Wurlitzer SideMan - 1950s Tube Drum Machine

I remember being a kid playing with an organ (Kimball or Wurlitzer) and got it to play these rhythms...I wasn't really interrested in playing a song...just the beats. I always wondered how they did it.
I would agree...first drum machine.

Also, consider the story of Kraftwerks' first drum machine! (See monologue by Wolfgang? in Modulations, or some similar film.)

Great video, great extra info here.

I think I read It was nearby the "Keio railway line"

AHA! So this was the machine that inspired them?

So this, in a way, is an electro / mechanical KORG Electribe ER-1? ;-)

With it's drum patterns hard wired as dots of metal,
brushed by the rotary arm sensors?

Sound @ the beginning sounds a little like the old Salt N Pepa hit " Push It', just slightly slower. Cool little machine. Many of the old analog music makers were very clever; case in point the Hammond tone wheel. What a brilliant idea, & still very unique sounding!

I'm having a hard time figuring out which components make which noises. Does the spinning arm on the front shift provide the beats and the wheel on the back does the various shuffle-like sounds like the cymbals?

its sounds like a choo choo remix

How did it electrically generate sounds like the symbols that have a random -hiss- to it? You say it was generated, not prerecorded, right?

Is there a schematic of this device anywhere?

The rotor/motor almost appears like the one you'd find in an old electro-mechanical pinball machine. It looks identical.

That's *really* cool! Thanks for posting. What does it smell like? If it's anything like my old Hammond BCV, it's a combination of antique furniture and an old Indian motorcycle. Or, as a friend put it, "old electronics and cat turds"...

is this the instument used in Peking O by Can? and also on some parts of Dark Magus by miles davis?