Hi, there, Robbie:

I have been following the discussion about Mark Fontana's project with
interest.  One of the things that caught my eye is your suggestion, and the
following discussion, about the special requirements for making rolls,
deriving fundamentally from the relatively coarse punch advance of paper
rolls.

As you know, I have developed a method for scanning rolls synchronously to
get the maximum possible accuracy.  This method effectively restores the
master roll, or what is the same thing, the perforator control file.  I
developed this method primarily for use with reproducing piano rolls, where
the timing is critical.  If you listen to a Licensee roll that has been
sampled asynchronously, and the same roll sampled synchronously, you will
notice a marked difference.  The articulation of the synchronously scanned
roll is greater, especially in passages where there is close coding for the
purpose of accents, or where the melody sings out over the accompaniment.

However, it turns out that synchronous scanning of rolls is equally
applicable to 88-note rolls, nickelodeon rolls, and other rolls that were
created mechanically for perforating with a relatively coarse punch advance.
 In these rolls, the number of punch steps per measure is a "round" number,
usually the product of small powers of 2 and 3.  QRS was especially fond of
using 48 punch steps per measure; Licensee preferred 72.  The QRS standard
allows the measure to be divided into half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth
notes exactly (with 24, 12, 6, and 3 punch steps, respectively).  The
Licensee standard allows for half, quarter, and eighth notes ( 36, 18, and 9
punch steps, respectively).  In addition, triplets are also possible, also
exactly.  Dotted figures are usually not perforated as written in score, but
rather as triplets; this reduces the harshness of the dotted figure.  Note
that as late as the 1950s it was traditional to play dotted figures as
triplets in the popular music of the time.

I have provided perforator control files for a QRS roll and a Licensee roll
through Foxtail.  These rolls illustrate the points above, and provide much
more information besides.  I hope the rolls will be useful to you and Mark,
and others who are actively engaged in creating rolls of new music.

Wayne Stahnke