Steve Harder requested information about our roll cutting.  I initially
started to reply directly to him, but since others may be interested, I
decided to reply to his request via the list.

My wife Janet and I do business as Custom Music Rolls.  We offer a
manufacturing capability to individuals who want rolls cut for sale
under their own label.  We generally prefer to cut 20 or more copies of
a given roll, but offer pricing for fewer copies.  We do not maintain
an inventory of rolls to sell at retail.  You may contact us directly
at (214) 235-4497 or by e-mail for more information.

I designed and built the roll reader and punch and wrote the programs
that control them, but since I have a full time day-job I don't take a
very direct role in their routine operation. Janet operates the
equipment on a nearly full-time basis.  She typically has a backlog of
several months production.

The machines operate on standard rolls with up to 100 channels spaced
nine per inch on 11.25 inch width paper.  This specification includes
Ampico A and B, Welte Licensee, Recordo, and 88-note rolls.  We have
also manufactured rolls for certain orchestrions that use the same
paper width and hole spacing.

The reader has a 100 hole tracker bar connected to 100 vacuum operated
switches.  Paper tension is maintained by separate torque motors on the
supply and takeup spools.  The paper is advanced by capstan rollers
which generate a clock signal each time the paper has advanced the
selected distance.  This triggers the input circuit to sample the state
of the switches.  The reader program reads the switch state and
generates a perforator control file.  The file records a start and stop
event for each hole but does not preserve chain bridging or any visual
information from the roll.

Alternately, a roll perf file can be created from a MIDI file by a
conversion program.  This approach was used for John Grant's series of
Bolcom's Ghost Rags.

A roll perf file can be displayed and edited, and can subsequently be
punched or be converted to MIDI files by piano emulation.  This roll
reader was used for the conversion of the rolls used for creating the
compact disk "Gershwin Plays Gershwin - The Piano Rolls".  A piano
emulation program by Richard Brandle created the initial MIDI files for
the CD from the perf files.

The punch operates at 15 steps per second.  The paper advance is about
44 steps per inch.  The punch is controlled by another computer, which
reads the roll file from the disk and generates punch control signals
synchronized with the rotation of the main shaft on the punch.  At the
end of the roll, the computer turns the punch off.  The punch is
normally attended only during startup, then the room lights are turned
off and the punch is abandoned to complete the roll in the dark.