Chaining Patterns
By Dave Saul
I'd like to offer a few comments about chaining patterns, the topic that Spencer Chase brought up in yesterday's digest.
We all know that chaining of some kind is necessary. Roll makers undoubtedly learned very early that long slots couldn't be trusted to deliver the desired results when passing over tracker bars.
We also need to recognize that the bridging in a particular track is governed to some degree by size of the associated tracker bar opening, which can be, and often is, different beyond the regular note playing part of the scale.
Tracker bars with elongated holes, a category which often includes the sustain pedal on 88-note pianos, can utilize a physically stronger pattern, with longer bridges, and still achieve the desired result of keeping the hole sufficiently open to overcome bleed action as long as the perforated chain continues. Such a pattern can be made by leaving a greater number of "skip" operations between the "punch" operations.
Beyond that, the editor can be creative. within certain limits imposed by paper advance and punch size. Reproducing pianos (other than Welte and Artecho) generally have some extended holes at both ends of their respective tracker bars. The Duo-Art theme and accompaniment tracks, for example, often stay open for long periods of time and need to be perforated so that their bridging is stronger than that used for notes.
The Ampico has openings of different lengths for the slow and fast crescendos, and also for the soft and sustain pedals. The chaining pattern should be, and usually is, designed to maximize paper strength while still achieving the desired result of allowing extended notes (or marginal tracks) to be held as long as may be required.
The chaining patterns of "old" rolls also have historical importance. They provide valuable clues to those of us who study rolls to observe the evolutionary changes in perforator technology and editing techniques. Ampico rolls are particularly revealing when one studies the "signatures" of the various equipment used in the production and editing processes. Certain changes were introduced, for example, when Charles F. Stoddard's automatic stencil machine came on-line.
Some very subtle changes are noticeable even during the years when the Ampico automatic machine was in routine use. These differences may be attributable to changes in the stencil machine's valve system. Very early Ampico rolls have a distinctive signature, and late Ampico rolls perforated on converted Duo-Art equipment have quite different patterns than the issues of a few years earlier.
We should not leave the subject of perforation patterns without comment- ing on Frank Milne's assignment of special patterns to the melody notes of popular rolls which he edited. These are found on both Duo-Art and Ampico rolls, and usually initiate melody notes directly with a "punch two, skip two" pattern instead of the usual leading slot. There is no easy way of knowing whether other editors may have also picked up on this technique, but Milne appears to have originated the idea at Aeolian well before the merger.
In wider perspective, it also seems likely that various roll makers might have set up uniform editing standards for their respective products, specifying which chaining patterns were to be used.
Dave Saul
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(Message sent Tue 25 Mar 1997, 04:34:03 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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