Robbie, thanks for your explanation of what may have been going on at
Ampico.  Even so, I find it incredible that Ampico, with all of their
complex music roll perforating machinery, somehow chose to mostly
ignore the issue of tempo compensation.

All the rolls I examined said "Played by".  Does this mean hand played?
One of the titles I examined was "Aida".  I assume this roll is
classical.  None of these rolls were tempo-compensated.

It seems to me that Ampico had many more clever mechanics than real
musicians.  Tempo compensation is not a difficult thing to do, I can
think of at least three ways to do it and still have a perforator run
synchronously with the master roll, or its equivalent.  With this in mind
I have a few questions.

1. For how many years did Ampico perforate rolls like these?

2. Will the MIDI Ampico files released by Wayne Stahnke include a tempo
map to cause the music to speed up towards the end like it would on a
real piano?

3. If a tempo map is included, will you be able to pick the size of the
take-up spool to emulate an Ampico A or B.

4. Are there plans to properly perforate from these "recovered" master
rolls to include tempo compensation?

5. How will master rolls be "recovered" from rolls cut on Wurlitzer's
automatic tempo compensating perforators?

6. What tempo compensating methods are use by people today when cutting
new rolls such as those perforated by Richard Tonneson, Douglas
Henderson, Carl Lambie, "Amadeus", Playrite, and QRS.

Sincerely, David F. Wasson