Adding Bells to Foot Pumper
By Craig Brougher
S.K.Goodman asked about the possibility of adding a 25 note set of "bells" (metal bars) to a Standard action foot-pumped player.
It doesn't matter which valve units you use to operate the bells. They all take the same amount, when rebuilt properly. It doesn't matter if you operate the second chest off the pneumatic or off the primaries, capacity-wise.
Look at it this way: adding 25 treble notes increases the load about 25%. If you want to get a feel for what 25% feels like, "T" in another air motor in the stack supply and regulate it to run at about tempo 80. Put on the Old version of the Star Spangled Banner or something really great and full of notes, and pump it through with the second air motor running.
Adding a reservoir won't gain you anything except evenness which will last a chord or so.
88 note rolls are not actually cut specifically for xylophones, and there may be passages in some rolls which really exhaust you to keep up. I would suggest a suction box for the times you use the xylophone, and definitely an on/off switch overall. BY the way, the Orchestrion Builder's Manual will give you many different ways of turning it on and off, which at this point may not be readily apparent if "T"ing into the secondary valve pouch lines.
Craig B.
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(Message sent Sun 24 Nov 1996, 13:55:10 GMT, from time zone GMT.) |
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