With all the talk about the PowerRoll and WindPlay currently going on,
I just had to add my two cents.  I wrote a very supportive letter to
Larry Broadmoore after I was able to get my PowerRoll working very well.
I promised to write to the MMD of my experience, but have been very
busy lately.  I could go on and on with details, but I will instead
keep it very much to the important points.

Both the PowerRoll and WindPlay are excellent products and are very
well supported by their developers.  They both give the support and
attention to detail that is very rare today.  Their efforts are more
a labor of love than an attempt to make money.

Larry has spent countless hours on the phone and has express mailed
parts that were destroyed in shipping (everything that makes it up my
gravel road gets destroyed unless packed as military instruments) all
in good spirits.

Richard has responded very quickly to problems with the beta test
versions of WindPlay.  (He must be one who needs very little sleep
as he has a full time job too.)  If anyone is concerned about being
stuck without adequate support for these products, please feel free
to contact me and I can allay such fears.

About the PowerRoll itself, it is difficult to describe the results
without hearing them yourself.  Gone is the noise of the wind motor,
the fluttering paper from old rolls, the missed notes due to mistrack-
ing, the extra notes due to warped paper and the variations in note
onset timing due to tracking errors.  The music is as perfect as can
be on a particular piano.  Minor deficiencies are even compensated for
by the rapid and even response of the valves.

After having my piano freshly tuned it is hard to beat the experience
of hearing a multi-roll set, such as the Chopin Concerto in E-Minor
without interruption and without a single missing or extraneous note.
Just magic, almost like listening to Stahnke's Rachmaninoff CD.

I can't wait for more music to be available and am working on a
roll scanner myself so that I can scan the many rolls that I have.
I have listened to the music emulated on a sound card and it is fun
(especially the pops) but there is no comparison to the sound of a
fine piano in the room.

One last interesting note of interest to those who have Duo-Arts and
who have always been disappointed in the popular music.  The PowerRoll
does a better job with the (often terribly demanding) editing of these
rolls.  Very minor tracking errors can miss the coding that was often
of very short duration and can cause Duo-Art pops to be very mushy and
lifeless.  The PowerRoll does not miss these codes and sends them
correctly to the regulator.  The difference is quite remarkable.  I can
actually listen to the pops now and sometimes think that I am listening
to an Ampico.

Spencer Chase

 [ The good performance of the PowerRoll is due in no small measure
 [ to the quality of the roll transcriptions which Wayne Stahnke has
 [ provided on CD-ROM.  The song files are transcribed from only
 [ original music rolls, not recuts, and are carefully checked to
 [ assure hole-for-hole accuracy.  -- Robbie