The reasons for the general lack of enthusiasm for the pedal Duo-Art
are that it is neither one thing or the other and that the use of the
Duo-Art name promises more than it delivers.

If you want to make your own musical interpretations that sound like a
proper pianist then you need a good straight-forward player piano,
preferably one with a Themodist-type action, and to play arranged or
hand-played rolls on it.

The only part of a performance that the pedal Duo-Art automates further
is the accompaniment level.  The operator still has to control the
theme level.  The difference in performance relative to a normal Themo-
dist pianola is very slight.  With the Themodist you use the theme
sliders to control the accompaniment, but the rest is the same.

What is unique to the fully-fledged reproducing piano is your ability
to stand back and listen, to become audience rather than performer.
The pedal Duo-Art offers none of that, at least to its operator.

There is nothing wrong with the pedal Duo-Art as an instrument; far
from it, it is an interesting variant of the 88-note pianola, well-
built and highly effective, as are all pianolas.  It's just the use of
the Duo-Art name, a whiff of misrepresentation lingering around it.
These instruments certainly fool buyers these days, possibly more so
than in the 1920s, given the way that the reproducing piano has been
elevated to such high status by collectors.  Correcting this misrepre-
sentation has to be a credible reason for later instruments of this
type being labeled "reproducing action" rather than "Duo-Art."

A point that bears repeating is that an 88-note player piano is every
bit as musical as a reproducing piano.  Indeed, because there is a
person at the controls, it's possible to adapt the performance to the
place and time, or simply to the performer's whim, in a way that a
reproducing piano can never do but every pianist always does.  And I'm
speaking of good reproducing pianos, not the majority that don't work
properly or are shockingly ill-adjusted!

Julian Dyer