Hello everyone,  I was reading the latest Digest and there was some
talk of Seeburg KT's (the one in Mr. Masterman's collection and the one
in the Acme House).

I remember a passage in Treasures of Mechanical Music where they showed
a perfectly good way to tube a Seeburg KT Special, (bass drum or tam-
bourine, snare drum or wood block) and they turned it down, saying it
sounded like a mad drummer!  (The single valve for tympani, triangle,
and castanets might have caused this, though.)  And then they promptly
showed a "better" way to tube it.

I think that the tambourine sounds like a bass drum and cymbal (there
being a drum head and "cymbals" actually jingles), so it should be
tubed to the bass drum via multiplex switch.  The snare drum should be
tubed to the snare drum (both being reiterating and having the same
raspy tonal quality) via the multiplex switch.  That leaves the
triangle and castanets.

I have a CD of a Wurlitzer 165 band organ (called "Catch the Brass
Ring") that seems to play the triangle and castanets alternately with
the bass and snare drum respectively, and it sounds good!  The tympani
being like another bass drum, tube the triangle to it. (It seemed
always unfair to have one trap with a hole to itself. If Seeburg wanted
to do that, they could have provided four holes for traps as well as
the four holes for drums.)

The castanets seem to have run out of holes that would fit it (the
other tympani again sounding like the bass drum), so, you could make
a second multiplex switch and rig it to the sustain pedal, and then
have the triangle and castanets tubed to the bass and snare drum res-
pectively, or??

Sincerely,
Andrew Barrett

P.S.  The Seeburg KT should be tubed the same way, only don't bother
with the multiplex switch and tube the tambourine and castanets to the
bass and snare drum holes (respectively), and tube the triangle to
either one tympani, or to the triangle hole.