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Player Piano Roll Production Ceases
boustrophedon writes "The Buffalo News reports that QRS Music Technologies halted production of player piano rolls 108 years after the company was founded in Chicago. QRS continues to make digitized and computerized player-piano technology that runs on CDs. 'We're still doing what we always did, which is to provide software for pianos that play themselves. It's just the technology that has changed. But I would be lying to say [the halting of production] doesn't sadden me,' said Bob Berkman, the company's music director. Piano rolls can last for decades, but not forever. Volunteers at the International Association of Mechanical Music Preservationists build piano-roll scanners to scan rolls optically and convert them to MIDI files. The IAMMP archive and others contain thousands of scanned rolls."
OK, so who holds the copyright, so we can tell Noh "Maddog" Hall?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
They were just waiting till VHS's last holdouts gave up.
I remember my gran having a player piano. It was great fun (as a seven year old) working the peddles to play music at double-speed. It also seemed somehow magical seeing the keys "play" themselves.
There goes my backup strategy.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
That's interesting... Many(most?) MIDI sequencers call the visual view of notes vs. time a "Piano Roll".
...Next time someone mentions a technology that is outdated. Like say... floppies.
*5th of January 2009 is today, when you read the news about the last mass produced player piano roll going out the door.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Don't shoot! I'm only the piano programmer!
Westerns won't be the same...*sigh*
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3FTaGwfXPM
Enjoy!
'We're still doing what we always did, which is to provide software for pianos that play themselves.
Piano Porn?
Listen to Gustav Mahler playing himself. He played a part (the Death March) of his Fifth Symphony in 1905, recorded to piano rolls.
I just hope at least some of the player pianos could be preserved in a working state, although it would be getting more and more difficult as time goes by.
Technologies get replaced but the coolness remains.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
I can safely say that I will actually miss this.
When I was a young lad in the 60's this was still one of the coolest things out there. I used to love going to grans as a small child and cranking up the piano. ( Yep hand crank version ).
The death of Nintendo Game cube or equiv gadget of the day will never compare to the death of something that lasted over 100 years.
This device saved 10's of thousands of families around the globe from uncle Bob's horrible Xmas piano playing. It will be missed.
"...halted support for COBOL 108 years after the language was founded. We continue to provide support for Cybernetic Linux. We're still doing what we always did, which is to provide software for machines that help humans. It's just the interface that has changed. But I would be lying to say it doesn't sadden me..."
So, any bets on whether the above statement will be a reality??
Or the alternative version in 2109...
"...halted support for Windows XP 108 years after the language was founded. We continue to provide support for Windows Vista. Windows Vista is a great enhancement to the user experience, and we really really really hope that people will get over it and stop asking for XP. Really, we mean it this time, NO MORE XP SUPPORT. No... Really..."
Nah, they just started selling product to sex shops instead. Buggy whips will hold out till they finally finish outlawing anything remotely fun.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
The soundtrack for Steampunk.
If none of you have ever seen the inside of a mechanical player piano in action, it is a thing of beauty.
On ours wooden valves (slide type) hundreds of cogs and chain driven gears etc..
We play ours a lot, and love it, and wouldn't stop playing it for anything. We feel it helps the player piano stay "young"..
Is this thing on? Check. Check.
List of currrent Player Piano Rolls and Equipment
Is this thing on? Check. Check.
Scanning is Piracy, Piracy is theft.
That system has held in place until today, though you see technology (and history) repeat itself over and over. It's important not just from a DRM and YRO perspective, but also from a historical perspective. Beyond the moving-type press, this allowed for the greatest proliferation of music across America to be enjoyed cheaply by everyone. The roll single handedly changed the way America could experience music, and it completely defined the historical legislation and business practice of modern music. This is the passing of a titan, not just a kitchy thing that your great-grandparents might have owned.
Of course, now that I went to the effort to write all that, I remember Cory Doctorow mentioned the same thing in an old, well-read paper of his.
