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POP couner on rockola 456
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:17 am
by adwatda
Looking for someone to explain purpose of pop counter. Just got the 456 and am trying to decipher all inards!
Re: POP couner on rockola 456
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 2:14 pm
by DRebber
The POP counter recorded how many times (relatively) a particular selection was played. The "jukebox man" could quickly decide which records were not as POPular and trade them for new releases. Push the button in the middle to reset...
More often than not, the barmaid at the location would tell you which ones to either keep or discard. You can bet your life that it was VERY important to keep that barmaid H-A-P-P-Y. She usually coaxed the male clientele into coughing up some change for the jukebox.
Respectfully,
David
Re: POP couner on rockola 456
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:03 pm
by adwatda
Thanks David. It appeared that was what it was doing but that seemed too simple! Have a great day!!
Don
Re: POP couner on rockola 456
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 3:56 pm
by DoghouseRiley
Actually it's just as useful for "home users."
We all get to the stage where we'd have to take something out to put in a new record.
But we don't want to take out any of our "favourites" do we?
So it sometimes becomes a hard choice.
A glance at the popularity counter, will always reveal that some records aren't as much of a "favourite" of ours as we thought they were.
Re: POP couner on rockola 456
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:58 pm
by Ken Layton
Our jukebox routemen were instructed to swap out the least played records for the new releases. However, the boss always said to listen to the barmaids too because they knew what the customers were playing and what they didn't like.
Re: POP couner on rockola 456
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 7:13 pm
by Ron Rich
In commercial use, a "fine line" must be walked between what a bar employee says they "don't like" as that's usually the best "money maker" on the jukebox ! And YOUR customer is the one dropping coins in it !
I used to tell them that they were not there to get "tired" of a record that was making money----and point out that the could "control" their customers so that they did not hear the song during their shift-- Ron Rich
Re: POP couner on rockola 456
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 2:35 pm
by DRebber
@Ron -
That made me think of a story. I started in coin-op by working at a gameroom in the 70's. We had a kid that would play "Brick House" by the Commodores every time he came in. He once complained to me that the juke cheated him out of one of his songs. It turned out that he had selected "Brick House" back to back before the record played the first time. After I explained it to him and suggested he play two DIFFERENT songs, he had an epiphany. He would just play "Brick House" and wait on it to start playing, then punch it in again. "Brick House" - Back to Back.
That record was 'mysteriously' broken by the mechanism later that month....
To this day, I still cringe when I hear the first few bars of that song. ROFLMAO
David