Steve, I built up an O-roll player in the early 1970s as my second
automatic music project (the first was a player piano), and it's
still one of my favorites. It has metal bells, tambourine, triangle,
wood block, drums, and piano expression. I started to add pipes or
reeds several times but never completed the projects. The drums are
from a child's set.
All the instruments are shoe-horned into the original player piano
case. If I had it to do over I would extend the case to give more
room. The bells have been out of order for some time and need
rebuilding. Maybe I'll make a xylophone instead. I went to a lot
of trouble to get some sort of balance between the instruments. Also,
I didn't like the fast repetition rate of the bells, they sounded more
like door bells, and worked them over to get much slower repetition.
That makes them a lot easier to listen to.
Best wishes,
Fritz Gellerman
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