[ Richard Moody wrote in 080911 MMDigest:

> Besides his hand-made ones, most of Robert's rolls were old ones
> that he brought over from Germany, but I thought I saw and heard
> some rolls on new white paper.

The trouble with Robert's original rolls was that, while his band organ
roll player system indeed used a Wurlitzer tracker bar, he made many
changes to the music scale, so that his rolls were not compatible with
standard Wurlitzer systems.

He added a number of missing chromatic notes, and put these on various
holes he didn't need on the tracker bar, i.e., coin slot, re-roll (he
developed another way to activate the re-roll), timpani...  He also
drilled some extra holes in the tracker bar.

All this is to say that Robert's rolls only work on his band organ,
and nowhere else, unless of course someone made an organ that
duplicated Robert's.

Robert had a switch on that band organ so that he could turn off his
system and have the tracker bar read like a standard Wurlitzer one.  He
once did that for me and played some of the Wurlitzer rolls.  His main
complaint about them was their lack of articulation: too much legato.
The registration/orchestration was also a good deal less imaginative
and resourceful than Robert's.

By the way, in case I hadn't mentioned it, Robert's larger organ (the
"pipe organ") is now in my home in Michigan, in pieces.  I spent 4-1/2
days driving it here from California in a 17-foot truck!  It needs a
lot of work, so it'll be some time before I will have any news of it
playing...!

Tim Tikker
Ann Arbor, Michigan

 [ Robert Heilbuth's larger organ, now in Tim's home, of about
 [ 23 ranks and with three roll-playing mechanisms, is described at
 [ http://organsociety.bsc.edu/SingleOrganDetails.php?OrganID=7537 
 [ -- Robbie