•My mother tells me that during one of my grandfather's prosperous periods in the 1920's, their living room was graced with a big grand piano with an Ampico reproducer unit therein. The idea is that it would provide a fashionable and musical centerpiece for The Whole Family. Both my mother and her s...

•In response to Tom Lear's request for information about Lee S. Roberts, I would like to refer him to the Obenchain "The Complete Catalog of Ampico Reproducing Piano Rolls". The information therein is brief, but significant. It states that in 1912 Roberts developed "artist-recorded" piano rolls for ...

•I've been reading the thread about the Welte ink-based piano recording system with considerable interest. The recording technique seems straightforward enough. I might add that while rods dipped into a trough of mercury will indeed make surface waves therein, these waves have rather low amplitude a...

•Hello there, this post is in reference to my last question posted in 100330 MMDigest. Upon skimming through my Reblitz, I came across the discussion on the crash valve therein. As I said before, the gray matter isn't what it used to be. Immediately, I remembered rebuilding many of these whilst rebu...

•[ Ref. Bill Budenholzer in 170910 MMDigest ] Bill, my first recommendation would be to reference Art Reblitz' several books on mechanical music machines. Contained therein you will find all the answers you seek and more. I'm not sure of their availability on-line. The Hupfeld and Mills machines wer...

•Again, this following as well, is with reference to John A. Tuttle's article of 20.11.03 (Ref. 1, below). The therein referenced AMICA Bulletin article can be read sans trouble or expense by simply submitting to Google Search its title in quotes thus: "A Contribution to the Theory of Striker Pneuma...

Greetings from Sunny South Florida. Formerly a resident of the Chicago suburbs, (left there in 1972), I am currently employed as Head Stage Electrician at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Ft. Lauderdale. I have held that post since final phases of construction six years ago. Prior to th...

I can confirm that this delightful object does still exist in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It still exerts a macabre fascination upon the passer by: but alas you can no longer turn the handle and relish the screams. You may know that the V&A was established as a museum of the Useful and...

I just got back from Bellm's Cars & Music of Yesterday in Sarasota, Florida. It was a big disappointment to me. When I was there, ALL the (three) large coin-operated band/jazz organs were inoperative, and the demonstrated pianos were way out of tune, although very clean looking. The cars were kind o...

•Robbie, The fine article on A-roll arranging styles was published in the April and May 1983 AMICA Bulletins (Volume 20 Nos. 3 & 4), authored by Dave Junchen and titled "Arranging Styles on Clark and Capitol Rolls -- A Historical Perspective." A week ago I took delivery of two boxes of bound AMICA B...

•Hi All, First off, tuning by ear can be very painful. ;-) Having started with just one tuning fork light-years ago, I believe that learning the beat rates and relationships between the various intervals is very important to good piano tuning. It doesn't take long to realize that what 'works' on one...

•--- forwarded message, please reply to sender and MMD --- From: JCarn66749 To: webmaster@foxtail.com Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 19:42:45 EST Subject: Piano Rolls Does anyone know of a way the information on piano rolls can be transferred to digital, allowing a computer to read the information and play ...

•Fully _not_ intending to start any kind of 'flame war', I do feel compelled to comment on subject post in the 980508 Digest, hopefully constructively representing an alternate viewpoint. First, I do agree that the objective of the MMD is music. However, I understand that the context of said music i...

•This isn't an original thought, but the following quoted message, and others like it occasionally posted to MMD, points to the need for an MMD FAQ [Frequently Asked Questions]: > From: rloveall@teamrmsi.com (Ruth Loveall)(fwd) > ... > I am trying to obtain information on Aeolian player pianos. > Do...

•> It was mostly plastic, of course, played only 45 RPM records, was > battery powered, and was operated by pushing the record into a slot. > There was no visible tone arm and the record had to play all the way > through before it could be started over. These came out a bit later, actually. I'm fair...

•I know very little about pianos, and I am perhaps the nation's worst welder. But I know some of the best: they post their stuff at rec.crafts.metalworking and are eminently qualified to discuss the welding of cast iron and essentially anything else. Some of them could cast you a new plate in their ...

•Mr. Tuttle made the suggestion of a creation of a MMD archive CD ROM, available for sale. Although I will be the first to point out that Robbie and Jody's efforts are seriously underpaid, The CD ROM could open up legal implications for the foxtail group. For example, if someone downloaded the infor...

•I'm tempted to offer a really simple definition: "Salon music is music that isn't concert music." Small scale, not too attention-grabbing, not too hard to play, as other contributors have said; it was played to fill in those long Sundays at home before the gramophone, radio or TV. In the grander En...

•Folks, what I had in mind in my recent post on this subject was this: I have reel-to-reel tape recordings I made back in the 1960s of many of the best reproducing pianos that went through my hands for restoration and resale. For example, I have some tape of Welte Licensee rolls played on a Baldwin ...

•Hi, Barry Dennis wrote in 031122 MMDigest: > Hi Bernt: What is the documentation you found concerning the Duo-Art > Bass/Treble split? Since I started this latest thread a few weeks > ago, I have appreciated all of the responses to my questions about > this issue. As I previously indicated, when I ...