Yamaha built music sirens back in the 1950s as well. Since the Japanese public wanted to forget about the horrors of WW2, Yamaha sought to repurpose the common mechanical air raid siren into a musical device since loudspeakers weren’t a common thing yet.
4-10 electromechanical sirens representing each note of a scale were driven on a single driveshaft and each siren had an electromagnetic shutter that would open and close the ports where sound is emitted to play or silence the notes. A handful still survive and operate, though they’re sadly dwindling as Yamaha ceased supporting them a few decades ago.
Speaking of Japanese economic recovery post-WWII, Sony also has a wild story. Operating out of a derelict apartment store, they used to run a radio repair shop and make Rice Cookers (quite poorly I might add).
Then they got permission from some electronic transistor patent holders to fabricate their own semiconductors and created things such as megaphones, tape recorders, and eventually radios. Cheap Japanese transistor radios became a huge export.
Now they make stereos, headphones, cameras, televisions, 4k rectal endoscopes, printers, etc.
The music sirens almost sound like bagpipes, which actually makes sense. Pipes are meant to be loud as hell and bounce off of mountainous terrain hence their favoring in highlandic cultures from Brittain to Anatolia, while air raid sirens are meant to be loud as fuck cause that means somebody is about to drop a lot of explosives, fire, or a sun on ya.
Yamaha built music sirens back in the 1950s as well. Since the Japanese public wanted to forget about the horrors of WW2, Yamaha sought to repurpose the common mechanical air raid siren into a musical device since loudspeakers weren’t a common thing yet. 4-10 electromechanical sirens representing each note of a scale were driven on a single driveshaft and each siren had an electromagnetic shutter that would open and close the ports where sound is emitted to play or silence the notes. A handful still survive and operate, though they’re sadly dwindling as Yamaha ceased supporting them a few decades ago.
Tour of a first generation music siren, siren activates at 4:46
Speaking of Japanese economic recovery post-WWII, Sony also has a wild story. Operating out of a derelict apartment store, they used to run a radio repair shop and make Rice Cookers (quite poorly I might add).
Then they got permission from some electronic transistor patent holders to fabricate their own semiconductors and created things such as megaphones, tape recorders, and eventually radios. Cheap Japanese transistor radios became a huge export.
Now they make stereos, headphones, cameras, televisions, 4k rectal endoscopes, printers, etc.
You had to slide that endoscope in there, did you?
Somebody has to do it.
Huh, that’s actually kinda cool.
The music sirens almost sound like bagpipes, which actually makes sense. Pipes are meant to be loud as hell and bounce off of mountainous terrain hence their favoring in highlandic cultures from Brittain to Anatolia, while air raid sirens are meant to be loud as fuck cause that means somebody is about to drop a lot of explosives, fire, or a sun on ya.