[ Abbreviated; write to Douglas for the complete text.  -- Robbie ]

Hello MMD readers,  I saw the two postings about the Duo-Art "soft"
feature, which could be (a) a felt bar (on grand piano installations) in
between the hammers and strings, (b) the typical hammer rail lift, or
(c) an action shift (and occasionally an action shift _plus_ the lift
both being operated by the tracker bar hole, in which case the shift
'follows' the hammers, already lifted, on long control perforations).

Also, there is that Accompaniment boost add-on, which I suspect was done
after the fact before Aeolian shipped out the completed instrument,
rather than monkey with the single valve actions.  Thus, you had the
lift only (no boost), a #2 intensity (the most common), a #1 intensity
boost (less frequently seen), and on some rare occasions a #3 (2+1
accordion pneumatics are activated when the Soft Pedal is operating).

These Accompaniment boosts are always disconnected on my Duo-Art
players, since they destroy much of the subtlety on the Accompaniment
graduations.

Regards from Maine,
Douglas Henderson - Artcraft Music Rolls
PO Box 295, Wiscasset, ME 04578
http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/