Be they in the realm of myth, reality or simply glib and lengthy
pontificating, compatibility issues regarding the Ampico A and B
are still far from being resolved.

Musical art reproduced from Ampico recordings is in the ear and mind of
the beholder, whether it comes from an Ampico A or B.  "Compatibility"
is a matter of degree, and the inevitable changes imposed by a totally
re-engineered playback medium may or may not be within the range of
tolerance of a given listener.  Listening is a subjective experience.
Some Ampico "A" rolls yield artistically passable performances on a
"B" piano.  Other "A" rolls, however, do not satisfy even moderately
critical ears.  That much is a fact, even without going into the
technical reasons, which are manifold and have been well documented in
the AMICA bulletin and elsewhere.

Some performances and editing jobs were better than others, too.
B coding on B piano didn't necessarily insure aesthetic perfection.
It simply reduced the possibility of unintended mis-coding of the sort
that frequently manifests itself when an A roll is played on a B piano.

Question:  Why did Ampico re-code many rolls originally having
"A" coding into "B" format if their roll library was already fully
compatible like it was?  The most reasonable explanation would be that
the "B" format was considered necessary for best performance on the new
piano, so editors were put to work to upgrade performances having good
future sales potential.

Question:  Why was the "B" roll format introduced two years before the
B piano was being shipped to dealers?  Wouldn't it be to make sure that
dealer's shelves were well stocked with the latest issues of "B" rolls
by the time the new piano was introduced?  Most buyers did not have
existing roll collections.  They mostly acquired rolls at the time they
bought their pianos, and afterward.  That's why roll collections found
with "B" pianos usually contain a much higher percentage of "B" rolls
than roll collections found with "A" instruments.  "A" rolls were
clearly being phased out.

It's a shame that the 1929 crash put an untimely end to the editorial
project of re-coding "A" rolls to the "B" format.  Over the next
several years, all of the Ampico performances that were still
marketable would have likely been converted to "B" format and the
compatibility issue would have eventually been put to rest as the
changeover was completed.

Dave Saul

 [ Editor's note:
 [
 [ One of the recurring questions, which the MMD Emulation Forum is
 [ concerned with, is how to convert an Ampico performance into Duo-
 [ Art, or even Ampico A into Ampico B coding.  The common parameter
 [ is the hammer velocity, and the proof of the process will be to
 [ show that a given converted performance produces the same hammer
 [ velocity when played on an Ampico, Welte or Duo-Art system.
 [
 [ Frank Milne, working in the mid-30s, created versions of the same
 [ song for all three systems.  The note field is the same, the
 [ intensity coding is unique.  When the three different draft versions
 [ were finished, I presume that he played them on the respective pianos
 [ for final editing.  Listeners can hear that the performances are
 [ not exactly identical, but individually the expression is pleasant,
 [ and they all sound like Frank Milne.
 [
 [ Of course, even when the yet-to-be-developed conversion process
 [ finally exists, the result can be no better than the input.  A bad
 [ performance from one system will still sound equally bad after
 [ conversion to another reproducing system.  Identically bad.  ;)
 [
 [ -- Robbie