-cam.com/video/5leJf3JunWo/v-deo.html
My mom said we had one, and she knew where I was from the playing of records of the close & play.
The quality was surprisingly good through a modern record player! Silly device, but I like it.
Never thought I'd see the day where my passion for playing the Banjo and for watching videos on obscure vintage tech would appear but as usual Techmoan delivers! Thanks for this absolute treat! :-)
Matt, you have your low-key comedy chops nailed to the floor. Excellent work, good sir.
When I was about 7, my older sister (about 22) , bought a doll from a co-worker and it talked. It has the same mechanism in it as you've shown here.
They always sounded like that. Being the smart kid that I was, I opened up that doll as soon as I heard it. I was amazed that it had a record player in it. Everyone teased that I was a boy playing with dolls. But it was 1964 and GI Joe wasn't prominent yet. And I found a doll with a record player in it.
It eventually led to my career as a communication technician.
That's a good point. Matt should probably look at some of these mechanisms.
A tiny coffin that reproduces the sound of souls in sorrow trapped in little discs
The Techmoan Museum has to be a thing in the future with all these items you have collected.
Flippin' 'eck. Yes, we need that!
I'd go!
We need to crowdfund!
If not crowd funded at least curated. I'm sure there is a university somewhere near to him with the proper facilities and means to search and use the original to (reverse engineer, etc) in the future.
Dunno, Sam Battle might have got in early with the Furby organ and taken that spot?
There is no way any of that would get a copyright match. It was hardly recognizable. You always show the best worst stuff.
I was so hoping you would try to play it on a normal record player and (assuming the record player isn't fast enough) digitally speed it up. And you did! ❤
I just wanted to say, I really appreciate the effort you put into your videos. I'm sure applies to most of the people watching your videos. Thanks for showing interesting little things from the past, in such detail.
I love those high end audio gear videos! There's something special about the art and craftsmanship that goes into these kinds of devices. The engineering is driven by the enthusiasm for fine audio. The music they're producing has a special warmth, that simply couldn't be replicated by modern digital media.
Like fingernails on a blackboard!
My sarcasm detector just exploded 😂😂
I finally understand what all those audiophiles have been talking about, it's magical!
Repent and put your trust in Jesus.
We've all sinned and deserve Hell.
Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected, defeating death and sin.
Since we broke the law, Jesus paid our fine. Since he paid it, we can be let go.
We must repent and trust in Jesus to be saved.
Revelation 21:8
Romans 3:23
John 3:16
Romans 6:23
1 Corinthians 15:3,4
Revalation 3:20
Romans 10:13❤❤❤😊
fun fact: the etch a sketch had better quality audio than the mighty tiny
It's possibly the worst sound of anything ever made to produce sound. Good find!
Truly amazed they manage to capture the sound of a wind up flash light onto a tiny plastic record disc.
Truly a hall of fame episode of Techmoan. Loved it.
Child of the fence?
Would have been interesting to see a wow and flutter measurement!
The needle of the meter would probably bend or fall off, or both. 🥴
It would probably be better than those suitcase record players being sold everywhere.
Back in the early 50's Noma Plastics produced a train station sized for O gauge model trains that played 3 inch 78 rpm records announcing train departures. Both steam and diesel sound records came with the unit. It used 2 D cells for rotational power and had an acoustic reproducer with a steel needle that could be replaced.
Zero chance of any content matches here!!
Laughed so hard at the analogy between the box and a coffin 🤓
I admire how passionate you are in doing all the research you do and how generous in sharing the results
As always thank you so much Mat
me too , hahahahh !!!!😆
All I can think is, "lol, what a piece of crap" (and yes, I was actually laughing).
It's something that kids would get a blast out of, but would annoy the living daylights out of any parents listening to the same 15 seconds over and over and over and over and over ... and over and over and over and over...
