Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
DECEMBER 28, 1918
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
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Conditions During the Past Twelve Months Have Given Player Manufac-
turers the Chance to Discover Opportunities for Improvements in Design,
Important Among Which Is the Necessity of Making Players More Responsive
The year has, of course, been so thoroughly
unique in its happenings and conditions that all
ordinary measurements are out of date. We
cannot count 1918 as we should count any other
year, for 1918 stands by itself, with the pres-
sure of the war so heavily lying upon every in-
dustry as to mold it for the time into wholly
new shapes. The manufacture of pneumatic
player mechanism has not escaped the gen-
eral influence, and it is safe to say that many of
the trade are now engaged in catching their
breath and wondering how they ever came out
of it all.
One point, however, must not be overlooked.
The past year has afforded an unrivaled oppor-
tunity for taking stock of our technical position
and for examining with care every detail of our
production methods. While labor and supplies
have been scarce the lessened production has
given superintendents an opportunity to look
into their methods and re-examine their designs.
Many ideas which have been lying dormant for
lack of opportunity to test them out have been
brought forward and found worthy of accept-
ance. We have had a time of house-cleaning
and of general tightening up of the works. No
one can be sorry that this opportunity has come
to us.
Those who have been able to go through the
salutary experience of discovering their own
faults and deficiencies will not in the least ob-
ject to some discussion of the possibilities con-
tained therein. Nor can we find a better subject
wherewith to close up the year.
What might have been learned by an ener-
getic and keen-witted superintendent about the
general principles of his design? It seems that
the technical progress of the player industry is
slow mainly because it has not been to anybody's
special interest to go for anything like serious
research for the special purpose of making im-
provements. We have failed to find an oppor-
tunity, in the rush of production, to keep our
technical thinking up to date. Certainly, then,
any examination of the present facts must cause
us some little uneasiness.
Research
For instance, how many player actions are
now being made in which the proportions of
the bellows areas to the pneumatic stack and
the auxiliary chests are thoroughly worked out?
How many designers have figured out, even ap-
proximately, the normal playing pressure of the
player action or have discovered the relation
between sizes of bellows to action and the ques-
tion of physical effort? These two points alone
are of the utmost importance, yet it is fairly
safe to argue that they are very little understood
and still less appreciated.
The player action of the future must be a bet-
ter player action than ever has been known
hitherto. It must be more expressive arid above
all it must be operable with less physical ef-
fort. How can this be done?
One feels that we may expect the foot-driven
player to remain the prevalent instrument for
a good many years to come. There are many
reasons for this, but these need not be mentioned
in detail now. What is important is that this
foot-driven player needs to be made more re-
sponsive and less laborious to play.
The Norm of Power
The designer who undertakes to accomplish
these two refinements must begin at the begin-
ning. He must find out what are the normal
requirements of the player action in the way of
power, and then he must work out the lightest
and smallest bellows set which will give this
power.
Now it must be remembered that when once
we have designed a bellows which, with a suf-
ficiently small number of foot strokes per min-
ute, will produce the necessary power for the
ordinary requirements, we have also taken care
o: the requirements above this norm, for it is
only a matter of increasing the speed of the foot-
strokes when more power is needed. If the
normal foot-work is effortless, in the sense of
being neither so fast nor so heavy as to give any
sense of undue effort to the normal person, the
remainder will take care of itself.
Reserve Power
But there is another point. Normal playing
is not very colorful. Contrasts of tone in pop-
ular and song music are not very frequent. The
bellows system therefore should be weighted
with sufficient of equalizer space to assume that
variations in the demand on the pneumatic check
.will not have to be met by constant noticeable
changes in the speed of • pumping.
On the
other hand, however, changes must be possible,
without trouble or undue effort and as quickly
as may be required in any circumstances likely
to be met with. This means that the propor-
tion of area of equalizer to that of chests and
pumps must be carefully worked out, while it
also means that a springing system is needed
which will prevent total closing on hard pump-
ing, but will not involve the necessity for hard
pumping merely to get the equalizer to work.
The Chests
This same proportioning is needed, of course,
in the valve chests. In fact, it is necessary to
consider the area of the chests before we can
talk intelligently about the bellows. Now the
question of single as against double valve sys-
tems has been talked over more or less heated-
ly for years without any real decision. But by
this time, surely, it is permissible to point out
that whatever may have been said at one time,
no one can any longer deny that the single sys-
tem has thoroughly and completely demon-
strated its claims. It would no longer be ad-
visable to claim inferiority for it. This being
the case, the designer may to-day look forward
to a smaller chest area and, therefore, to a high-
er available tension, if his bellows are rightly
pioportioned. This again meanssmaller valves
and pneumatics, all of which helps to reduce the
size of the bellows and thus the physical effort
necessary to operate the player rightly.
Proportions
The matter of designing the proportions of the
bellows to those of the chest has to be worked
out as a matter of elementary engineering.
Taking the best bellows we can find, or, better
still, taking as many player actions as we can
find and averaging the pressures obtainable from
them, we shall find probably that the normal
playing pressure on easy pumping is about eight
ounces to the square inch of surface of the pneu-
matic. Now, taking this as a norm, suppose we
also find the normal pressure on the piano ac-
tion needed for normal playing. Then from this
we can deduce the required size of each pneu-
matic. From this again we can deduce the ap-
proximate area of the chest, which is based on
the idea of giving just enough air space to per-
mit the quickest possible discharge of the air
exhausted from the pneumatics, allowing for
the maximum probable number of these engaged
at any one time. From this the proportions of
the bellows can be obtained, for it is only nec-
essary to find the average maximum number of
notes which have to be played simultaneously on
the average piece in chord passages.
This
might be said to be perhaps six at the most.
Then one can find out what area of discharge
space is needed to exhaust six pneumatics with
their chest, on one easy stroke. From this as
a basis the size of equalizer and the possibilities
of any given bellows for obtaining rapid changes
by more rapid pumping can easily be determined.
It is to be hoped that some superintendents
did some figuring like this during last surrtmer.
If any of them did they ought to be able to pre-
pare a greatly improved player for 1919.
BUSINESS BEYOND EXPECTATIONS
Fred Colber, of Wm. Knabe & Co.'s Traveling
Forces, Tells of Increasing Demand for the
Ampico Throughout the Country
Fred Colber, traveling representative for Wm.
Knabe & Co., returned to New York Monday
after a six weeks' trip through the South and
Middle West. During the course of his trip Mr.
Colber visited the Knabe dealers in Tennessee,
Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania and
the other points in the surrounding territory.
He states that business conditions are excel-
lent and that the majority of Knabe dealers re-
port a demand in excess of the supply of stock.
Ampico business is beyond all expectations, and
judging from the comments of the dealers this
popular reproducing piano will enjoy a remark-
able era of prosperity during the coming year.
While at St. Louis Mr. Colber had the pleasure
of being a witness to two Ampico grand sales,
which were closed in one morning in the warer
rooms of the Conroy Piano Co. in that city.
Greatest ^Annual Output"
3ANDARD PLAYER ACTION
&.
Standard theHVbrld Over
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