Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
JUNE 25, 1921
MUSIC
TRADE
9
REVIEW
iMm^UkMUILMUIMIIIUIUSJmj
w^^
Pneumatic Engineers Are Now Turning Their Attention to the Problem of
Making the Player-piano More Responsive to the Touch of the Foot on the
Pedals and to Making the Expression Devices More Convenient of Operation
At the present time one can say a great many
things which once could not have been said.
The player-piano business, both "in its wholesale
and in its retail branches, is waking up to recog-
nize a number of facts which have for a long
time been neglected. There is to-day more talk
about selling by demonstration than there had
been before during ten years
This talk «is
originating mainly in retail circles, but it strikes
back at the manufacturer, and especially at the
The LEABARJAN
at the
Chicago Convention
Style "5"
Price: $90.00 Complete
"Make Your Own Player-
Piano Rolls"
The biggest success and only original
display at the Chicago Convention—
hundreds of dealers and representatives
agreed that the Leabarjan bridges a gap
that once existed in the player-piano trade.
The Leabarjan will double your sales
because it is a new and powerful talking
point (or your salesmen.
Write or wire for territory.
The Leabarjan Mfg. Co.
Hamilton, Ohio
EASTERN SALES OFFICE
130 West 42d St.,
New York, N. Y.
pneumatic engineer, who has the task of de-
signing and putting into execution the ideas
Which govern the industry from time to time.
As things are now going on, it is plain that
there is going to be a demand during the next
year or so, which one may hope will be perma-
nent, for player actions considerably more re-
sponsive to the touch of the foot on the pedals
and considerably more convenient in the lay-out
of the expression devices than has been the case
hitherto. The pneumatic engineer who under-
takes to solve in practical shape a demand which •
arises for anything like this must bear in mind
certain important points, which shall be here and
now set forth.
Pedal-touch
In the first place, there is the great ques-
tion of what has come to be called "pedal-touch."
This is no new discovery, as the reader can find
out for himself, since the present writer eleven
years ago wrote a book called "The Player-
pianist," in which the whole matter of obtaining
"touch effects" through the use of the pumping-
pedals was set forth with considerable wealth
of detail. But it happens that the matter has
become suddenly very important from the view-
point of the trade, and the engineer must take
it into consideration.
Musically or operatively speaking, foot-touch
depends upon the ability to control the loudness
of any tone through the direct pressure of the
foot upon the pedal. The more rapidly and
effectively this can be done the more perfect
is the control which the player-pianist exerts
p.nd the more closely does he approach to a
perfected foot-touch which shall be as direct as
the finger touch on the key in its results.
Pneumatically speaking, foot-touch depends
upon the ability to produce a partial vacuum
higher than the vacuum-level existing before the
beginning of the foot-stroke, up to the maximum
playing pressure available, by a single stroke of
the foot. That is to say, to put it more roughly,
that one must be able to put all the pressure of
which the action is capable behind one tone or a
group of tones with a single foot-stroke. It is
true that, in the extremer sense this requirement
does not often come forward, but it must be
regarded as a necessity nevertheless. If this
much can be done anything less severe will
take care of itself.
The Motor Drag
The problem would be much easier if the non-
speaking elements of the player action, such as
the pneumatic motor for rotating the roll, could
be operated by some separate source of power
instead of being tied down to the main bellows
operated by the feet of the player-pianist. The
fact that the bellows has this double duty to
perform is unfortunate, for perfect responsive-
ness can only be had when the work of the
bellows is confined to the one task of providing
the required playing pressure at any moment
without the need of keeping the motor running.
It is not as if the motor could be run upon the
residuum of power, as it were, which, in the
nature of the case, is always to be depended on,
seeing that in practice the pedal work never
ceases long enough to restore atmospheric pres-
sure inside the action. Unfortunately, the motor
and accessories consume about one-half the total
power required to run the player-piano on
moderately scored music under average con-
ditions. The responsiveness of the foot-touch
must therefore be modified always to this
extent.
It must always be modified, that is to say,
when the device of a separate source of power
is not employed 1 . Yet such a device can be em-
ployed in a simple and practical manner, with
remarkable results in respect of simplifying the
bellows, improving the foot-touch, and so on.
Lost Motion and Waste
But taking the ordinary methods of construc-
tion alone into consideration at this moment, let
us ask ourselves what can be done. The prob-
lem really resolves itself into that of eliminating
lost motion and waste. If we go over our pneu-
matic stack we shall find in plenty of places,
without a doubt, badly designed elements which
conduce to waste. Now, waste from the pneu-
matic standpoint simply means excess or un-
necessary air-space and excessive weight of
moving parts. If we can eliminate or partiallv
eliminate these sources of trouble we shall go
far towards a solution of our problem.
To give a practical hint, let the engineer study
to eliminate all square corners in channels, all
needless length of channeling and every cutbic inch
of unnecessary air-space. Let him do all he can
to cut down the size and weight of his valve
units and whatever goes with them and let him
especially calculate what playing pressures he
desires to use as maxima, figuring thence the
dimensions of all his moving parts and remem-
bering that high pressure with small parts is
better than low pressure with large parts.
Bellows Reform
And what applies to the pneumatic stack ap-
plies also to the bellows. There is always ample
opportunity for reform in the bellows system.
Nearly always it will be found that in the effort
to steady the motor the equalizers have been
made too large and the motor governor bulky
in proportion. Now,-nearly in every case the
precautions have been carried to absurd lengths.
The writer knows, from personal experience,
that if the motor be eliminated from considera-
tion very good results can be had without any
equalizers at all. It is as certain as anything
can well be that the equalizer load can be cut
down very considerably in every player action
now on the market. The present excessive load-
ing is the result of a belief, encouraged by stupid
(Continued on page 10)
THE WONDERFU
LEERNOTE
Iyer Piano
ker Bar Cleaner
mruRcr EVERY NOTE PLAYING
HELPS TO DPING OUT THE FULL
TONE BEAUTY OF PLAYER
EQUIPPED WITH SPECIAL
VALVE 57CREEN FEATURE?
I THAT COLLECT THE DIRT
^PREVENT DEYICE FROM
GETTING OUT OF ORDER
rOB HkBTKIHA»r,l>*K£ atWtlTE
AHERKAM DEVICE MFG.Ca
5T.LOUIf.UfA.