Kangaroo Leather from Oz and Marque Ampico
By Darrell Clarke
G'day digesters(?),
I would love to tell you that we have mountains of kangaroo pouch leather here (which, BTW, doesn't come from the kangaroo's pouch!), but it seems that we can't get it either! I have a colleague who restores theatre organs and has been trying to get some without success. He thinks it might be processed in some other country. Does anyone know where PPC got their original supplies from? Years ago, my friend told me that kangaroo leather was the best thing for pneumatics, but I had related that comment mainly to big stuff on the organs.
About the Marque Ampico system, I have found my original rough drawings from 15 years ago and they show a set of crescendo valves from tracker bar 1B/1T and 5B/5T for the slow and fast "crescendo" effect. These valves, in turn, connect directly to the tracker bar side of the intensity pneumatic valves (4B/T and 6B/T), so it would appear to me that the slow crescendo hole would turn on the 2nd intensity, if it wasn't already on, and the fast crescendo would bring on the 3rd intensity. 1B/T was also connected to a valve which appeared to turn on/off the vacuum supply to the crescendo valves (for cancelling?). The crescendo holes would thus produce instant steps in loudness, not gradual changes, so the effect on the music would depend greatly upon how important a gradual change was to the overall musical effect. The size of the step is fixed and might not be appropriate for very short or long crescendos. If intensities 2 or 3 are already on, then nothing will happen! I guess long crescendos coded onto the roll would not sound at all right on the Marque system. Going by some earlier comments, maybe such crescendos are not common. This was my only experience with Ampicos, so I could not compare it to the playing with a full system. I sold this piano about 12 years ago and a few days ago visited the owner and put a test roll on. I wished I hadn't, because the expression did not seem to be working at all, but the owner hadn't noticed! Who needs crescendos?
Maybe someone else would like to comment?
Cheers,
Darrell |
(Message sent Thu 6 Jun 1996, 17:53:00 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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