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MMD > Archives > December 2005 > 2005.12.15 > 02Prev  Next


Who Is Making Piano Rolls?
By Randy Hammond

I prefer to buy recut rolls due to the paper situation.  I own both an
Ampico and a Duo-Art.  I cannot say enough about the wonderful quality
of the rolls from Precision Music Rolls.  My experience with those
rolls is that the quality could not be better.  Reproducing pianos are
less forgiving than standard players in terms of the quality of the
roll to get peak performance and these rolls are every bit as good or
better than the originals.

I was surprised to read in an earlier post that Precision are going to
also be producing rolls for the Duo-Art.  If this is indeed true, this
will be a wonderful source of quality rolls for the Duo Art.  I have
also had very good experiences with the rolls that I have purchased
from David Caldwell.  In both cases, the rolls are top notch and
perform flawlessly.

My intention is not to "blast" any manufacturer but that has not been
a universal experience in buying new Ampico and Duo-Art rolls.  I have
not bought any rolls from two manufacturers due to receiving defective
rolls on several occasions, problems such as the paper being too
narrow, reroll holes not punched, rolls and or boxes missing labels,
etc.  Each time that I have placed an order with one firm in
particular, something came that was bad.

Quality control on reproducing rolls is a huge issue.  Runs need to be
checked and rolls in that run need to be randomly played to ensure that
defective merchandise is not going out to the customer.  I thought that
this was a problem of the past until a good friend of mine who has an
Ampico with a B drawer just ordered some Ampico rolls from this firm.
The tabs are not on correctly and it causes problems in the drawer.
This company has gone through some changes and it has the potential
of being an absolutely wonderful source of music for the Ampico and
Duo-Art but, until the quality control issues are addressed, they might
get one or two orders from a customer but they will not get repeat
business or recommendations from buyers.  Buyers do not always return
defective rolls, they just do not purchase from that source again.

Randy Hammond


(Message sent Thu 15 Dec 2005, 23:17:14 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.)

Key Words in Subject:  Is, Making, Piano, Rolls, Who

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