Steve Marx said "I'm seeking information on piano roll perforators
of any type.  Are there plans that can be bought?  Photos?  Are there
any roll copiers?  Is there anyone building perforators?  I would
appreciate any information."

For a few months I have been punching my own 20-note paper rolls
for the John Smith 20er Organ.  I am using a home-built traditionally
styled one-hole foot operated punch, guiding the paper by hand.  I am
arranging my source materials on a computer using MIDI programs, then
printing strips using the Midiboek program.  An article "Hand Punching
My Own Rolls from Midiboek Templates" appears in the April 2008 issue
of the COAA magazine, "The Carousel Organ."  A synopsis of the concept
is on http://www.wallace-venable.name/mechanical-music/Punch.htm

Before you say "but that's not what I meant" (and you said _any_
information) let me point out that it only took about a day or two
of actual work to build it, not a year or two as is generally the
case with "serious" computer controlled perforators.

If your desire is to punch a small number of very customized rolls,
hand punching is probably faster than investing the time and/or money
needed to build an automated punch.  With a $100 MIDI keyboard and
a computer you could generate a file for almost any piece (assuming
you have a keyboardist) and then use Piet Paardekam's "Midiboek"
program to print the template.

Alternately, you can scan sheet music and process it with something like
Neuratron's PhotoScore http://www.neuratron.com/photoscore.htm  I've
used PhotoScore Lite to produce the base file for several of my tunes.

Manual punching turns out to be a lot faster than I expected.  With
20-note organ rolls selling at about $1 per foot, I could possibly earn
about $10 to $15 per hour by manually punching three layers.  Remember
that until recently almost all band organ rolls were manually punched
at a profit.  My goal, however, is to have unique music, not to earn
gas money.

Of course if your plan is to rip off cheap copies of the massive
collection of scanned rolls, this is not the route you want to take.

Wallace Venable

 [ MMDigest articles about Midiboek are indexed at
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Archives/KWIC/M/midiboek.html
 [ -- Robbie