I have had the PowerRoll unit now for a number of weeks -- an abso-
lutely wonderful piece of equipment.  For those who have not seen or
handled one, it has the look and feel of a piece of turn-of-the-century
engineering.

 [ That's the craftsmanship of MMDer Larry Broadmoore, who only
 [ reluctantly admits that today is 1999, not 1899!  ;)  -- Robbie

In addition to playing transcribed Duo-Art rolls, I have had a lot of
fun simply downloading MIDI files from the Internet and playing them.
I have set my browser to open the downloaded file directly in Cakewalk
so I can quickly change channel assignments as required.  The piano
tracks of the MIDI file will play the Duo-Art via the PowerRoll unit.
Any accompaniment tracks will play through my hi-fi system.  Now, of
course, the piano track will not play with any expression.  This brings
me to the point of this letter.

Has any MIDI arranger out there taken a transcription of a Duo-Art
roll and added percussion and other accompaniment tracks.  To go a step
further, what about the possibility of "reverse engineering" piano
concerto rolls, i.e., leave the Duo-Art piano part intact but extract
the orchestral parts to make into a MIDI accompaniment.

The above might be easier said than done but if it is possible it could
add yet another fun component.

Phil Dayson

 [ Artis Wodehouse split the notes of "American in Paris" to play inde-
 [ pendant parts on two pianos.  It was a lot of work.  The "accompani-
 [ ment" piano part could be further adapted to emulate an orchestral
 [ arrangement, and then be performed via the synthesizer.  George
 [ Bogatko has added lively percussion channels to 88-note rolls, too.
 [ -- Robbie