There are a few out there that have been restored. The bellows on many are brittle, but most have been electrified by using a motor to supply the air, but you lose things like volume control etc, when you go electric on the old one.
This is our model here in the image ...
And it works great, has a home, and isn't going to be thrown out anytime soon!
Is this thing on? Check. Check.
Oh no, but CDs are so *cold* in their reproduction of the sound! They just can't match the warmth of a good piano roll!
Very sad, it's a lovely technology that intrigued me since I was a kid, but I guess it's a free market economy - if there's no money in it there's no reason to continue to spend money on doing it. Would be lovely if it was possible to continue production on a small scale in a 'living industrial museum' and turn out a few for tourists and fans though if a funder could be found to keep the machinery running.
It's just MIDI data has replaced a paper roll. Yamaha makes a line of pianos called the Disklavier. They are real pianos (grand or upright) with control systems that read and record MIDI data. However you get a much better result than with a player piano. Player pianos only signal note on and note off with the paper. So everything is played at one volume level. MIDI pianos (good ones at least) record the note velocity, which is how hard the key was hit. So they reproduce the dynamics as they are supposed to be.
So the magic is still around, for those that want it, it's just a better control system has come along.
If you read the article carefully, it becomes clear that they will be trying to reestablish the production in a new location, but are a bit worried, that some of the ancient machinery will survive relocation. They still sell 50.000 rolls a year and have a stockpile that will last them for 1-2 years.
I had the great fortune to apprentice with one of the last remaining player piano craftsman/restorers/repairmen in the west coast. A mad genius if there ever was one. (Hey Larry!).
Not many jobs gave me to opportunity to make glue from fish guts, cut leather, polish wood with graphite and tinker deep in the guts of Steinway's.
The player piano's are truly amazing technology. Ask most people how the players work and they'll draw a blank. (Hint: vacuum).
Sit next to a properly tuned (musically & mechanically) player piano, close your eyes and listen. They can be scary good.
Hwhip. It's pronounced Hwhip.
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
Oslo's most awesome museum, the museum for science and technology, is currently establishing a permanent exhibition of "musical machines". It'll be done for summer. I can hardly wait.
One curious thing about music machines: I have never heard a midi piano that sounded as good as the most sterile yamaha piano. Why is that? I would suppose you could do a decent physical simulation of the interior of a piano these days, capturing such things as interaction with other undampened strings. But they don't do that. The sostenuto pedal is usually just an echo effect...
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
I would imagine the production has stopped because there's hardly any player pianos out there. man they are cool though. a buddy of mine has boxes and boxes full of thousands of rolls if there's ever anybody out here looking to purchase large lots ;-D it's always a little sad when an old media dies out.. I'm surprised vinyl records have lasted this long as well.. it seems a ton of artists out there still get their music printed on vinyl for the novelty purpose.. rolls are hard to make last because of how easy paper can rip after 50+ years of sitting in an old box.. but damn if they don't sound and look super awesome.. I didn't know QRS was even still making rolls until I heard they're stopping!! well, here's to knew digital player pianos ran off MIDI and other digital data scores..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
+1 Awesome
>>>Volunteers scan rolls optically and convert them to MIDI files
First I downloaded floppies (80s).
Then music CDs (90s).
Now I can pirate piano player rolls.
Is there anything that is safe from the internet? At this rate I won't need to buy anything except food... and I'm sure it's only a matter of time until somebody invents a way to bittorrent that too.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Damn straight!
Obsolete? Hardly. All you need is a copy of WinRAR, $2.50 media mail postage, and 50 floppies to distribute the latest episode of Doctor Who. (Or Stargate or Galactica.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Nah, this is the BitTorrent era! You need $125 to send each floppy to 50 different people!