I had that very gadget in the early 1970s. The record I remember played "Turkey in the Straw" (which you can see with the little girl and wagon wheel cover and which our friend Techmoan demonstrates). How nice to see it and hear it again!
Did it sound better? This one is old, I doubt its representative of the sound of a new device.
Do you remember if it sounded better when new? 😂
i had one as well, i just commented turkey in the straw was also my favorite.
@@bojcio i dont know if this will help but the sound was about as good as a cheap pocket am transistor radio.
@@roby827 I had the same, it sounded MUCH better (I mean not like a real record, but like a bad transistor radio)
13:35 listen to those lovely warm tones. Vinyl's superior sound quality shines through yet again.
The 1982 Nissan 200SX and likely a few other nissans at the time had a tiny record player mounted behind the passenger seat that played announcement about seat belts, low oil, and other important items. At the time I found it to be pretty cool.
Despite the creepiness of the presentation and overall results, that little player is surprisingly well engineered!
Thank you, that was my thought as well. I'd say ot was also build quite well considering it was at one point nothing more than a Toy...
Fits the Addam's family theme, maybe it was renamed at the last minute. Would explain the coffin shape...
You should take a look at FranLab repairing her Pee-Wee Herman talking doll. Similar stylus and diaphragm, but it ran off a string in the back that needed flywheels and whatnot to regulate the speed as it retracted. It also somehow managed to randomize which phrase it played all with mechanical parts stuffed inside a doll.
After looking at the creepy girl in the picture and the coffin shape of the record player, I was hoping he he’d play some the the records backwards so we could see if a hole in the ground revealing the pity’s of hell opens up.👹👺👿🔥🪦🕳️⚰️
If this was made out of higher quality materials it would have become famous.
I feel like the engineers efforts were wasted on a penny pinching company which just wanted a disposable cheap toy.
It would be kind of interesting to see what kind of precision engineering could achieve in this form factor in the modern day.
What, like a mini disk?
I'll bet you could 3D print most of that and get it working!
@@mandowarrior123 Yeah I kinda realise that was the end goal, or those mini hard drives ipods had. But I was thinking analogue audio.
Well, back in the day there was Nagra SN which wasn't a vinyl player but got to similarly impressive form factors
Imagine what the 3d printed record surface would sound like with 90% wow and flutter.@@paulwilson6357
Hilarious. I love how every record sounds fundamentally the same! Well done for bringing it back to life.
Even as a 'Child of the 70's', i'm pretty sure i'd have been disappointed with that horrific noise as a 6yr old... 🙉😂
That tap on the lid at the end was just the icing on the cake.
Brilliant.
My cousin had a doll in the 1980th that used little Records for some Sound. You could open the back and there was the Record Player.
This is amazing. It's got the highest jank:mass ratio of any device I've ever seen.
This is similar to the “record player” mechanism found in the Talking Commando Action Man (or GI Joe in the US?)
When I took mine apart the tiny record system was surprisingly similar to this tiny disc thing.
Great video as per usual.
Yeah, knew they were aimed at boys too, not like someone else ,said girls, didn't think they discriminated ,on making cash 😂
P.s. thanks as thought I was going crackers, as I did grow up with sisters only 😢
Yes! My sister had a doll of Ariel from The Little Mermaid that sang when you pulled a string in its back. There were many other similar toys (eg Woody from Toy Story) and I think they used a similar mechanism.
Mine got used rather a lot. I do have some of the Action Man adventures on cassette still!@@wayne7521
@@wayne7521 indeed. Corporations love their filthy lucre. That’s why our rivers are currently filled with ton after ton after ton of -rotten shite- excess floodwater 😂
Your videos never fail to impress.
Brilliant as always Mat
Thank you for covering this piece of high end, state of the art audio engineering. It is really a shame that so many people do not know what they are missing out on. Why mess around with silver cables when perfection has clearly already been achieved?
