Coupling of pickup arm housing to a slow moving belt for translational motion during record playback is controlled by a play solenoid, while coupling to a fast moving belt for fast forward and reverse motions is controlled by respective forward and reverse solenoids. Player includes manually actuated push button controls for play, forward search, reverse search, pause, reject and power on/off functions. Mechanism actuated switches include a land switch actuated when pickup location is over beginning of recorded information, a travel limit switch actuated when pickup location is beyond ending of recorded information, and a rest switch placed in one switching condition when housing returns to an off-record rest position.