Roll Template Software.
In MMD 980817 Lionel Van Aertryck described his roll template software
and asked for information about other similar programs.
I have been working intermittently on something very similar for the
last couple of years, to produce new rolls or tune sheets for
organettes. So far I have made several new tunes for the two organettes
that I own - a 14-note McTammany-style and a Celestina. I do the
arrangements and transpositions in Noteworthy Composer (an excellent
shareware notation program - see
http://www.ntworthy.com/
I have written the MIDI parser and template software in Borland Pascal
for DOS. Output is to an Epson dot-matrix printer. The instrument
definitions are loaded from a Windows-style INI file. A DOS batch file
is used to combine several tunes onto a Celestina roll, with adjustments
for paper buildup.
Like Lionel, I have also found it useful to check for missing notes, as
these instruments do not have a full chromatic scale. Other checks I
want to include are for minimum note-off times, and for the same note
overlapping in different parts. I'm also working on driving a punch
rather than a printer (much as Lionel has described), and I'm thinking
about an organette-roll scanner based on work that Richard Stibbons
described here recently.
But what I really need at the moment to advance this project (and to
sharpen my very limited arranging skills) is to reverse-engineer a few
more original organette rolls. I would be keen to hear from anyone
who has original Celestina rolls for sale - even damaged or un-playable
rolls would be useful to help study the original punching.
John Wolff.
Melbourne, Australia.
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