Hello, player enthusiasts,  I read the posting about that Kimball roll,
"King of Ragtime", selling for a big price on eBay.  It's not the only
copy of the roll, since my copy was borrowed from Ed Openshaw (now in
New Hampshire) to use for a new version, featuring the same notes, a
sparkling sustaining pedal and additional material.  Our "New King of
Ragtime" was released 21 years ago, and has been a good seller in the
Artcraft catalogue ever since that time.

What's different about "New King of Ragtime" over the droning original
Kimball roll?  The following changes were made:

a) The original roll is just a cut-and-paste job from several short
arrangements, perhaps from single rolls of the day. There were no links
from one piece to another, so I created some bridges to give continuity
to the total performance;

b) "Maple Leaf Rag" is buried in the middle of the roll, while
"Temptation Rag" opens the medley, not that great a piece and perforated
on too many old rolls of the day (also more vaudeville in nature than
traditional ragtime, in my opinion).  I rearranged the order of the
titles -- any good Ragtime medley should begin with Scott Joplin's
"Maple Leaf Rag", in my opinion.

c) Since the tunes were just "glued together", I composed an Introduction,
which leads into "Maple Leaf Rag".

d) All the notes in the original score were retained, but they were
graduated for our Interpretive Arranging striking standards.  This is
quite noticeable on some of the large 11- and 14-note chords at the end
of certain pieces, especially those by James Scott;

e) "Frog Legs Rag" in our version "hops" with staccato, as well as any
roll with that slower paper travel speed could, given the fact that all
the pieces in the medley were complete.  The lackluster Kimball roll
just holds down the treble melody notes on the A theme as if one were
playing a Hammond Organ in a Home Show of the 1950s;

f) A new sustaining pedal -- what I call "live pedal" -- was created.
This is part pneumatic and part agogic (i.e., in the arrangement) and
takes into account that the dampers are on while falling down, in
between the roll perforations for the pedal effect.

As I said, above, all the original Kimball notes/chords were retained,
but in the manner described above.

People often like to purchase my remastered rolls for a Brand X
comparison demonstration with the originals.  Particularly effective
are "New Pink Tea Fox Trot" vs. the original Duo-Art roll and "New
Castle House Medley" vs. 3 Melville Clark QRS rolls in the #30,000
series.  Needless to say, most of the Brand X historic rolls are never
played through, especially if they follow one of the remastered
arrangements.

You might want to check out "New King of Ragtime" on our web site
description: http://wiscasset.nnei.net/artcraft/ (Click on the music
roll link)

Best regards from Maine,
Douglas Henderson - Artcraft Music Rolls
Wiscasset, Maine, USA
http://wiscasset.nnei.net/artcraft/