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Roll Preservation
By Wayne Stahnke

From: Wayne Stahnke¶
Date: May 30, 1996

Dear Terry:

     I was pleased that you once again raised the issue of preserving
music rolls that, as you have pointed out for many years, are certain
to fail in the long run.  Your dedication to making sure that the
performances in these rolls will endure is heartening.

     As you know, I have been involved in an effort to locate and make
exact reads of Artrio-Angelus rolls, some of which are very scarce.
There is an imminent danger that many important performances will be
lost.

     I have learned through the grapevine that you have an important
collection of Artrio-Angelus rolls.  It would be extremely valuable to
have an inventory of your rolls, if for no other reason so that rare
performances could be located.  If you do not already have a list of
your Artrio-Angelus rolls, please take the hour or so required to make
one.  Your help in this matter is important.

Wayne Stahnke

 [ Editor's Note:
 [
 [ I'm going to stick my neck out here a little and possibly
 [ risk embarrassing Wayne.  My training is in electrical
 [ engineering and computer science.  Wayne and I have had
 [ several long discussions about his equipment and methodology.
 [ I consider Wayne the _GURU_ of accurate archival of music rolls.
 [
 [ He's also been generous with the results of his work.  He's
 [ posted a number of files to this group which are "reconstructed
 [ master rolls".  Some of you may have tried to look at these
 [ but found them too obscure.  To make them more understandable,
 [ Wayne has prepared a user-friendly, robust version of his
 [ "view" roll editing program for distribution to anyone who wants
 [ a copy.  Using "view" it is possible to see every nuance of the
 [ archived file, and allows a starting point for discussing what
 [ Wayne considers "accuracy".  None of the MIDI sequencer programs
 [ can display with this kind of accuracy/clarity which is why
 [ those of you who have downloaded Wayne's files previously did
 [ not understand them.
 [
 [ I encourage anyone interested in learning more about Wayne's
 [ archival technology to write to him directly for a copy of
 [ the "view" program and some files to look at.  Wayne can
 [ be reached at:
 [
 [            LiveP@aol.com
 [
 [ Jody

(Message sent Thu, 30 May 1996 14:34:59 -0400 , from time zone -0400.)

Key Words in Subject:  Preservation, Roll