Bill Luca asks in the 05.05.30 MMD:

    > Still, my original question hangs in the air, unaddressed: Did
    > Wurlitzer band organ arrangers use a "recording organ," or did
    > they use the hand-marking method?

I watched a few times as my piano-tuning teacher punched out his band
organ rolls.  First he drew the notes on the roll.  Then the roll was
drawn under a puncher and he "nibbled" out each note. The puncher could
be moved back and forth over the paper to any position on the tracker
bar.  The paper was rolled under the puncher as he nibbled.  I know he
built it himself, but he didn't say whether he copied it from what was
used by the original roll makers.

From watching his process of marking his rolls and then punching them, I
would guess a "recording organ" or perhaps a recording keyboard would
have been more trouble to build and make workable, since a lot of holes
are not musical notes but rather register settings, and a lot of
instrument ranks play at the same time, but outside the compass of
fingering even with two hands.

Thus if a keyboard was used but it was necessary to put in one note at a
time, it seems easier to mark the roll by hand and then take it to the
puncher.  Also how would a keyboard mark in the register control
perforations?

The man I am talking about was Robert Heilbuth of San Francisco.  He is
no longer with us, but I hope his pipe organ and three band organs, all
self-built, have gone to a museum, along with his original compositions
on rolls.

Richard Moody