•The Viscount RD-70 floppy diskette player device takes the place of a computer and MIDI sequencer program so that piano music, pre-recorded as a MIDI file, can be played at a solenoid piano or a pneumatic piano fitted with magnet valves, such as the Broadmoore PowerRoll. The output is the standard ...

•The Aeolian Company introduced a piano-teaching device called the Visuola in the late 1920's. It worked by having tiny electric bulbs light up at the rear of any key that was being played by the piano roll. In this way the students could know where to place their fingers. I am trying to collect any...

•About power: Computers and other modern electronic devices have integrated circuits, transistors, processors and other such semiconductor parts inside. These parts are especially susceptible to power spikes, surges and the like. As such these devices do need to be protected; particularly if you liv...

•I assume that absolutely any electronic storage device has an innate capability to change itself to junk in the blink of an eye, so adopt nature's normal low-tech solution to this type of problem and simply scatter copies of files all over the place on the grounds that some will survive somewhere. ...

•There is a curious little device on the left door of both of my Wurlit- zer band organs which has eluded my identification. It is a small wood block with a vertical hole drilled through it, about the size of a common lead pencil. Dangling out the bottom is a small spring-metal clip that moves in ea...

•You can make a suction device for a player out of almost any vacuum cleaner pump. However, there is one major caution. Vacuum cleaner pumps usually have their motors in-line with the air path and use this air for cooling the motor. If there is not sufficient flow over the motor, it will overheat. T...

In my list of music devices and mechanical tone generators I said that the sound in a music box is created by "plucked pendant metal tines". "Pendant", in this case, denotes "hanging or suspended" -- perhaps not the best description. Beatrice Robertson sent these definitions appearing in the music b...

•Two other reasons for running MM devices pneumatically rather than electrically to be added to those that Robbie gave: 1. Some eras and some locations didn't have electricity; 2. The heat buildup from a bank of old-fashioned electromagnets can be terrific, and the machines we are talking about woul...

•Following the thread on tuning devices, I bumped into the following web site set up by Steve van Nattan: http://www.balaams-ass.com/piano/piano.htm Among other things, it offers a free download of a tuning program of which van Nattan thinks most highly, as well as access to his book on piano care, ...

•I have used ultrasonic insect repellant devices in the house, attic, basement and garage with very good results. Most just plug into any household outlet and make no more than an occasional ticking sound. Specific to pianos, I still use the old-fashioned packets of whole cloves and bay leaves in cl...

•If you are new to mechanical musical devices, and have not recovered bellows, I suggest you hire the work done by a professional who is experienced in this type of work. It is not a big job. Old bellows material can look perfectly good, yet be full of small holes. I am sure that the pads covering t...

This is an industrial valve for high pressure pneumatic device control. It is rated at 100psi because it has fairly small orifices. I believe the od of the nipples is about 3/32" and the holes 1/16". This allows it to pass perhaps half the volume of an organ valve, but it could be placed very close ...

•I was always under the impression that it was a logo device, using graphics to emphasize the fact that Wurlitzer jukeboxes were made in ("T" for North) Tonawanda. Dick Bueschel

•Hal Davis' hilarious essay about the automatic roll tearing devices and the Standard Player action's "four-eyed monster" was about all I could stand for one morning. That's some really good stuff. But it really gives a person pause to consider disabling his own tracking mechanism, and I'd seriously...

•Andy Taylor has written about designing a word roll stenciling device. I have a stencil cutting machine at work. It, however, cuts 1/2 inch letters. It can cut any width stencil but only six lines deep. I thought that I would pass along the information that I have on the company where I buy supplie...

•I have had excellent results with a little device called a "Liner" bought at a paint specialty store or large art supply for that matter. It consists of a small bottle with a lid that has brass wheels of varing widths that can be adjusted so you roll paint with a ruler as a guide. It works with all...

•Concerning Randolph Herr's comments regarding the need for a sustain device in an automatic piano, I feel that one is absolutely necessary. Simply extending notes in an arrangement is not the same. When all the dampers are lifted, all of the strings in the entire piano resonate in sympathetic vibra...

•Pouches are a standard means to pneumatically actuate valves and other devices. The blowing pressure times the surface area of the pouch renders a nominal force, but how much of that do you really get out from the device? I found a simple approximate way to compute and illustrate that: a designer's...

•What might push me over the edge to install a solenoid device would be the music available. Could I buy a software package, laboriously key in the music from sheet music, save it to disk and then transport that disk physically over to the PianoDisc system and simply play it? Don Winter ...

•I think it extremely unlikely Popper & Co ever exhibited any player device weighing 80 tons. At a glance, I should say a mistake was made here. What probably was meant was a device of 80 tones, i.e. 80 notes, the same as the playing scope of the latter Duo-Art. I have a sneaky suspicion that this i...