Just as buggy whip and vinyl records and 8" floppy disks have gone so mechanical players and rolls are going away. As a former registered PTG piano tech I worked on my share of these player machines. I never rebuilt one but have made minor pump replacements and glued up the occasional bellows and made adjustments. As musical instruments older pianos are built to last a 100 years or more so these instruments are not going to disappear anytime soon. The rolls on the other hand are paper and can be damaged and just plain deteriorate long before the player part quits working. I hope someone will step up and keep a supply of rolls coming. It'll be a niche market for sure but just like keep ancient planes and autos running it will be worth it for future generations to see how 'The Old Folks'(tm) lived in The Good Old Days.
Too lazy to create a sig...
It's funny you bring that up. Back in the 90s there was a show called Babylon 5 which I wanted to share with other Forum posters. Today it would be easy via high speed internet, but most people were still stuck at 28k, so that was not a practical solution. Instead I created five VHS tapes and distributed them to five people.
I let them keep the tapes for a week, and then pass the tapes to the next person on my list (at their own expense). After about a year around 200 people on my forum had watched the Babylon 5 tapes. Not as efficient as modern methods, but it was effective for its time (1996), and it created a loyal group of fans.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The sites listed in the article only contain music that is out of copyright, from rolls published before 1923.
Go check the site, they don't release anything for public download unless it was published before 1923.
I still get a twinge thinking of the old Linotype. I never worked on it myself, but UC Printing Services kept one going in Berkeley for years after it's obsolescence, just to print diplomas and such. What a cool bit of old school tech. Of course, reliability was on a different order of magnitude, but I maintain that there is some merit to a device that can be built or repaired with common hand tools. The Skilled Mechanic is the real loser here. Habitat loss will wipe them all out soon, I fear.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I'd kill a man for a single mod point at this moment.
Okay, maybe not. But I would for a million dollars!
Well, let's be realistic. I'd probably do it for just a hundred grand.
People still do ride horses, so it is possible to by riding crops which presumably are manufactured. A smaller group of people drive horse drawn wagons, carriages and, yes, buggies, and therefore it is possible to buy buggy whips, so somebody is manufacturing them. In about 30 seconds of Googling, it is even possible to locate places to buy them on line. Granted, the $6.95 buggy whip appears to be just a fiberglass driveway marker with a bit of cord on the end, but it exists.
Player pianos, on the other hand, have always been a curiosity. Therefore the market started at the size of the current market for buggy whips. The move to digital just sucked the profit out of making them, even if you have a monopoly.
On the other hand, I think that enthusiasts will probably take up the slack, even if they have to devise tools to do it by hand.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Why should you lose volume control? Presumably there is some clockwork mechanism to regulate speed, so if air pressure is used to control volume why not put a speed control on the motor, like a triac light dimmer?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I did something similar couple of years ago (2005) when first torrents of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children were leaked.
Burnt a couple of CDs, and mailed them to several forum friends across Croatia (I'm from Bosnia) as 700+ MB was not yet such a trivial download around these parts back then.
They've burnt copies of those and transferred them further around where they lived and to other forum members.
Not sure about the numbers, but everyone on the forum had a copy in about a week.
Kinda like a bushman's torrent.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Next time someone mentions a technology that is outdated. Like say... floppies.
Ironically (?), the predominant distribution media for digital player pianos is STILL the 3.5" floppy disk.
What was state-of-the-art when the first Disklaviers were released in the late 1980s is now hopelessly anachronistic, but as long as first-generation hardware owners continue to be willing to pay $30 for a handful of MIDI files, concessions to them will continue to be made.
I've got a working Ampico reproducing baby grand piano and lots of rolls, mostly from the 20s and 30s . New rolls have never been important as patching up the decaying paper on the old ones.
Ampico rolls have dynamics info coded in them and they have been considered as accurate digital records of long dead piano virtuosos - although, like all digital recordings, these were heavily edited. I especially recommend any four-hands rolls!
QRS rolls were always more pop oriented - cheesier in their arrangements, but functional.
