•Darrell Clarke said, "The tracker mechanism is vital for roll preservation as well as precise playing." I've seen a number of early 88-note instruments without automatic tracking, but they all had some kind of hand tracker. To judge from Weber pedal player grands and the 65/88n Aeolian pushups, whi...

•It was mentioned, associated with the thread on large rolls stalling with wind motor driven rolls, that the Ampico B used a powerful electric motor for roll drive, which they did. The Ampico B has another device that was considered necessary to handle the jumbo rolls, and that was variable braking ...

•After reading Hal Davis' fine article on roll destroying devices, a.k.a. automatic tracking devices, I decided to conduct an experiment myself. Although it had occurred to me in the past that a top spool wandering back and forth during playing can only be bad news, I never really took the initiativ...

•I need a MIDI that will drive 32 notes and work from a 12-volt battery. If anyone knows of a small unit please let me know. Galen Bird ogmbird@aol.com

•It has been a while since I contributed to the digest, but the "Ridding Musty Smells" segments caught my eye. The ozone device does work. Checkout http://www.alpineindustries.com/xl15.html for the unit that leads the industry in this technology. It really works. I am a distributor of the entire lin...

•In regard to Mike Kitner's question whether anyone else had seen a repeater device on an automatic piano, the answer is "yes." Years ago I acquired a piano that had a device similar to what Mike describes. Tracing back the ownership, I discovered that it had been formerly owned by people who had a ...

•Hi; several folks asked what I could say about the lead-screw rewind and repeat system in the Stoddard Ampico. By the way, they used this in both grands and uprights. Here's what I see. The feed spool chuck drives a very fine-pitch lead screw via a ladder chain. A follower runs back and forth on th...

•Mike Kitner was wondering what the purpose of the lead-screw rewind- repeat device on Stoddard Ampico in MMD 981213. One of the most obvious uses for such a device is a method of learning to hand play the tune on the roll, by repeating either the whole chorus or verse or a particularly hard section...

•Hello, I recently became the owner of a Wurlitzer Style I coin piano, circa 1914. It is missing the mandolin device. All that is there is the pneumatic on the left side of the case that would operate it. I would like to buy one if anyone has this laying around. Thanks, Bill Masterman Tacoma, WA ...

•-- non-subscriber, please reply to sender and MMD -- Hello. I am in the market for an external piano playing device which plays the piano without any physical attachments to the piano itself. I live in Saginaw, Michigan. If you know of any dealer who may carry this device please let me know where I...

•I am restoring a Pratt-Read player mechanism, with an unusual device under the spoolbox that I am guessing is some type of pneumatic tracker, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. Directly underneath the spoolbox shelf is a long horizontal pneumatic connected directly to the stack vacuum. W...

•Dear John, You have it correct in your posting (7/15/02): it's a crummy tracking device, and does no more than what you state: as the roll is pulled onto the take-up spool, it is "kept aligned" by the two leaves that collapse towards the center, thus (more or less) aligning the roll as it passes ov...

•In regard to the Pratt-Read tracking device, there is another of these devices also put together by Pratt-Read which is a four-bellows type unit. This beast is one of the most complicated and thoroughly useless pieces of junk that was ever dreamed up in some engineers mind. The single, under-the-sp...

•Photonics Spectra, a trade magazine for the imaging industry, featured an article about roll scanning in its August issue. The article focuses on the work of Rob Schoenberger, a expert in machine vision systems at Agris-Schoen Vision Systems, Inc., Alexandria, VA, and mentions AMICA. Details can be...

•Hi All, Perhaps I'm just 'out of the loop' or 'behind the times' with regards to electronic tuning devices. Is there an electronic tuning device that tells the tuner when he has a unison correctly tuned? How about one that correctly interprets the overtones in the sub-bass register of a spinet pian...

•Greetings, As most readers probably know, Gene Gerety and I are marketing an inline valve system for pneumatic pianos, called the E-Roll Player. Due to the ease of play that this system provides, it is likely that owners of reproducing pianos, with the system installed, will make much greater use o...

•Hi, I have been reading this digest for only about a year so I hope that the following does not repeat previously covered material. I recently bought two electronic tuners on eBay -- really neat: (1) A Korg CA-20 chromatic tuner (about $20 including postage), and (2) a QuikTune guitar-bass tuner (a...

•Robert Barns mentioned using an electronic tuning device for music boxes. I first would assume that he's talking about replacing teeth or corroded leads. I had an interesting discussion about a month ago on the subject with Nancy Fratti and we both agreed that the electronic tuning device might hel...

•Does anyone out there have a Pianotist? These use a cardboard roll and were manufactured in the 1890s until about 1907. I have a "Nickelin" model which was sold "new" in Milwaukee around the turn of the century (the other one, that is). I was told that the coin box was a remote style and not actual...

•Hi MMDers, I am wondering how many years back can we trace the pneumatic single-input lock & cancel device? In other words, when was the first single-input lock & cancel used in an automatic musical instrument? We know that a mechanical version was used many years earlier in the pipe organ world, a...