Re: Player Rolls to MIDI
By jwmiller@winternet.com, forwarded by Terry Smythe
Forwarded Message:
From: jwmiller@winternet.com To: ALL Orig: MBNET
Subj: Re: Player rolls => midi Area: 1-ec.music.ragtime Date: 02/23/96
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driller@slic.com (Doug Vensel) wrote:
> I wish I could help. I have the same problem up here in Northern NY.
> There is one hope however. In California there's a company called the
> Ragtime Automated Music Co. I'm not sure of the address but they
> build/rebuild piano with their own player action in them and even fit
> regular piano with that player action. Tha basis of the machine is
> electrical and uses solenoids to operate the piano action.
> In light of the fact that player rolls are nothing more than early
> computer punch cards, they may be able to direct you to an area or
> company that can do exactly as you desire... I.E. preserving the
> ragtime directly from a roll. They've got many sources and would
> probably be able to tell you where to get such help.
> Good luck to ya.
> P.S. How many people out there actually realize that player pianos
> are the world's first actual computers? The whole principle of on/off
> to form certain commands (chords)(songs) comes from the principles of
> the player action. Think about it.
Thanks for the info. I'll contact them and see if I can get some direction. I've received a couple of promising pieces of mail, too.\
Eventually, I hope to have one of my player pianos MIDI'ed.... hopefully IN and OUT. It would be a nice way to be able to play the piano from the theater organ console. Actually, I hope to have the whole music room MIDI equipped... with the player pianos, the pipe organ, even the lighting can be MIDI controlled. (Hope I can find enough money to realize my dream... heh)
I've often referred to player pianos as "the original computers", and people laugh at me - until I remind them of what the early computers were programmed with - paper tape with holes punched in them. I also refer to them as "early digital music reproduction devices". After all, a note is either "ON" or "OFF" at any given time. Even reproducing pianos, with their expression devices are controlled with nothing more than a matrix of ON-OFF. |
(Message sent Sat 24 Feb 1996, 13:49:39 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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