Dear MMD folks:  Have any of you (technicians especially) noticed the
following things with respect to the sustain on your 88 note players,
or is there something amiss about my player?  It's important because
I'm using my player to "test" our rolls.  (The following "quote" is
excerpted from an e-mail where I attempt to explain certain aspects of
sustain operating and roll coding.)

"[Generally,] the strength of pumping will govern the extent to which
the automatic sustain (from the perforation on a roll) comes on and
stays on - harder pumping - more sustain - softer pumping - less
sustain.  Finally, and though I was "trained" somewhat as a pianist
(and could perhaps do an OK job with the manual sustain by myself), I
often use the sustain coding on the rolls as a _visual_ guide to doing
manual sustain as a pianolist - that is, I shut off the sustain pedal,
but watch the roll as it is played to see where the sustain is coded on
the roll, then manually set it on and off it, more or less in keeping
with the sustain perforations.  Why you ask?  Because it seems to me
that I get better sustain accuracy when I set and release the sustain
myself than when I let the roll do it at the tracker bar.   I suspect
this is so because the manual lever admits a greater amount of air to
the sustain pneumatic than the tracker hole, thus a quicker "on," and a
more sudden "off"."

Thanks, hope to hear from someone to confirm this.

Tim Baxter
Meliora Music Rolls