As some of you know, I have switched gears in my collecting habits.
After about thirty years of total Ampico and Duo-Art piano submersion,
I am now trying to discover some of the secrets of the Duo-Art pipe
organ.  Foremost in that endeavor is fully exploring all the coding
schemes used to make the Duo-Art organ player operate.

For those who don't know, the Duo-Art organ roll has 176-note
capability.  This 15.25-inch wide roll could nimbly handle pipe organs
of two manuals and twenty-six ranks plus harp, chimes, and echo organ.
Actually, it could handle much more, but exactly how that was
accomplished is a bit of a mystery.  This is where I solicit help.

If anyone has an original Aeolian Duo-Art Test roll, called a "Tester",
I would like to borrow it, or at least have all the instructions
written on the roll.  I already own two such rolls.  The instructions
are not the same.

The note holes are numbered from left to right.  The odd numbers,
1 through 175, are on the bottom row of the two row tracker bar.  Hole
numbers 2 through 176 are on the top row.  My particular interest is
discovering the various assignments given to the higher holes starting
at 164.  In particular, holes 164, 166, 170, 171, 173, 174 and 175.
The rest of the holes do not present any mystery.  I have the more
common published tracker bar lists and have input from Nelson Barden,
and I own the Rollin Smith book on Aeolian.

Beside researching the coding of these rolls, I am also restoring an
Aeolian organ that plays the earlier 116-note rolls.  Using spare spool
box parts, I have embarked on the mission of recording many rolls in
MIDI file format.  I have a large collection of rolls in 116-note and
176-note format.  My recording setup reads the rolls pneumatically by
driving the rolls at very slow speed, using a spare Ampico B roll drive
motor.  While optical scanning is all the rage, it was more expedient
for me to start with a pneumatic system that I could operate
immediately with great accuracy.

There is some urgency to this project as the rolls have major problems
due to poor paper quality.  It is my desire to capture as much of this
vanishing episode of mechanical music as possible, before it is too
late.  Additionally, I want to know all the mysteries of the roll
coding.  Once in MIDI format, a search for the note holes mentioned
above can lead to study of the situations in which those coding options
are used.

So if there are copies of the Tester roll that could be shared in this
research, I would be most grateful.  I will make available any new
tracker scale information that I compile.

Bob Taylor