Hello, There is a large, 4-manual Father Willis pipe organ in the
Blenheim Palace with a freestanding Welte roll player attached to
this organ. However, this organ uses mechanical action (with a Barker
lever, for you organ nerds).

Since Welte and most other organ players work by connecting to the
electro-pneumatic relay system, this inherently confused me.

I was wondering if anybody here knows how a normally electro-pneumatic
roll player can work on a mechanical organ. If anybody knows how either
this specific organ or others work, please enlighten me.

Christian Tedesco
cmt0817@gmail.com.geentroep [delete ".geentroep" to reply]

 [ The Barker lever is a pneumatic servo-amplifier that helps the
 [ organist push the keys down when lots of pipe-ranks are engaged.
 [ I suspect it is readily modified, by adding a magnet valve, to also
 [ accept electric signals from a music roll player system such as the
 [ Welte Philharmonic.
 [
 [ Found at https://www.pipelinepress.com/bettering-barker.html --
 [ "Henry 'Father' Willis had reservations about pneumatic and electric
 [ actions, although his firm made considerable use of these. He was
 [ aware that their 'on/off' effect robbed players of fine control over
 [ pallets. The Barker lever, which he used extensively, suffered from
 [ this defect."
 [
 [ Anecdotes about the Welte roll player at Blenheim Palace are shared
 [ at https://www.pipelinepress.com/blenheim-palace-and-elsewhere.html 
 [ -- Robbie