MELIORA MUSIC ROLLS

Our Roll-Making Technique

MIDI file to Piano Roll:

The marriage of "computer" technologies with a 70 year age difference!!

THE PLAYER PIANO: AN EARLY COMPUTER

By anyone's definition, the player piano system is a computer.  It has hardware (the piano and pneumatic player device), software (the player piano rolls), and computer "code" or language which create an output (the perforations of the player piano roll which instruct the "computer hardware" as to which notes to play).  The technologies responsible for the player piano were in place no later than 1910.

MIDI AND ITS FUNCTIONALITY

"MIDI" stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface.  In the early 1980s the MIDI system was developed by musicians who wished to play multiple electronic keyboards from a single device.  MIDI soon developed into a sophisticated means by which very precise musical information (including an individual note's length, modulation and velocity) could be stored for later replay.  Thus a MIDI recording of a piano artist would recreate that artist's precise interpretation, including the most subtle nuances of his performance.  Playback, however, was limited for the most part to electronic musical devices, or to solenoid acoustic pianos which were not built with the ability of rendering the full dynamic and expressive range of the MIDI recording (the MIDI-playing pianos developed by Mr. Wayne Stahnke are the exception to this rule).

HOW 88 NOTE PLAYER ROLLS WERE MADE DURING THE PLAYER PIANO'S HEYDAY

Historically, 88 note player piano rolls were made in one of three ways.  The first was simply by punching holes in a master player roll which perforations would correspond exactly to note values and duration as represented on sheet music (the so-called "sheet music transfer" method).  The second method hoped to improve the "mechanical" sound of the sheet music transfer method, and consisted of an actual human artist performing on a special "marking" piano which, in addition to playing the music, would crudely mark note values on a sheet of large paper, which marks would in turn be rendered "down" to the player roll format (the so-called "hand-played" method).  Later, and to make player rolls sound more smooth and musical, the "hand-played" method was used in conjunction with a great deal of subsequent arranging by the staff artists of a given roll company (I term this the "hybrid" method).  Most of the great rolls of the 1920s and 1930s were manufactured using the hybrid method.  However, the often heavy editing of an artist's performance by the staff artists has given rise to criticism that these performances do not really represent the true performance of the artist whose name appears on the roll.

THE MANUFACTURE OF MUSIC ROLLS AT MELIORA

MELIORA Piano Rolls begin with MIDI recordings of performances by the "artists".  Mr. Richard Brandle has married the early 20th century player piano technology with the advantages of a MIDI recording, and his program WIND^©, translates MIDI files into a format which can be used by the Custom Music Roll Company to perforate player rolls.  Stated another way, the genius of Mr. Brandle's program is that it equates MIDI note commands with the "commands" (the perforations) of a player piano roll.  MELIORA proudly uses WIND^©, in both its Macintosh and Win-doze incarnations (guess which we like better), to create its music rolls.  It is believed that QRS Music, Inc. uses a MIDI translation program operating on an Apple IIe computer (!!!), but with all due respect to this Grande Dame (and important preserver) of the player piano roll industry, we seriously doubt its editing and playback capabilities could compare in a meaningful way to Mr. Brandle's WIND^©. 

A MIDI recording of an artist's performance represents a far more accurate way to reproduce the artist's performance than either the "hand-played" or "hybrid" methods discussed above.  However, even a MIDI recording can never be seamlessly translated into a player piano roll because of the idiosyncracies of the 88 note player piano, which cannot render all of the MIDI information accurately.  Indeed, only three aspects of MIDI information can be rendered by an 88 note player piano at all: note value, note duration and sustain pedal duration (in fact, once a MIDI performance is perfected at MELIORA, we strip it of all data, such as velocity, etc., so as to better "hear" how it might sound on an 88 note player, where no interpretation has been added by the pianolist).  However, even these straightforward values must be edited significantly to create a musically pleasing player roll, because: (1) no 88-note player action faithfully reproduces the sustain pedal values from a MIDI recording, and (2) the 88-note player action "holds" note values for a slightly greater time than does a MIDI recording.

THE SUSTAIN PEDAL CONUNDRUM

You have probably noticed the sustain hole on the far left side of your player piano tracker bar.  Like a conventional note on the player roll, the sustain pedal of your piano turns on when a hole appears on the roll in the appropriate location.  

No 88-note player action can accurately reproduce the "pedal part" of a MIDI recording or a live performance.  The creators of the technology must have simply thought it was not worth the trouble to create a consistent sustain in a conventional 88-note player (it is reported that the Duo-Art reproducing piano - a piano which attempts an exact recreation of an artist's performance with all the interpretive effects of dynamics, custom articulations, etc. - has a pneumatic sustain which is quite accurate). The problems are two: (1) the sustain does not reset quickly when turned off, and (2) the amount of sustain in a given performance varies greatly with the amount of pumping - there is no "governor" as with the air motor (the device in the player which serves to move the piano roll across the tracker bar) to keep the air flow into the sustain pneumatic consistent, so harder pumping means more sustain (often "over-sustain") and softer pumping means less.

88-note roll manufacturers have always compensated for the sustain problem by simply elongating individual notes when necessary, rather than relying on the sustain (as a real performer would) to play legato passages.  Unfortunately, this is an unsatisfactory solution, because the sustain does much more than simply lengthen notes - by removing all of the dampers from the piano's strings, an important harmonic effect is created when a note is struck with the sustain on.  With the single exception of dynamics, it is this failure of an 88-note player piano to render an accurate sustain which prevents the player piano from achieving artistic greatness.

At MELIORA, we have taken the "middle" road - we have minimized sustain perforations somewhat (to prevent over-sustain) vis a vis what a performer would do, and have lengthened note durations where a particularly legato passage demands it.  Nonetheless, we believe an active sustain is crucial to the sound of the performance, so sustain coding remains a part of our rolls.  While we have worked very hard at creating a sustain "part " for our rolls which is musically appropriate, we still believe that a "pianolist" is best advised to add his own sustain manually, because individual makes of player piano handle sustain instructions on a roll quite differently, and because different intensities of pumping will result in the sustain acting differently.  The Pianolist is best able to gauge how much sustain she should add, given the intensity with which she is pumping (and the corresponding effect on the sustain mechanism when turned "on").  MELIORA rolls are tested on a 1923 Kohler & Campbell upright with a "Standard" Player Action .  Although the Standard Player Action was likely the most popular player action of all, it was only one of dozens of different types manufactured.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

At MELIORA, the MIDI performance is finalized by th roll editor, and only then translated by WIND^© into a file which can be edited to make the necessary compensations for the player piano action (sustain pedal issues, and a slight shortening of some notes to adjust for the fact that notes take longer to "reset" when turned off).  This can take a considerable amount of time, but is worth it in creating a good performance. This "almost final" file is sent to be perforated by the Custom Music Roll Company, who produces a "test" roll copy for evaluation.  We then play the test copy over and over on our tester piano (a 1923 Kohler & Campbell with the Standard Action), and further refinements are made to the test roll with an Exacto knife and hole punch.  Once the roll sounds perfect, the WIND^© file is revised to reflect the changes to the test roll, and then this final computer file is sent to Custom Music Roll for a complete manufacturing "run". 

SOURCES:

Rhodes, R., Kravtiz, J., ed. Mechanical Music Digest (1995-2007) - http://mmd.foxtail.com

Reblitz, A., Player Piano Servicing and Rebuilding (Vestal 1985)

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