Dave Bowers wrote:

> I might suggest that someone copy the orchestral arrangements on these
> rolls, perhaps to convert them to G or H or other rolls for which
> many instruments exist today.  I, for one, would enjoy listening to
> Berry-Wood arrangements, with which I am not at all familiar.

At one time, I purchased what I thought was the burned out case of what
was once a Berry-Wood Style AOW.  I began to try and research if anyone
had AOW parts, rolls, etc.  In the course of doing so, the then-curator
of the DeBence Museum sent me extensive photo documentation of the style
AOW as well as several rolls to examine, one of which I sent to Dave
Wasson and Mike Ames for the purpose of scanning so I could study it in
depth with my music notation program.

I discovered the use of many of the "unknown" functions listed in the
tracker bar scales of Art Reblitz' book, "Treasures of Mechanical
Music," and I also recognized that the arrangements were virtually
identical to versions of the songs I had on G-rolls, with the addition
of more registers, percussion variations and of course octaves in the
bass and treble section.

In other words, the arrangement of the AOW roll extended [the G roll]
12 bass notes down from the left end and 12 treble notes up from the
right, for a total of 70 playing notes.

There were several lock and cancel expression systems going on as well,
similar to both soft pedal chain and high-low vacuum signals working
seemingly in an independent and not very musical (random) fashion as
found in the revered "G" roll.

I came to the conclusion that either Clark was under a contract to turn
out Berry-Wood AOW rolls, or QRS masters were used, or G roll master
arrangements were the starting point.  I checked old lists of Kibbey
Mfg. Co. (a roll manufacturer of rolls for many early styles) and
although "Berry-Wood" was listed, no rewind type rolls were listed --
endless style only -- and the AOW was originally designated as being
available in rewind music only, unlike their other orchestrions such as
the AOH and AOS.  (The AOH and AOS models with rewind roll frames were
designated as "AOSR" and "AOHR").

So I shipped those rolls back to the DeBence Museum.  (They have
quite a few rolls in their attic; no one changes them, so it is or was
thought there was only one AOW roll known and that one was playing on
the machine.  Not true.)

I realized that basically the AOW sounds like an orchestrationally and
range augmented Seeburg playing those "G" extended master arrangements!
I have a MIDI copy done in Cakewalk if anyone cares to play it and
examine for themselves, thanks to the expertise and generosity of Mike
Ames and David Wasson.

And the "burned out" "AOW" I bought turned out to be an assembly that
someone tried to build up and later was in a fire -- believe me, if it
were the remains of a real AOW, I wouldn't have spared any expense to
restore to factory new condition if I had to duplicate all the parts
myself!

Wishing everyone a Happy 2008!
Stephen Kent Goodman