The Side Man was the first commercial electronic
drum machine, designed and built by Wurlitzer from 1959. The
Sideman was intended as a percussive accompaniment for the Wurlitzers
organ range. The side Man allowed a choice of 12 electronically
generated predefined rhythm patterns with variable tempos. The
sound source was a series of vacuum tubes which created 10 preset
electronic drum sounds. The drum sounds were 'sequenced' by a
set of rotating discs with metal contacts on the edge spaced
in a certain pattern to generate parts of a particular rhythm.
combinations of these different sets of rhythms and drum sounds
created popular rhythmic patterns of the day -waltzes, fox trot
etc., these combinations were selected by a rotary knob on the
top of the Sideman box. The tempo of the patterns were controlled
by a slider that increased the speed of rotation of the disc.
The sideman had a panel of 10 buttons to manually trigger drum
sounds and a remote player to control the machine while playing
from an organ keyboard. The Sideman was housed in a wooden cabinet
that housed the sound generating circuitry, amplifier and speaker. |
