•Hi and a happy post-Thanksgiving to all. I just followed Jody's advice and visited the Mills Novelty page -- really nice pictures and some good information. [ reminder: http://www.millsnovelty.com On seeing the picture of the MIDI controller in the bottom of the Mills Violano I was reminded that I ...

•FOR SALE: This is a Bob Stanaczyk rebuild from about 15 years ago. Still in working condition and in pretty good shape in general- sounds fine when I played it last month. Could use a cleanup and alignment. It has been stored in a dry barn for the last 2 years. 43 note 'Tangley' with keyboard and r...

•Recently I bought a small music box from a German flea market. Never before I have seen something looking and sounding similarly. The case is made from very heavy pot metal, looking like an old English castle: [ http://mmd.foxtail.com/Pictures/Greinacher/musicbox1.jpg But the graphical design and a...

•I would add a couple of footnotes to John Rutosky's very good and comprehensive note to Paul Ward titled "Building a Band Organ." Paul informs me that Dave Miner won't sell parts for a roll frame, and I do understand (from Paul Dyer and others) that nobody today is making a good, reliable roll fram...

•The recent postings regarding autism reminded me of a Wisconsin fellow named Leslie Lemke. Leslie was severely retarded and blind. However, as the story goes, he sat down at the piano one night and began to play a piece of classical music he had heard for the first time on TV that evening. I saw Le...

•A couple of weeks ago there was discussion about the fact that too many folks will never get the chance to see the neat music machines we enthusiasts enjoy so much. Here's how we solved this to our own satisfaction some years ago. Our collection is not large, but it's representative of just about e...

•There is a vast difference between knotting a bass string close to the tuning pin, and knotting one in the speaking portion of the note. As a matter of fact, I have knotted strings on rare occasions when the knot wasn't going to be singing with the string. The ability to knot versus the ability to ...

•It was a great pleasure and privilege to meet Mike Meddings for the first time in 25 years, at the (London) Player Piano Group's AGM and dinner at Leatherhead last Saturday. When I first heard about him, Mike was a kind of supernova off the edge of the known player-piano galaxy. If I visited friend...

•I disagree that if you have a nine foot piano then you should have the suction levels at 120 inch of water lift. I also disagree, having worked with concert artist for twenty plus years, that they play a nine foot piano so hard that they all break strings. It depends more on the hall or venue where...

•A "Triola" roll-playing mechanical zither in reasonable working order was sold at Christie's auction in Melbourne recently for a hammer price of $950 Australian. Add 17.5% for Christie's and 10% of 17.5% for the government, and the final price was close to $1200 Australian. Although that is only ab...

•I am currently restoring a Poppers Konzertist piano and can answer some questions raised. The box pump uses a round section leather belt. If you cannot find a suitable supply of this you can use a modern replacement round section plastic belt. This is readily available from your local bearings and ...

•I just finished restoring the Ampico system in a J.C. Fischer upright (ca. 1926) and it plays wonderfully! If I turn the "Automatic" switch off and play a standard 88-note roll, it plays fine, but quietly. Pressing the manual bass and treble expression buttons at the key slip raises the volume to f...

•I have a question regarding the tracker bar of my Bremar piano 'manufactured at the Waddington Company' [050125 MMDigest]. It has, of course, the 88 note-holes, and a hole on each edge for tracking, but further, it has holes for the reroll punching, sustain pedal punching, and theming punching (The...

•The first time I saw a player piano (or, technically, this would have been a nickelodeon) was at Shakey's Pizza. They had a player that was painted white to match the theme of the restaurant. One of the workers noticed me looking at the piano and pressed a button in the back of the piano to play a ...

•Hi Don, With instruments to play A, G, 4X, O, M, Wurli APP, OS/NOS, plus Wurlitzer series 125, 150 band organ rolls, in addition to player pianos to play 88 and 65 note rolls and several other forms, I find myself not having a favorite very long. That changes from time to time depending on my mood ...

•> Last year I made a 25-note set of hanging chimes out of copper pipe, > and it took at least 20 minutes to file each note to pitch. Following > a length chart was out of the question, because every pipe from the > store gave different results. (Yes, I checked the gauge!) The > results were worth i...

•I recently bought a set of all nine Beethoven Symphonies, a collection of 38 rolls, from a dealer in England. They are in perfect condition, but a few questions have come up. These rolls were made by Aeolian in England, and if you are familiar with their rolls, you will know that they were made on ...

•I recently came across a 1960's era electrically amplified carillon. This is the type with tuned metal rods struck by solenoids. The vibrations from the rods are electronically amplified and sent to loudspeakers. There was no automatic player mechanism with this unit; so I've converted it to play s...

•Last week I bid on a Monopol disc musical box with no discs at a remote auction. I have ten discs already for this box so thought I was on to a good deal. Unfortunately the auction house was not very honest and did not tell me or anyone else that there was _no comb_ on this disc box. I would like t...

•Andy Ott has a Steinway Duo-Art that is tearing some of his older rolls. I have to assume that you have the tracker system that when the piano is put into the re-roll position, both of the tracker ear lines are closed off by a pouch cut-off valve. Doing this should cause the tracker pneumatics to m...