•The Porter Music Box Company of Randolph, Vermont, has been building new disc style music boxes now for over 40 years, as well as being one the finest antique music box restoration businesses in the music box industry. We are now actively searching for more repair work for 2017; our waiting list is...

•Hello MMD'ers! Regarding Randolph Kerr's question about sustain pedals: The operative expression is definitely "cheep!" While you can sustain notes without a sustain pedal, you lose the sympathetic resonance of the other strings that comes when the dampers are removed. To demonstrate this effect (c...

•Hi, Randolph. I've only seen one Orchestrelle 'up close and personal', my own Model W, which still plays 58- or 65-note rolls. While I can understand the desire to play newer rolls, I think it would be a lot of work, though not impossible. The Model W I have was built in 1899, and the tracker bar i...

•Hello MMD. If Randolph Herr's rolls feel a bit spongy after they are rolled up, maybe that is because the spools are too tight. I suspect that a lot of edge damage is caused by tight spools. I completely agree with him about throwing the roll against the right-hand spool end before playing, but I a...

•Hi all, Randolph Herr recently wrote about piano roll artists changing piano pieces when they were recording a roll label. There are two pieces that come immediately to mind for me. The first that comes to mind is the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodie #2 that was recorded by Alfred Cortot for Hupfeld and t...

•I read with interest the comments made by Randolph Herr regarding tubing length and valve response. I have worked on probably two to three hundred player actions over the years, and it seems that the manufacturers of the player units had that whole problem solved when they built the systems. Uprigh...

•I read with great interest the posting by Randolph Herr concerning his acquiring the roll and music collection of George Grossman, and the later posting by another concerned collector about his intentions of disposing of some of the collection. I for one know both Mr. Herr and Mr. Grossman. George ...

•Hi All, Regarding Randolph Herr's method of tuning a piano (or player piano), the one major flaw is that it's impossible to "set the pin" if you only pluck the strings with a toothpick, or any other such implement. In truth, 'setting the pin' is one of the physically harder aspects of tuning becaus...

•The site has been updated tonight and includes an interesting article from Karl Ellison and Randolph Herr from the December 1934 issue of Fortune Magazine. This is on the J. Lawrence Cook page. Jelly Roll Morton's recordings on page 15 and the Library of Congress recordings on page 22 are updated. ...

•In the 8/28/01 Digest, Randolph Herr mentioned (quoting Alfred Einstein) "[Mozart] once took up the problem ... of composing minuets "mechanically," by putting two-measure melodic fragments together in any order." This reminded me of a something I had back in the '70's. I don't recall the specifics...

•In the photo at https://www.mmdigest.com/Gallery/Pictures/herr01.html Randolph Herr describes a mystery pneumatic in his Red Welte Vorsetzer, and concludes that the only thing it could possibly have been was a tracker bar pump. I believe he is correct, after seeing something similar (but not attach...

•I have been watching with interest the discussion about dispersal of the Randolph Herr collection. There is one big lesson here, that a collector needs to make provision for the disposal of a collection, not just leave it to the heirs to decide. As instruments from the 20th century pass from hand t...

The only time I saw "Apollo" on a grand was at San Simeon, publisher William Randolph Hearst's castle on the California coast. The lovely piano did not play, but the drawer was heavily detailed with gilt hardware. Perhaps they have restored it by now and know the scale.

•Craig Brougher wrote: > Stop and think about it a minute, Randolph. Whether I have the loud > pedal on or off makes no difference at all when I play a note, does it? > Because when I play a note, the key itself raises the damper, too. > So however I strike the note -- with or without the pedal -- I...

•Some errors popped into 030208 MMDigest as I was editing. In the article by Randolph Herr, the rescued concert grand Steinway Duo-Art piano was summarily truncated by 6 inches! I traced the problem to my DOS text editor: it doesn't display fraction characters, thus "9 1/2 feet" displayed as "9 feet...

•I would like to get a little more info on the GE silicone adhesive recommended by Randolph Herr, posted on MMD 10/20/05. I did look at the site posted by Randolph and they gave a list of vendors that have the product. I went to our local vendor (Home Depot) and found GE Silicone rubber #1, but it's...

•Hello, That is sure one interesting air motor that Randolph Herr acquired. I have no familiarity with it specifically but I did discover a secret for disassembling pot metal parts. It may be that there is an inside fit into the cylinders from the end plates and that this is sticking. Pot metal some...

•Ref. http://mmd.foxtail.com/Pictures/herrPiston.html To Randolph Herr and the MMD Group, This piston motor is from the early Type I Gulbransen player. The roll motor, transmission and spoolbox are all suspended by metal brackets so close to the top of the piano that they're almost oozing out of the...

•[ Ref. 100428 MMDigest, Transposing Duo-Art Reproducing Pianos Regarding Randolph Herr's description of the transposing system in the Duo-Art, the units sold in Australia were definitely different. I neglected to mention, in my earlier post, that the tracker bar does not move at all in the Australi...

•Pictures of the "Hetty Green" custom art case Steinway "OR" Duo-Art baby grand in the Randolph Herr estate are at OneDrive, with hopes that someone can still save the piano. https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21Au7QBGiNUTsT6NI&id=2C01F9CA05D574AE%211845&cid=2C01F9CA05D574AE Gordon Stelter Athens, ...