I'd love to get a roll cutter of course - something always in the back of my mind.
-- Real Stupidity is the Artificial Intelligence of the 21st century
For those who are looking to alternative sources of piano rolls, here's the home page of an (albeit) small producer of piano rolls. Artcraft music rolls, in addition to producing regular, what is called, standard 88 note rolls, also produce Duo-Art rolls, which contains control punches which automatically adjust the sound level of the music, and is able to enhance single notes, so the music is more realistic, like a real piano player would achieve.
You would need a special Duo Art player piano, to get the most out of those rolls, but luckily, Duo-Art rolls are 'backwards compatible' with regular 88 note piano rolls, which means, you just have to tape over some of the holes on the right and left side of the tracker bar on a regular 88 note player piano, to play those Duo-Art rolls!
I'm surprised there are not any 5 1/4" player pianos still floating around.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
This is too bad. I was hoping to construct a player computer keyboard to cut down on the repetitive and often difficult typing that I'm required to do for work :-(
while i think it is great that we are developing better technologies that can do things more precisely, faster, more cheaply, and more reliably, but i am still captivated by some of the older technological innovations that started the excitement in so many fields.
the two that always stick out in my mind are the mechanical watch and the iron skillet. almost 300 years after its invention, the mechanism/s used in automatic watches are still popular, and not just among the idle rich. this is where technology and art start to mingle, the aesthetic appeal of an automatic mechanical watch is far greater than a lame quartz movement armitron.
no matter how many "modern kitchen marvels" are created, my choice for food preparation is often the iron skillet: the greatest addition to the culinary arts/sciences since fire.
The reaction to piano rolls by sheet music companies was just as unthinking and out of proportion to the threat as the reaction to every subsequent advance in recording and distribution technology. There were congressional hearings where they demanded that piano rolls be banned, that sheet music companies be given the right to control the sales of reproduction technology, and so on.
The same scenario was played out for audio recordings, radio, and so on down the line, except that eventually the renegades (the recording industry) became the establishment...
This kind.
with the Arnold Schwartzenegger method.
Ingredients:
One film rewinding table
One blank player piano scroll
As many automatic weapons as you can shoot at once
...is that I have known several people who owned players (including my parents), and every last owner played the piano more than they used the rolls. There are likely player piano owners who only use the rolls, but it's certainly not all of them, and as far as I can tell, it was never a majority. Someone always learned the piano after getting excited bye the automagic stuff, if nobody already knew how.
Somehow the doomsayers are usually wrong,
At least they outlasted VHS tapes.
We need a bailout! Classify piano roll makers as financial institutions and give them a piece of the TARP pie! If we let these jobs die we will never see them again! Bailout, bailout, bailout!!!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
So where is the RIAA lawsuit in all this? I mean, the nerve of these people, attempting to preserve these historical recordings.
Obviously the paper-roll piano player industry has caved in due to this rampant digital piracy. I estimate losses to the industry in excess of $5billion per year, and the direct cause of millions of lost American jobs. /sarcasm.
Before floppies were popular, the players I saw used a proprietary cartridge based medium. The Form factor was like that of Atari games.
Piano rolls allowed for things that neither humans nor midi can reproduce, and Conlon Nancarrow was the only person I know of who saw that piano rolls could be used for more that simply imitating human players.
I hope his body of work won't be lost because of this. Here's an example that will blow yer freakin' mind, dude.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jyRCdyNb3Eo
My 1927 Gulbransen still plays the original Q.R.S. rolls as well as the new ones. Will the electronic player and software continue to play in 80 years like that? Can it be repaired with common materials that always will be available (e.g., wood, tape, glue)?
Ah, and the mechanical wonderment - you should see the "fishing pole" roll tracking mechanism that was invented for this piano. Who would invent such a thing today? It is simple and elegant, fascinating and functional.
Today Q.R.S. decided to give us only functional, and clearly less than simple. The elegance is gone and so is the fascination.