•As we have previously announced, Laurent Coray and I are producing for sale a Tracker Bar Interface device (TBI) which fits into the spoolbox of any automatic instrument, attaching only by means of the roll chucks and take-up spool hook, and gasketing to its tracker bar. The TBI device accurately o...

•I took a Yankee screwdriver and turned and drilled one of the Philips bits into a punch. It has a hole out the side for the chad to exit. The drive has a nice finger grip at the "punch" end to guide the device, and pressing lightly will rotate the cutting edge and create a very clean hole with mini...

•It is entirely possible that Keith Parker's piano, made in 1909, never had a roll tracking device. It was several years before the player piano manufacturers discovered that putting automatic roll tracking devices (read: roll destroyers) on their products could lead to the sales of more rolls. Hal ...

•Hi -- of interest to orchestrion builders: I have recently finished building and bench testing the Dual Pouch Regulator as described in Craig Brougher's book, Orchestrion Builders' Manual. Well, what a magic device! I put it into my orchestrion project last night, and ran it on the piano stack, I t...

•To all MMD takers: This question appeared in a quiz in the April issue of AOPA Pilot Magazine (Airplane Owners and Pilots Association): His father manufactured player pianos and nickelodeons, and in 1929 he used the innards and principles of organ construction to invent a revolutionary device that ...

•Larry Toto wrote: > To all MMD takers: This question appeared in a quiz in the April > issue of AOPA Pilot Magazine (Airplane Owners and Pilots Association): > > His father manufactured player pianos and nickelodeons, and in 1929 > he used the innards and principles of organ construction to invent ...

•Wayne Johnston inquired: > Is there anyone out there that is working on (or knows about) an > interface unit that would make a PianoCorder into a MIDI device. Bob Baker still manufactures the MC-2. It is an add-on device that creates a two way MIDI interface to the Pianocorder player system. One ni...

•The May/June 1996 AMICA Bulletin has several articles on how Ampico recorded the velocity (and therefore the note's dynamics) of the hammer. Ampico's recording device contained two recorders: one was used to record the notes played by the pianists on paper, similar to a standard marking piano of th...

•Hi All, I just want to say thanks to everyone who took the time to answer my question about switch arcing. After the device is finished and working, I'll draw up a little diagram and post it here. Musically, John A. Tuttle (john@player-care.com)

•John A. Tuttle wrote: > Date: Mon, 04 May 1998 11:18:01 > > Since the major drawback of any digitally controlled device is it's > inability to perform more than one task at any given moment in time, > why not create a device that utilizes a multitude of digitally > controlled devices (computers) wo...

•I noticed the the PowerRoll system being mentioned here and was curious if anyone has installed or seen one of these in use. I'm interested in both the quality of the device as well as its' "playability". Any response would be appreciated. Thanks, Jim Moore

•I am the owner of a Knabe/Autopiano player piano, built in 1912. The piano is equipped with "Flexotone", a device of unknown operation and purpose. It consists of three keyslip-mounted buttons with designation-plate inscribed only "FLEXOTONE". Each button is attached to a lever. The three levers ar...

•Hi Richard. By the way, I have been enjoying your roll scans! (I found them at John Roache's site). Looks like you finally built a working device. Maybe you could share how it works? I have a _bad_ need for a roll scanner! (Like, I really need more MIDI files -- I have almost 1500 piano files!) Let...

•Hi All, Perhaps my understanding of exactly how the PowerRoll system works is incorrect. I was under the impression that it is a device that is placed over the tracker bar of a normal pneumatic player piano. The signals which trigger the air valves that open and close the holes in the tracker bar c...

•This weekend, in an antique shop, I ran across 6 disks of music from a mechanical device apparently called a "No. 48 Zilotone", made by Wolverine Supply & Mfg. Co., in Pittsburgh, Pa. The patent number on the disks, 1777712, is from 1930. (The player was nowhere to be found, just the disks.) Each d...

•The strange English (Isn't that redundant?) tracker bar that Jeff Davis mentions probably had the thin holes connected to a tracking device. The holes will be evenly uncovered by the central notes when tracking properly. When the roll shifts one way or the other, the narrow holes on the side opposi...

•Jerry Hall wrote in yesterdays MMD: > A number of years ago, I had an LP ... of an orchestral version of > a composition supposedly written first for a mechanical musical > device/machine. The musical theme was the "Battle of Waterloo". Could the piece in question be Beethoven's "Wellington's Victo...

•In MMD 980922, Meta Brown asks "What is a Disklavier Station?" The proper name for the item in question is a "Klavierstation" and it's a device from which Yamaha sells music for the Disklavier. I haven't seen a Klavierstation, but saw a similar device at a Yamaha dealer in Tokyo. You walk up to a k...

•Regarding the injured sensibilities that Wayne Stahnke's 'tinkering' with the Ampico rolls for the CD has produced, perhaps it should be noted that a rigorous mathematical model of something can be 100% accurate. Forget the 'improved' _mechanical_ devices from the 1960s onwards, because these produ...

•In response to Larry Mayo's overheating turbine: I had much the same problem when building my first built-up nickelodeon some years ago. I solved the problem by making a pneumatic controlled device that would bleed air into the vacuum supply. If the air flow was high, the air introduced would be lo...