In 130908 MMDigest Mikey Mills inquired about an APP rollography.

After making a similar inquiry here, with the help of Matt Caulfield,
Jack Conway, Mark Reinhart, Doug Hershberger, Doyle Lane and others,
a few years back I started such a project.  This was done scanning in
the old 1920s catalogs, Ray Siou's broadsheets, Doyle Lane's T.R.T.
listings and other ephemera such at the listings offered by the Player
Piano Co. of Wichita, Kansas.

The catalog currently sits at about 10,000 song titles.  This catalog
badly needs proofreading and the inclusion of composer and date
information.  I was able to write a script in Excel and match the HTML
format of Matt Caulfield's 165 catalog.  The resulting file is 5 MB in
size.

Given that it takes about eight hours to read through it, I have not
done much with it for two or three years.  I have shared this data with
a few others who have provided information or needed such a listing.
I could put the existing catalog on my web site, so web space is not
an issue.  It is more the reliability of the data that is in question.
It needs a dedicated person to maintain it on a full-time basis.

At the moment I am currently in the process of getting the "Ray Siou
Special" orchestrion up and running for a friend.  I have a large
collection of APP/Caliola rolls.  I believe that PianoOrchestra rolls
are not related at all to APP.  APP and Caliola rolls are identical in
every way.  I have most of the rolls issued by T.R.T. through the end
of production.

Ralph Tussing often wrote three numbers at the roll end on the core.
These were the Caliola number, the APP number and the "5 tune" short
number that was made by cutting the roll in half.  The same masters
were used for all three variations.  The masters in the Herschell
Museum are also marked with the same three numbers.

One thing that is important to remember is that in the orchestrion,
like the "Ray Siou Special", there is always a rank of pipes playing,
either flutes or violins, so looking for rolls with short "piano length"
holes is not an indication of the difference between APP and Caliola.

The multiplexing on these APP rolls is also quite complex -- complex
enough that Wurlitzer 165 band organs could be converted to play the
rolls.  The "Ray Siou Special", which can also play the much less
common NOS Reproduco rolls, makes an attempt to use all this complex
logic that the roll arrangers provided.

Fritz Gellerman provided the MMD with copies of the scale sticks.
These show that the scale was divided into the traditional Bass, Melody
and Accompaniment sections.  There is optional glockenspiel (bells) and
xylophone, plus some percussion.   This tends to give the arrangements
a sound more like a more band organ.

While T.R.T. issued many of the same titles on Style 165 and A.P.P. rolls
there is no evidence that they shared the same masters.  It is possible
using MIDI players to switch between the two formats, which I find most
interesting.

Julie Porter

 [ The APP scale is at http://www.mmdigest.com/Gallery/Tech/APP1.html 
 [ and the scale stick images are at
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Gallery/Tech/APPsticks.jpg  -- Robbie