Adding Recordo to Foot-pumped Players
By Ron Rainville
In response to the query from Robbie, with regard to adding Recordo to ordinary foot-pumped players, the following information will, hopefully, prove useful. I am assuming, of course, that "ordinary players" means those WITHOUT a divided stack that have soft bass and soft treble controls at the keyslip.
Three things need to happen in order to convert ordinary players to Recordo players:
(1) You need a Recordo trackerbar which has five elongated slots at each end. This trackerbar should take advantage of the tracking system already installed in the piano to be converted to Recordo. In other words, if your piano has a Standard player action, then the trackerbar to be installed should have the double tracking holes at each end. Otherwise, you would probably have to construct a different tracking system.
(2) The hammer rail needs to be divided between C# and D instead of between E and F, for example. This requires a little woodworking, but usually is not a problem, and
(3) The expression mechanism needs to be designed along "vertical" lines, since there is usually room to install a vertical expression box at the side of the bellows, but not a horizontal one. There are many different kinds of expression boxes that can be constructed, but I suggest that one of the easiest to construct makes use of the thin rubber regulator pouch and metal grid like the Ampico B, although in this case it should be round instead of rectangular.
The three requirements listed above are really the minimum as far as a Recordo conversion is concerned. Tracker bars, for example are available (check out the ads in the AMICA magazine), and in fact, I have two "surplus" bars if anybody wants to get started and try a conversion.
If anyone has further questions about any of the points mentioned above, I would be delighted to help them if I can.
Ron Rainville
[ Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Ron, I hope you get some inquiries.
[ -- Robbie
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(Message sent Thu 23 Jan 1997, 17:48:37 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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