It's always interested me to see what different roll perforator
businesses choose to offer, and the various ways these fail to
satisfy the punters.

Here in the UK it seems a given that the owner of the perforator will
choose what to cut, and will take the business risk arising from that
choice.  Why, I really don't know -- British control-freakery?

It seems to me that a far more sensible approach is to offer a fixed
slate of cutting services and bulk-sell to those who wish to commission
rolls and market them.  That way the inventory risk is transferred
entirely to the primary buyer, whose exposure is reduced to perfectly
manageable levels.

This is surely why the Tonnesen's service is so successful.  Batch
volumes of 5 rolls are pragmatic.  Any roll worth recutting should at
least appeal to one or two of the recutter's friends who will be quite
happy to take a copy with no marketing effort!

What to cut?  New or old?  For a short while we were offered a superb
catalogue of new rolls created by Rex Lawson and Mike Boyd, using
Mike's UK Aeolian perforator and Rex's computer programs.  Sadly, by
the time my musical horizon had expanded far enough to understand the
awesome quality of this material Mike had stopped producing the rolls,
largely because of the time it took away from his rebuilding business.

There never was any serious expectation of recovering the cost of the
editing time.  Sales were pitiful in any case, although with better
marketing they might have reached the very low category.  With various
perforator projects in the air maybe these rolls will become easily
available again.  In the meantime some are in Wolfgang Heisig's
catalogue.

This hobby can call on both paid-for and free services, and profits
greatly from the presence of the two.  At work I do what the company
requires for a salary, so at home I'm happy to offer whatever I choose
to produce freely to my friends.  Creating music is best done at the
free but enthusiastic end of the scale, as it's not amenable to
clock-watching.

In any case, suggesting that specialist-appeal rolls can be created on
commercial rates and profited from is laughable.  It requires a huge
operation like QRS's with tens of thousands on its mailing lists, or
vastly-desirable high-cost items (so instantly excluding piano rolls
on both counts).

With the entire world making MIDI files it's surely worth locating and
borrowing existing material.  This has in recent years produced some
fantastic rolls (John Roach MIDI files issued by Tim Baxter, Pianomania
Disklavier recordings issued by Rob DeLand).  Most creators seem
delighted just to be asked, or maybe take a notional dollar a roll.
Plenty of musical enthusiasts make material explicitly for roll as time
and enthusiasm permits (Ian McLaughlin, Sid O'Connell and, of course,
John Farrell, to name a few gracing my roll shelves).

With the advance of roll scanners that can recreate original roll
masters, someone will eventually make their recreated masters freely
available so anyone with a perforator can cut anything without further
ado.  It only needs the perforator owners to take up this offer --
and their doing so would vindicate the scanning project!  A buyer then
only needs to look in the index of scanned rolls and say "I'll have
5 of this one, please."  This will completely revolutionise the
availability of recut rolls, particularly limited-catalogue
high-desirability products such as Ampico and Duo-Art.

I'm happy to pay for roll cutting because it requires commitment
of time and assets, and (we wish) a generally business-like approach.
To be realistic, affordable rolls give poor recompense which explains
the semi-enthusiast status of the roll businesses.  Rather than knock
Richard Groman (who has put a vast amount of work into relocating,
I have eye-witness accounts of it), I'd prefer to praise Janet
Tonnesen and Dave Saul for making it look so easy.

The music from my piano is unrelated to the technology that made
the roll.  Making perforators is a fun technical branch of the hobby.
If something better (i.e. cheaper rolls) comes out of it that's great,
but if it doesn't, so what.  Has anyone considered musically-trained
woodworm or unemployed Jedi?

Julian Dyer