The importance of roll scans I began scanning piano rolls in the late 1970s, and am still at it. There are now many others who have joined in this rewarding activity, for all sorts of reasons. In this article I look at why I’ve spent some 30 years doing roll scans, and argue the case for roll scanning. By Peter Phillips When I started this article, I intended first Sydney International Piano describing how I went about producing Competition. Working at the time for some 1500 scans of Ampico piano the media, I was asked to review the rolls. But the why kept creeping in. So instrument, which I did with great when the article started reaching tome enthusiasm. Although I praised it, I still proportions, I split it into two parts. felt my Ampico was better. All the This is part 1, where I explain why I AMICA conventions I’ve been to since spent so much time on an activity that have a solenoid piano on display, with not all collectors agree with. Part 2, to recent conventions also showing MIDI be published later, is my scanning player systems, such as the PowerRoll story, from 1976 to the present. or the Gerety-Chase MIDI valve system. Times have certainly moved Initially, as Part 2 explains, I got into on since the 1970s. roll scanning through necessity. It was the only way I’d ever get a decent I was finally converted, and fitted a library of music for my Ampico. When PianoDisc system to my Yamaha G5 you live outside the USA, government piano in 1996. I purchased taxes and transport costs can make a performances on floppy disks from $10 roll into a $30 slug. But time has PianoDisc and Yamaha and for a while moved on, and although I still play my enjoyed hearing pianists that were still roll scans on the Ampico, I now have alive. But despite this, I seemed to another way of hearing them: a listen to the Ampico more than the Disklavier. PianoDisc. Something was lacking in many of these modern recordings. Mechanical MIDI pianos The development of the mechanical What I really wanted was to be able to MIDI piano probably started with the hear my Ampico roll scans on the Pianocorder. Although not a MIDI PianoDisc, which would mean instrument, it inspired companies like converting them from my file format to Yamaha and PianoDisc to produce a MIDI. A colleague, Ross Chapman player piano that would play from suggested a way of doing this, a task electronic media. I saw my first that was eventually completed. Some Pianocorder in the early 1980s, at the readers might not be aware of the Sydney Opera House. It was types of MIDI files used in roll demonstrated by a concert pianist and scanning, so here’s a brief I was bowled over at hearing a explanation… reproducing piano without a vacuum pump. I didn’t seek to buy one, as Roll scans and MIDI although impressed, I felt my Ampico These days, roll scans are available as did a better job. But these days, the MIDI files. This is the standard used Pianocorder lives on as a full MIDI for pretty much all electronically instrument thanks to the excellent operated musical instruments, from work done by Mark Fontana. pianos to clarinets. It’s not useful to describe the MIDI format, as it gets too An MX100 Disklavier was on display at technical. Instead, I regard MIDI as a the 1987 AMICA convention, but I had computer-based system that stores to wait until 1988, when Yamaha musical information for replay on displayed an upright Disklavier at the instruments designed for the purpose. The importance of scanning rolls 1 However, there are various types of The third type is perhaps the most computer file formats used by roll important, as I believe it’s the key to scanners, including the following three. keeping piano roll music alive in the 21st century. This is the emulated MIDI The first is the so-called e-MIDI file. file, where the roll’s expression coding This is the type of file you would use to (if present) is converted to an play a pneumatic instrument fitted with equivalent MIDI volume by a program a MIDI interface like the PowerRoll or called an emulator. Standard rolls the Gerety-Chase MIDI valve system. don’t have expression coding, so an An e-MIDI file is simply a MIDI arbitrary volume is used for all notes. representation of all holes in a roll. Scans of organ rolls and the like are in Also called a standard MIDI file (SMF), this form, so the file, when played into most roll scan MIDI files are of this an instrument fitted with a MIDI valve type. This is the type of file played on system plays as if from the roll. a Disklavier or any standard MIDI piano. WindPlay has emulation A second type is the Bar/Ann format, software, which is why it can provide developed by Wayne Stahnke. This the two types of output: e-MIDI for a format is used with Richard Brandle’s pneumatic piano, or standard WindPlay, a program to operate the (emulated) MIDI for a solenoid piano. PowerRoll. The Bar file is similar (but technically different) to an e-MIDI file; Emulated MIDI the Ann file stores information such as The principle of emulation is relatively roll title, pianist, composer, year simple: the expression coding on a roll produced, etc. The main problem is is converted into a number (called a the need for two computer files per roll velocity value) somewhere between 0 scan. Advantages include being able and 127, where 127 is the maximum to use WindPlay to play a Bar/Ann file volume. In MIDI, each note (or MIDI into a pneumatic piano via a event) has a velocity value. A MIDI PowerRoll, or into a standard MIDI piano can play each note at a different piano like a Disklavier. A nice feature volume, unlike a pneumatic piano, in WindPlay is a graphic showing the where there’s only two different roll, synchronised to the music, moving volumes possible at any one time. across a tracker bar. So, with an emulated MIDI file produced from a roll scan, it becomes possible to hear an Ampico, Duo-Art or Welte roll on a modern instrument. And it’s here things get tricky. It would seem that emulating expression coding is simply a matter of WindPlay playing an Ampico eroll: Minuet, mathematics. I learnt the hard way Op.14, No.1 (Paderewski), played by some years ago when I built an Rachmaninoff. electronically controlled vacuum regulator for a Duo-Art. It all just seemed a matter of decoding a four-bit binary number to get 16 volume levels. How wrong can you be! Instead, a Duo-Art has far more than 16 volume levels. But how? Theories WindPlay playing an Duo-Art eroll: Scherzo include the number of notes being in B-flat minor, Op.31 (Chopin), played by played at the time, inertia in the Hofmann. Notice that the tracker bar image regulator, position of the knife valve changes to suit the type of eroll. and so on. I’m sure programmers will The importance of scanning rolls 2 figure out all the many parameters for Reasons for making roll scans a Duo-Art emulator, and I know there There are two basic uses for roll are people in various parts of the world scans: producing more paper rolls currently working on this. from a “master scan”; or playing roll scans into an original or modern Emulating Ampico expression instrument to recreate the music. You Fortunately, the same is not so true for might think a “master” scan can do Ampico. I can’t comment on the both, but not quite. It comes down to current state of Welte emulation, timing. except to say that the emulated roll scans I’ve heard so far do not sound As collectors know, a hole in the as good as the roll when played on a tracker bar of a pneumatic instrument real Welte. But back to Ampico. must be uncovered by an amount equal to or greater than the size of the Charles Stoddard (inventor of the valve bleed before a note can play. Ampico) developed a vacuum When less than this area is exposed, regulator that uses feedback. This the valve will either fail to respond, or means, within reason, that the vacuum turn the note off. That is, the note level you get is pretty much what the plays for a shorter time than the time expression coding demands. That is, taken for the roll hole to completely the system compensates for the pass a tracker bar hole. number of notes being played, and in general produces a predictable When a roll scan is used to operate a vacuum level. Good news for roll perforator, the timing is somewhat emulation software. different. The perforator must be operated from the scan to create holes My Ampico roll scans are now in all in a paper roll that are exactly aligned three of the MIDI file formats I’ve to those in the original master. That is, described, but it’s the emulated MIDI a punch is activated at the leading files I listen to on the Disklavier that edge of a master hole, and replaced my PianoDisc in 2001. It took deactivated at the lagging edge. That some doing before I felt the files were is, the punch is “on” for a longer period sounding like Ampico rolls, and I still than a note in a piano for a roll hole of find things I need to modify with hand the same length.