Jody:¶
Welcome back.  And what a load of mail in these last few digests.

A few thoughts:¶
Robbie mentions the Shaker chimes.  I recall seeing these performed at the
Circus World Museum in Baraboo Wisconsin.  The chimes numbered at least 25 and
were suspended on a rack.  They produced an etherial, charming sound.  I also
recall seeing a similar although perhaps home made version of shaker chimes
performed in the Santa Monica 2nd Street Promenade last year.  A busker (a
person who loves music more than money) had set up a similar rack and played
traditional pop songs on the instrument for change.  There's some fun stuff
going on in the 2nd Street Promenade and I've heard many talented performers
and unusual instruments played there.  Seems like a great place for a street
organ!

James Heyworth in his introduction mentions that he owns a Duo-Art with the
concertola feature and hopes one day to make the MIDI connection.  I've long
been considering ways to make digital scanning of paper rolls more available
to those of us who'd like to hear classic piano roll performances on MIDI
instruments.  In addition, a clock is ticking toward the ultimate
disintegration of many paper rolls.  There are at least a dozen in my
collection that that are in such brittle condition that I am saving that "one
last play" for a roll reading device to allow their preservation if only in a
digital format.

Optical scanning seems to be the best technical approach to paper roll
conversion to MIDI, but cost is prohibitive  -- several thousand dollars
minimum for a device with an acceptably high scan rate.  Electro-pneumatic
readers have been used with success by Wayne Stahnke and others yet are
limited by the tracker bar/reader as to which kinds of rolls they can read.
(Wayne certainly has done some excellent work with his.) Several folks have
equipped standard reproducing pianos with Pianomation or Piano Disc keyboard
recording strips allowing for MIDI conversions, but this records (for better
of worse) the individual piano's interpretation of the timing, intensity and
velocity encoded on the rolls.  This is the method that has been reportedly
used by Piano Disc for a number of their discs.

Mr. Heyworth may have come upon an excellent expedient solution.  The
Concertola converts paper roll data into electronic signals in a fairly
straight forward manner.  If a suitable MIDI conversion could be created, the
entire library of Duo-Art rolls could be MIDI encoded and processed through a
Duo-Art to MIDI emulator (Richard Brandle and other folks on this digest have
created such software).  As I recall, the Welte Mignon licensee system in its
late version also included a similar device.  This might also lead to the
conversion of some of those great Welte rolls to MIDI.

Does anyone else out there share my interest in accurately converting
reproducing rolls to MIDI?  Also would the concertola provide a more accurate
read than say the electro-pneumatic roll reader already in use by the
Tonnesons for their recut services?

Robbie, Richard, Jody -- any thoughts on this?

Best regards,

-- Marc Sachnoff