The pipe organ maintenance crew of the Dickinson Theatre Organ Society
(DTOS) in Wilmington, Delaware, has recently acquired a musical treasure
found tucked away in the attic of a local church.  The items found are
an Austin Premier Quadruplex Organ Roll Player unit and a library of
over three hundred music rolls.  The provenance and how it got to the
attic of the church are unknown.

This unit is unique in several respects.  The roll width is slightly
over twenty-one inches and it controls three 61-note manuals, a full
32-note pedal, up to 32 stops and expression from 240 information
channels.  To my knowledge this is the most sophisticated, and has
the most capability, of any of the pipe organ player systems ever
invented.  Austin made only twenty or fewer of these units.

Another unique feature was that the rolls were punched in real time
as the performance was being recorded and the finished roll could be
played back immediately.  In addition, several consoles were connected
to the recording machine and could be recorded simultaneously.

We would like to preserve the likely unique performances recorded
on these rolls.  Most are in good condition.  We are considering
several possibilities in order to accomplish this.  One way would be
to restore the player unit to operating condition to use as a scanner
to electronically capture the information on the rolls and then program
our Opus II system on the Kimball 2xIII/66 theatre pipe organ to play
back the recordings.

All of this is leading up to the question of whether anyone out there
in MMD-land who does roll scanning would have a machine capable of
handling the twenty-one-inch width and the 240 channel information.
We would appreciate hearing from anyone having this capability.  Also,
we are open to any suggestions regarding the restoration of the player
unit or additional information about it.

Best regards,

Paul W. Harris - DTOS Organ Maintenance Crew Leader
Wilmington, Delaware