Bill Mote inquired about the tracker scale for his Kimball Organ
Soloist rolls.  There were two versions of the Kimball Soloist.  What
Bill has is the earlier version which is a simple player that controls
shades open and close via a timing device (similar to what the Welte
Philharmonic used) controlled by chain perforations of varying length.
Tracker hole #1 is swell shades open and #98 is shades close.

Stops are set by six adjustable combination pistons controlled by holes
2, 3, 4 and 95, 96 and 97.  Bill said his tracker bar is 96 holes, but
from the 2 rolls I have (acquired on eBay out of curiosity) it looks
like 98 holes.  Maybe I'm wrong on that.  Rewind appears to be right
in the middle of the tracker bar.  That would leave 89 playing notes.
Pedal probably plays just 12 notes and I'm not sure how the two manuals
are divided up.

Swell and stop changes are indicated by notations rubber stamped on the
roll just before the perforations.  It appears that when a new piston
is punched the previously set piston is canceled.

One of my rolls has a paper label glued inside the box top indicating
what stops to set on each of the 6 pistons for that particular roll.

At some point Kimball introduced a completely new Soloist system that
was quite sophisticated and utilized extensive multiplexing.  There
is a complete late version Kimball Soloist preserved up in Minneapolis,
and the Atlantic City Ballroom Kimball is equipped with a Kimball
Soloist player in a side cabinet which is to be restored.  The late
version Soloist system used a step ratchet to open and close the
shades.

I'm sending photos of the roll and box labels as well as photos of the
roll showing the swell and stop perforations and notations.  The late
Soloist boxes were covered in green mottled paper with beautiful green
and gold labels with black lettering.  I'm also sending two photos
given to me by Wallace Kimball showing the early Kimball Soloist organ
in his father's home in Highland Park, Illinois, where he grew up.

Dave Krall

 [ Thanks for the photos, Dave.  I'll put them under Kimball at the
 [ MMD Media site, http://www.mmdigest.com/Gallery/MMMedia/brands.html 
 [ -- Robbie