Well put Ox, well put! I couldn't have said it any better myself, good sir! 😉🧐
I remember visiting my grandfather, and coming across an old doll that must have belonged to my mom or my aunt. I noticed it had a velcro seam on its back, which I opened. The thing I saw inside was something not unlike a small pink record player with discs as big as the ones you're showing. I had seen "pull-string" crying babydolls, but I never knew how they worked. Apparent this is how.
8-Bit guy goes over those in a video about speech synthesizers. ua-cam.com/video/XsMRxNSDccc/v-deo.htmlsi=mTAdX1cPhvKCxI4t&t=121
wow
I was going to comment on the same context. My sister had a gorilla soft toy with a pull string. Inside was a little box and inside that had a tiny record with a plastic diaphragm speaker and a tiny point for a stylus. I mean... Hey It worked until the cord snapped! Audio quality was not too important. It had 3 sayings on the record each time you pulled the cord to wind it up. Very similar construction, I'm sure he got the idea from such a mechanism.
When I was a child a friend of mine had the mighty tiny record player and we also went to the school together and we listened to the mighty tiny record player after school one day after Xmas vacation.
I don't know that I've ever been so let down and yet enthused by the sound of one of these devices you show off! 😆
That zoom in on the packaging with the horror music spike was excellent!
the colors of that machine remind me of a toy i used to have, but i dont remember what it was. it was a rectangle i think
I have some of these mini records from when I worked at Woolies in the early seventies. I managed to play them on a laughing bag machine which runs at the same speed, I still have it and yes it still works!
reportedly, Frank Zappa wanted to release Alice Cooper's first record in this format, with one song per side and a stack of discs for the whole album in a little cylindrical tin with a pull-top. The lack of players in people's homes was an issue that helped cancel that.
He also wanted to release something on PlayTapes, he loved technology and was the first guy to have a fully stocked digital recording studio. Many of his recordings are at risk now from incompatible playback systems and redundant digital technology, so the effort continues to transfer archived material safely.
Official release #126 was released recently, and it goes on...
This brings back memories of being a lad and taking my sister's talking doll to bits. The mechanism was pull-string and clock spring instead of motor driven, but for voice only I recall the sound quality wasn't horrible - certainly no worse than one would find in a 'talking fish' or similar modern novelties. To this day I use it as an example of engineering elegance.
Thoroughly enjoyable video!
The horror of the box matches the horror of the sound quality :)
Absolutely brilliant! Why we moved beyond this and into digital audio is beyond me! That warm, soothing vinyl sound cannot be replicated 😊 (insert sarcastic emoji here) Cheers Matt!
Albums with less than 25% wow and flutter are passe these days.
And thát ladies and gentlemen is the reason why Techmoan clearly is the upper class when you keep thinking during the first half of the video.... " I hope he is going to find a way to play these records in a better capable system and 'brush' them up in audacity" ... 19:40 mins ...This guy always delivers. 🎉
If someone had the skills and the inclination, they could make a much better device for playing these records back, with a better speed control and so on. I think the little records and their tiny album covers are the real treasure here. RIP Don Poynter. (Also 15:07 WTH?! I knew I sucked at Etch-a-Sketch but that makes me feel like a completely useless fool to even try)
There are plenty of talented Etch-a-Sketch artists. Jane Labowitch (Princess Etch) is one example of modern Etch-a-Sketch masters and you can find plenty of her great works online. 😊
The image looks like it was drawn by hand with a pencil, it's impossible to draw that floating cloud in a etch a sketch
It shows that stereo reproduction isn't needed for life-like realism. If you recreate the subtle nuances in the original performance -- ones lost in the digital domain -- the material creates its own 3D soundstage.
I'm so happy that you tried playing it on a regular player.
You even thought of speeding it up was about to suggest that but hay no need.
Great video as always.
When I was a kid, my sister had a doll that could say something, or sing, and I vaguely remember one day I took it apart (I used to do that to all my toys to find out how they worked) and there was a tiny record player inside it, and it didn't seem to be an electronic device, it looked like it was purely mechanical. After many decades, I started to wonder whether I hadn't imagined or dreamed up the whole situation, and now, thanks to your video, I see that is a real memory, not a figment of my childish imagination!
