jonpryan@ozemail.com.au (john.p.ryan) asked:

>    I heard that the original perforating equipment for Duo-Art
> rolls has been resurrected and is now recutting rolls.  Can any
> of our English friends tell us if this is so.  And from whom these
> rolls can be obtained.

Two perforators from the original Universal Music Co (Aeolian
subsidiary) of Hayes survived the bombing of the factory in WW2
and were bought by Gordon Iles with the rights of the company, later
renamed Artona Music Rolls.  Around 1975 he sold the master rolls to
Rex Lawson and the hardware to Autoplayer of Slough, basically a
player-piano repair shop, who computerized one machine and issued
"Ambassador" Themodist jazz rolls recorded on a Steinway B grand in
the shop fitted with keyboard contacts.  Some of these performances
were quite excellent but there were endless quality-control problems
with the computer output (which no-one there quite understood) and
huge stacks of imperfect rolls were always on sale cheap.  Autoplayer
persuaded a number of old Universal employees to emerge from the
woodwork (Slough is near to Hayes) and occasionally held open days
for them.  Paul Young, the proprietor, reckoned that on the basis of
the upright "half Duo-Arts" he was offered by telephone every day,
there must be 5000 of these instruments surviving in the Thames
valley alone.  He was tragically killed in a road accident and around
1990 Autoplayer was sold up, the recording piano going to Peter Davis
of the Player-Piano Group and the perforators to Mike Boyd, also a
PPG member.

Rex Lawson and Mike then collaborated on making the computer
interface work properly.  Rex had improved QRS's program and was
getting QRS to make a series of subscription classical rolls to
Themodist format.  In 1991 Boyd started production of Lawson's
"Perforetur" classical titles, which continue, but his main output is
of Ambassador jazz performances and pre-war UK Aeolian best-sellers
using the master rolls.  These include a number of London-recorded
Duo-Arts.  Rex Lawson has added to these a few transcriptions from
Ampico, for which he is developing a coding transfer program with the
aid of several PPG and FPI (Friends of Pianola Institute) members
owning well-adjusted reproducing grands.

Boyd's address is:

   Universal Music Co
   18 Cinque Ports Street
   RYE
   East Sussex    ph +44 1797 223688

A recommended Duo-Art recutter is also:

   Steve Cox
   Laguna Rolls
   Laguna
   Lagoon Road
   PAGHAM
   West Sussex PO21 4TH    ph/fax +44 1243 262041

Dan Wilson (Friends of the Pianola Institute, London)¶
dwilz@cix.compulink.co.uk