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The Omni 2 is a 32-song ice cream truck music box manufactured by Nichols Electronics.
Background[]
To date, Nichols Electronics is the only manufacturer of ice cream truck music boxes that is still in business,[1] since 1957.[2] It is based in Richfield, Minnesota and was founded by Bob Nichols, who was also the owner until his death on April 2nd, 2003.[3][4] The company is currently owned by Bob's son, Mark Nichols, and Mark's wife, Beth Nichols.[5]
On July 16th, 2018,[6] the Omni 2 was released to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original Omni.[7] It is the first music box to not feature any new songs but rather reuse songs from past music boxes. The lists of songs for all 3 versions can be seen here.
Version 2[]
On June 15th, 2020, the company announced the discontinuation of the use of "Turkey in the Straw" for their music boxes. As a result, 11 days later, on June 26th, the list of songs was updated, resulting in the discontinuation of the first version of the Omni 2.[6] For the second version: On Channel 1, "Turkey in the Straw" from the Digital II was replaced with "London Bridge (is Falling Down)" from the original Omni. On Channel 2, the Mark Series version of the song was replaced with "The Band Played On" from the same series. On August 14th, Nichols Electronics announced that a new jingle, simply called the "Good Humor Jingle," created by American rapper RZA and produced by ice cream brand Good Humor would be featured on their music boxes. However, the Omni 2 was not mentioned in the announcement and to date, the song list on their website remains unchanged. On August 20th,[6] a third version of the Omni 2 was released, resulting in the discontinuation of the second version. For the third version: On Channel 1, song 1 is now the new "Good Humor Jingle" by RZA, moving "Picnic" from the Omni to song 2 and "Greensleeves," also from the Omni to song 15, removing "London Bridge," also from the Omni entirely. However, Channel 2 remains unchanged from version 2.
Trivia[]
- This is the first Nichols Electronics music box of several things:
- The first music box since the original Digital that is brown and a color other than black, although there are also black and blue versions of the original Digital.
- The first and only multi-song music box that does not have songs supplied by a melody generator, but rather by a microSD card with .wav files.
- The first multi-song music box that has songs from the Mark Series.
- For Versions 1 and 2: The first multi-song music boxes that do not feature any new songs.
- The first and only multi-song music box that reuses songs from older music boxes.
- The first and only multi-song music box that had its song list changed during production.
- For Version 3: The first and only multi-song music box that features a song not supplied by Nichols Electronics, but rather by RZA and Good Humor.
- Several of the song titles are shortened:
- "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is shortened to "Twinkle, Twinkle."
- "The Entertainer" is shortened to "Entertainer."
- "The More We Get Together" is shortened to "Get Together."
- "In My Merry Oldsmobile" is shortened to "Merry Oldsmobile."
- "Daisy Bell" is shortened to "Daisy."
- "La Cucaracha" on the Digital II was re-recorded for this music box. The song is played at a lower speed and the loop starts at the verse instead of the chorus.
- Judging by the sound quality, the Mark Series songs are taken from three different sources: One source has "The Band Played On," "Yankee Doodle," and "The Yankee Doodle Boy," another source has "Bicycle Built for Two (Daisy Bell)," and another source has the rest of the songs.
- From 1994 to 2007, Nichols competed against a much less successful manufacturer, Magic-Box.
Goofs[]
Website
- In the title for "Picnic," there is an extra space between "(Hello)" and "(Omni)."
- For "The More We Get Together," there is no space between "7)" and "Get."
- "Für" in "Für Elise" is misspelled as "Fur."
- "Red Wing" is misspelled as "Redwing."
- "Bridge" in "London Bridge" is plural (Bridges), when it should be singular.
- The apostrophe in "Brahms" is between the "m" and "s"; it should be after the "s."
- Despite "La Cucaracha" being re-recorded, the song preview remains unchanged.
Music Box
- The Digital version of "Home on the Range" and all of the Digital II songs except "Brahms' Lullaby" and "Sailing, Sailing" are poorly looped due to the trimming of the audio. This is due to the use of the Digital II song previews for the music box instead of re-recordings of the songs, except "La Cucaracha."
- The first note of "Red Wing" is barely included.
- The last note of "Camptown Races" is missing.
- The last note of "The Entertainer" is heard twice, at the beginning and end of the loop. This also happens with "Turkey in the Straw" on the first version.
- On Channel 1, when the song is changed to "Little Brown Jug" (Digital II), after the first loop of the song plays, there is a noticeable one-second delay before the second loop. From the second loop onwards, there is no delay.
- The Mark Series versions of "The Entertainer" and "Little Brown Jug" are pitch bent throughout.