You should try and find that doll again that would be cool
The old talking GI Joes had the same thing
I, too, tore all my toys apart to see how they worked. My fave was the "speak n play" things that were round with a carrying handle on top and a pull string to make it work that housed a tiny recordplayer and the "record" had many lead-in grooves so when you pointed the arrow at the corresponding picture on the toy it would set the needle for that groove! Of course i tore the recordplayer out and had more fun watching it work than playing with the actual toy itself, lol!
The Dismal Suits™ of the music industry should be finding a way to demonetize you in 3... 2... 1...
🙂Great fun as always, Matt - Thank you!
Wow, I remember desperately wanting one of those when I was five or six years old.
Recently recalling that memory I thought maybe I had dreamed it up, never having seen one since.
I see now that it was a real thing, and I must have seen it advertised somewhere way back then.
At about that time I was given a crystal radio instead which probably set me on my life path in electronics.
Thanks for the video.
As a kid back in the '60s, I really wanted the 'Honor House battery-operated movie-projector' I saw advertised in the back of comic-books and other publications. I finally saw one at a flea-market several years ago. What a piece of junk!
There was a little bit of wow and flutter. Did anybody else notice?
That's the sound that dreams are made of. Bad ones. Where youre being chased by horror creatures and scary machete clowns.
As always, thanks for a fun and interesting review Mat!!
Worse than that: Banjo clowns
@@st0rmforce ... With bagpipes. Still, I think I'd rather get hot over the head by a banjo.... But I'd rather listen to a machete.... Hmmm tough choices.
Or turn it around and use it as a burglar repellent. It would spook the hell out of them.
Thank god for contact cleaner, or we wouldn't have gotten to hear that lovely piece by Banjo Pete!
That version of Dixie at 13:33 is the best rendition of that song ever recorded.
It’s like the sound a saloon band would have after getting blown up in a Looney Tunes short
I along with others appreciate you mounting the records on a turntable and playing them so we could hear them a bit better. Earlier I kept expecting you to pull out your little scale and measuring how many grams effective force that stylus pressed against the records!
But then, when the device started to play... just like parents in the 1970s, we were thankful for its blessedly short playing time!
I was prepared for horrible sound quality but man not that bad :) hilarious video
The case remains me of the shape of a 1930s microphone , and if nothing else it proves we were easily entertained back then . Being a product of the early 50s , I had to make do with a spud gun and two bake bean tins and a length of string . 😂. What a wonderful channel this is and how it can evoke such childhood memories . Best wishes and kind regards
Reminds me of the laughing/crying doll my sister had in the early eighties.
That had a tiny record player inside, very similar to this, with laughing and gurgling happy baby sounds on a loop on one side of the disk and crying sounds on the other.
I still have my early-1970s Walking Wendy doll, with a little record player in its body. I have one of the records too, but the player is broken.
There were also toys circa 1970's with a pull cord or windup mechanism which played a few seconds of sound when operated. Inside there's a tiny record player mechanism with one record permanently fitted and working on the same principle as this.
Your mention of that brought back an early childhood memory. I remember having a toy as a kid, also a novelty item like this, of a similar nature. It was a "bag of laughs", a small canvas bag which, when you shook it (or pushed a button on the thing inside, I don't quite remember), would emit a sound byte of cartoonish laughter. Inside was a plastic contraption containing a battery and a small electrical record player. The record was quite thick and two sided, so it could be flipped around. The other side of it contained a sound byte of birds chirping.
That's how the Fisher-Pice "See N Say" worked as well. "The cow says.."
"There's a snake in my boot"
What all records sound like to CD enthusiasts: 11:39
How can something be so awful and so wonderful at the same time? Thank you for sharing I loved this video!