MMDer Troy Taylor, of Edmonds, Washington, is compiling a list of
15-1/4-inch-wide player piano rolls like those produced by QRS for the
various versions of the Melville Clark "Apollo" player piano, and Terry
Smythe is modifying a piano roll scanner system to transcribe some of
the rare wide piano rolls to MIDI files.

Different labels observed so far include "Apollo Concert Grand", "QRS
88 Note", "Solo Apollo" and "Tempograph Solo Apollo".  See the list and
some images of Apollo roll labels at

  http://mmd.foxtail.com/MMMedia/QRS/index.html
  http://mmd.foxtail.com/MMMedia/QRS/Apollo/QRS_Apollo.html
  http://mmd.foxtail.com/MMMedia/QRS/Apollo/List.html

Troy says the early 88-note musical arrangements by the QRS staff and
visiting artists are quite entertaining.  He writes, "The vast majority
of the 88-note 6/inch Apollo Concert Grand rolls in my parent's roll
collection are not just 65-note arrangements punched on wider paper.
A number of these rolls play every note of the piano, from #1 to #88,
and a few play up to 21 notes at a time, which has led me to refer to
those as '5-handed arrangements'."

Troy's own roll collection includes many "Solo Apollo" rolls to be
played on a Melville Clark piano with a tracker bar of 134 holes and
_two_ pneumatic actions, one for soft Accompaniment and the other for
accented Solo notes.  An advert for this complex expression piano
(displayed at the "Apollo" web page mentioned above) says:

  (4) The Solo Apollo is the only player-piano in the world
  that instantly omits the melody and plays the accompaniment
  only, or omits the accompaniment and plays only the melody.

But the surprises don't end there; also in Troy's collection are four
mystery rolls, labeled "QRS Automatic 88 Note", which are 15-1/4" wide
but are not for the Solo Apollo player system.

We still need the details of the Solo Apollo player mechanism in order
to create a complete description of the tracker bar channel assignments.
Art Reblitz gives a basic description in his book, "Treasures of
Mechanical Music," but the exact functioning of most of the expression
mechanism is still unknown.  Please write to Troy and me if you can
provide detailed information.

Robbie Rhodes
Mechanical Music Digest