Hello MMD readers,  With great interest, I've been reading the recent
string of postings about the American versus the British Duo-Art
players and also the texts about the differences in the expression
boxes.  Having made Duo-Art rolls which "push" the entire spectrum of
the instrument, for years, I'd like to add the following observations:

First, most of the old Duo-Art rolls 'copped out' and didn't use vacuum
changes for the dynamics, as they should have.  Aeolian added the soft
pedal at every opportunity.  With the 3 styles of Soft Pedals, plus 4
versions of the hammer rail lift type, it's next to impossible for an
arranger to "know" what the customer's expression player will do with
the score.  Thus, I use vacuum shifts as much as possible which,
admittedly, takes more creative work than the 'frozen settings'
approach that was the hallmark of the commercial Aeolian library.

Second, I've had a string of Duo-Art players since the mid-'Fifties,
and some were factory equipped with the same style of spring, usually
the weaker Accompaniment kind, on both sides of the expression box.
Given good hammers (meaning voiced softly for the Pianola and fairly
equal at any stage of the scale with a particular vacuum level) plus
rolls which "kept the expression system in motion", I never saw that
much difference.  This included both baby grand and upright pianos,
finally ending with the Steinway AR which was used 'industrially' at
our museum, The Musical Wonder House, for 23 years.  (I've lived with
and played this particular instrument for about 4 decades, now.)

During the time the Steinway & Sons was being played for the guided
tours and evening concerts, we ran through 4 sets of hammers, each
of which required extensive voicing, something that had to be done
in stages, during a period of tunings, since it takes about 45 minutes
to an hour to reassemble the upper action in order to have the player
(not the human hand) strike the keys, during this aesthetic operation.
I kept written notes, and with hearing the same rolls on tour after
tour (mostly mine, for the full scope of the Duo-Art player) I could
single out particular keys in the treble, primarily, which could be
addressed on the next tuning session.  After several seasons, the new
hammers had settled in and developed that "even scale", like an organ
stop, which electric players require for the full expression range.

Third, the crash valve on the Steinway AR died after several seasons,
due to a torn pouch.  I put a cork or the like in the large hole
(within the box) that the valve seals, which turns the "sforzando"
effect off.  Then, we carefully sawed apart the box, installed gaskets
with the screws, and rebuilt the crash valve, which has been fully
operative ever since.

The crash turns out to be a gimmick when playing the old Duo-Art
rolls, since most of them rarely squeeze the accordions "long enough"
to activate the pallet valve, and the atmospheric changes, plus the
packing down of the felt on the lifting finger, almost guarantee that
it might come on with intensities #13 or #14 instead of #15 only.
Or, it can skip entirely.

I find that the crash, when part of the instrument, is particularly
handy for the manual control of the Duo-Art, since you can 'feel' the
valve pallet being lifted, just as with the crash valves on an Amphion
or Autopiano pedal player, located in the lower part of the action.
(My Marque Ampico has two crash valves in series, so that the
expression system can be accommodated more evenly, perhaps.  Different
springs control the left/right nature of their series operation.)

Chester Kuharski in Wisconsin, mentioned in a previous edition of
the MMD, sent me his "invention" to solve this crash problem, as
outlined above.  This was a bypass box which, when the Duo-Art valves
signaled a #15, merely used flaps to skip the whole accordion
pneumatic control and activate the crash valve directly.  This works
reliably and instantaneously, but I never used it for my Artcraft
masters, since few Duo-Art owners have this upgrade feature in their
instruments.  Only this particular crash "control box" makes that
feature a viable part of the Duo-Art action, beyond the advantages
of the Pianola lever controls, where it is a handy asset for roll
interpretation.

Most of the texts I've seen, so far, talk about regulator springs
and vacuum increments, but not the overuse of the soft pedal on the
Duo-Art, and most other 'reproducing' roll arrangements.  The soft
pedal negates many of the refinements described, simply because it's
a major variable from one Duo-Art piano to another.

The best test of the instrument is to use a roll which "moves the
levers" in time to the music, much as a Pianolist does with the foot
pedals, or when using the Pianola levers on the Duo-Art action.
Some of the commercial rolls which do this are "Bambalina" (#18685)
"played by Frank Banta" (and sounding like an Erlebach expression
score) and "Lovin' Sam, Sheik of Alabam'" (#1831) "played by Robinson"
(arranged 'over' by Erlebach, I'll bet).  These, like the factory
demonstration rolls which weren't sold to the public, squeeze the
accordions actively, maintaining a floating vacuum level a good portion
of the time.  Short of locating those old rolls, our
"Linnmania-Marseillaise", "Lion Tamer Rag" And "The Chicago March",
among others, also adhere to this "expression box activity" in both
the Theme and the Accompaniment scores.

Look at the typical old Duo-Art roll, and you'll often seen a fixed
Accompaniment for many inches on the left side of the roll, set against
3-4 fixed Theme levels on the right margin.  Added on to this will be
many bursts of the soft pedal, rather than using the vacuum changes
inherent in the player's design.  Such rolls are no good for regulating
anything, since the full spectrum of the player is never reached and
the "timing" (speed of change) will be absent on anything with
intensities which are being handled like organ stops.  (That's not
surprising since Aeolian began as a player organ company, after all!)

It has been my experience, with so many decades in making new
arrangements, and listening to the old ones (often as an example of
"what not to do"!), that rolls which follow the rhythmic impulses, as
in "Bambalina" (by Aeolian) or "Lion Tamer Rag" (by me), have the same
"performance shape" on the typical instrument, even if it has mismatched
regulator springs, an absent crash valve and/or one of the 3 totally
different systems for the soft pedal.

The lackluster roll is what changes performance so dramatically when
adjustments to the expression box take place.  Here, the solution is
simple: if you really enjoy a particular old roll, learn to use the
Pianola levers.  Aeolian put into writing, up to at least 1918, that
the "Duo-Art as a Pianola" (their term) outperformed even their finest
versions of the Pianola Piano, meaning their responsive pedal players.
The beauty of the Duo-Art is that the listener can cut in and introduce
some commands of his/her own, whenever the expression score misses
a musical opportunity.  This usually happens, of course, with rolls
having fixed settings, excessive soft pedal and a narrow dynamic range
for the programmed performance.

One wonders if those two weak springs were just part of the cavalier
nature of installing players, especially since most of the rolls were
background music in the first place.  I've seen one Duo-Art which came
from Sherman & Clay in San Francisco, in the home of the original
owner, which had two heavy (Theme) springs, but the two Accompaniment
ones were the norm.

In conclusion, pay attention to the soft pedal when playing old rolls.
Its often inappropriate and excessive use, beyond that of the sustaining
pedal, is what contributes to such different performances by the same
arrangement on sundry models of the Duo-Art player.

Regards from Maine,
Douglas Henderson - Artcraft Music Rolls
http://www.wiscasset.net/artcraft/