•Hi again, Just a quick update -- National Public radio (NPR) has rescheduled my "Anthem" interview (about recording and preserving 19th century and early 20th century American mechanical music) to be broadcast _next_ weekend, due to the fact that they wanted to play a longer segment than they had s...

•It makes more sense to have the piano professionally restored to a proper playing condition and then to start with the player mechanism. After all, you can play a restored piano, enjoy it and decide if it is even worth going through the effort of rebuilding the player. Also, you can't test or enjoy...

•I'd be interested in contacting anyone about a Dynavoice Player Unit. They were made just a few miles from here for most of the time. Actually, when the Daisy Air Rifle Company of Plymouth, MI decided to move their B-B gun operation to Tennessee, some of the former employees decided to use what fac...

•Tubing Connections for Seeburg Style "L" And Other A-roll Cabinet Pianos The small Seeburg L cabinet piano has 54 notes The lowest bass note is the third B below middle C, equal to note 15 in an 88-note piano. The highest treble note is the third E above middle C, equal to note 68 in an 88-note pia...

•Another possibility would be to digitise the carousel music and program a ROM device, similar to those greeting cards that play a tune. Whilst they produce those cards by the zillions, so can afford to use a very small memory chip and sound unit, there are available other larger, cheaper, electroni...

•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...

•Dear MMD's, a friend of mine will be in New York for the first weekend in 2003. Someone of his family has a birthday party and he wants to play a little crank organ at the evening party on January 4th, 2003. Is there any organ he can rent for this weekend? Any address he can call and order? Thanks ...

•Michael Hamilton has a Pratt-Read player and is complaining about tempo changes due to pumping. He also asks if the roll brake plays a part in the tempo. This description doesn't give enough information to diagnose the real problem. As far as the hold-back brake, it should not affect the stability ...

•The sketch at http://mmd.foxtail.com/Tech/W165spec.html shows how a Wurlitzer 165 band organ might be played by hand using two MIDI-output keyboards. The converse is also possible. This is how I would connect the pouch switches and tracker bar to play a Wurlitzer Style 165 music roll on a pipe orga...

•Looking at a piano roll in action has fascinated many people over the years. Being able to connect the movement of the holes (what you see) to the music produced (what you hear) may have been one of the key elements for many to get involved in mechanical music. The loss of the visual aspect in a MI...

•Obviously many have MIDIfied a band organ, and of course it is quite possible to buy one new with MIDI as the music source. Much of the Wurlitzer 165 and B.A.B. music is available from Don Stinson at roughly $5 per tune. I am curious to know if anyone has worked out a standard MIDI protocol (channe...

•I couldn't help but chuckle a bit with some of the comments about foot pump vs. electric pump and MIDI lack of sing-along. I don't think I've ever seen either a foot pumped grand piano or people leaning over a grand piano player drawer to try and sing the words. Claud Cavnar [ 'Tis true, upright pl...

•I am new to the group and am rebuilding a Pratt Read player style 72. I am a retired engineer and just needed something to keep me thinking. I cannot play a piano but I had a sister that took lessons for, I think, 11 years. I just love the old mechanical things and love working on them. I have the ...

•Additional tones and sounds coming from a disc player disc I guess I have to put my two cents worth of information into the question of the 'tone' of a zinc disc verses the steel. I thought about it for a while and then decided to take my very small sounding board box that I use for tuning purposes...

•You cannot tackle a problem until you have identified what it is, and Nancy Fratti has identified several pertinent points. There are other aspects to the apprenticeship conundrum. Not only does taking on an apprentice impact on a restorer's income and time, but in the UK she or he is likely to hav...

•For Sale: Replica Wurlitzer R Music Roll Player (modified to play 2/6 organ) plus 262 re-cut Style R music rolls plus older R rolls, altogether about 300 rolls. Also for sale is a Wurlitzer Opus 750, Style D, 2-manual, 6-rank theater pipe organ. My home in Pomona, California, with installed organ a...

•Hey all from a long-time reader and learner! With the discussion earlier this year about rebuilding the sliding valves on an air motor, it occurred to me that I haven't seen anything related to _adjusting_ the valves, and thought I'd get input. My old (December 1910) Aeolian player piano has a 3-va...

•[ Harald Mueller wrote in 190210 MMDigest: > Could a 4-minute tune be put on a cylinder music box? I have > arranged Manolis Kalomiris' Nocturne for the 30-note Sankyo > music box movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LFIIZpN5sQ Hi from chilly Rochester, Harald Mueller asked about finding or m...

•An MBSI and AMICA friend of mine is restoring a Wicks 5-rank 2-manual mortuary organ, Opus 1130, with a roll player that will play a standard 88-note roll but also takes an Artistouch Consolette Series Roll or a Artistouch CR Roll. Sorry, I don't know the difference. My friend has one original roll...

Hi Robbie, The one terrible problem with my player piano is when I try to play a roll the hammers all go dead to the harp. I have pulled the stack out and torn it down to check for problems, even went as far as rebuilding the stack, yet when I re-install the mechanism "BANG", same results. Yes, I th...