Maybe it is! Someone could have used a Welte-Mignon "vorsetzer" (push up piano player) and pushed jt up to the keyboard of a Pleyel piano, to make this recording.

I don't get what you mean. I think this is a wonderful performance.

Piano rolls fault. Playing back too fast

The piano is at 435hz which is what ravel would’ve played at

I think it is out of tune though, even pianolas need tuning

Proof?

PROOF? We thought so...

This is a modern high fidelity recording of a reproducing player piano playing back a roll which is basically a very good copy of a roll recorded by Mr Faure about 1912. The dynamics are encoded in the margins of the roll and played back via the expression system that is part of the player system. Actually, the expression system regulates the playing levels of the stack which actually does the playing. Besides the Welte-Mignon, which was the first full reproducing piano system, other reproducing systems (in the pneumatic era) include the Ampico, Duo-Art, Artrio-Angelus, Solo-Art-Apollo and Art Echo in the USA; and the DEA, Triphonola, Duca, Stella and Beethophon in Europe (and probably several even more obscure systems). "Expression piano" systems, which are considered partial reproducing (not full reproducing) include the Themodist, Melodant, Art-Apollo (Apollo X), Solo-Apollo, Krell Auto-Grand, Krell Solo-Grand, Solo Carola, Solo-Elle, Hallet & Davis Virtuolo, and various types of "Recordo" system in the USA; and the Phonoliszt; Empeco; and various other systems in Europe. Expression and reproducing piano sales made up approx. 5% of all player piano sales during the years the systems were built. So only about 1 in 20 player pianos is some kind of expression or reproducing piano using special rolls (and even rarer, only about 1% or 1 in 100 is an original era coin piano, orchestrion or photoplayer). The most popular and common expression and reproducing piano systems in the USA are the Ampico, Duo-Art, Welte-Licensee, and Recordo. The other systems range from rare to very rare to extinct. In Europe, the most popular expression and reproducing piano systems were the Welte-Mignon, the Hupfeld Triphonola, Hupfeld Phonoliszt, Hupfeld DEA, and Philipps Duca, and then *maybe* the Empeco, judging from number of survivors. The other systems mentioned are again rare to very rare to extinct. Hope this helps!

Of course we still have reproducing pianos today, they now use computers / electronics and either play MIDI files, their own proprietary files, or both. The first electronic reproducing piano systems I know about are the AMICO system introduced by G. W. MacKinnon in about 1974; and the Marantz PianoCorder system. Each used a magnetic tape to encode the playback information. I don't know how the Amico system worked, since very few seem to have been built, but it seems to have been an early retrofit for preexisting Ampico pianos. The Pianocorder uses cassette tapes (although there is a MIDI adapter available for old Pianocorder systems) and splits the keyboard into bass and treble like the old pneumatic systems. Later, Yamaha bought Pianocorder basically to put them out of business, and came out with the Disklavier system shortly afterwards (1987? 1990?). This system uses 3.5 inch floppy disks and encodes individual dynamics for each key, for the first time (for this to be possible on a roll, the roll would have to be either impossibly wide or have impossibly small / narrow holes). The Disklavier is still made today and has been revised in design at least three more times to keep up with current technology. The PianoDisc system, using a CD-ROM for the storage medium, also came out in the 1990s. I don't know nearly enough about it, but think it's still made (again with revisions). QRS (the venerable music roll maker) introduced their "Pianomation" system around that time, and they are also on the cutting edge of development. There is another system called "Pianoforce". I don't know anything about it, nor who makes it. Finally, the agreed-upon (by many pundits) best current computer reproducing piano system is the LX system designed by the great Wayne Stahnke who has made a lifetime study of pneumatic reproducing piano systems, and who also helped design pioneering computer reproducing systems like the Bosendorfer SE in the 1980s (oops, I forgot that one!). The LX system not only has many shades of expression on each note, but also on the sustain pedaling. It remains the most realistic player system I have ever heard in person as a musician (with the Wilcox & White Artrio-Angelus system being second). For a while, one could buy an LX system and custom-install it in their preferred piano; however, later Steinway bought the rights etc to the system and have brought a version of it out as their exclusive- the Steinway "Spirio". One advantage the old pneumatic reproducing pianos (and even the Pianocorder) have over most other more recent reproducing systems, is that they can be rebuilt by people on a workbencch instead of just wholesale "replaced".

*I may have made an error: The earlier Bosendorfer SE system (years before the Disklavier), may have been the first commercially-available reproducing piano system encoding individual dynamics of each note. I don't yet know enough about it; it was an expensive system in its day and not too many were sold, although it can be very effective.

Some of that has to do with how well-restored and well-regulated the reproducing piano system is. If the expression system is either not functioning, is functioning poorly, ir somehow the roll is at the wrong paper speed, the expression will not sound realistic and sound "off". The Welte-Mignon system, introduced in 1904, uses a very simple expression system with a suction regulator for each half of the piano (bass and treble), so each half can be separately subdued to ideally separate accompaniment and melody as much as possible. The level of each regulator is set by going up or down in fixed speed fast or slow crescendos or decrescendos. There is also a device called a "mezzo-forte hook" which can be engaged to restrict the regulator to either the softer or louder end of the dynamics, as desired. The roll arrangers (musicians) who translated the artists' captured dynamics into coding for the system, quickly discovered "tricks" in coding like turning on a slow crescendo or decrescendo, and pulsing the fast crescendo or decrescendo in controlled/timed bursts to correspond with the intended result, until the right general dynamic levels are heard at the right time in the music. I can only imagine the trial and error they had to use to arrive at these various styles of coding. Since each crescendo/descrescendo (slow and fast) has a fixed rate at which it occurs, the roll paper speed must be perfect, and the technician has to make sure these speeds are correct by timing them with a test roll and a stopwatch. If the roll is played at the wrong paper speed, not only will the tempo not be what the artist originally played, but also the expression will be wrong too! (since the fixed speed crescendos etc will be starting and ending at the wrong places in the music). So the original Welte-Mignon system, the German version and also the earlier American version (installed only in Steinway, Mason & Hamlin, and Krakuer pianos here, I think until around 1916) have a FIXED roll paper speed, to ensure no monkey business about tempo or expression! However when a USA version called the "Welte-Licensee" was introduced later, it plays a roll compatible with the standard 88-note format, so they had to include a tempo lever etc to set proper tempos when playing regular 88-note piano rolls on them. But when playing a Welte roll, one always must set it at the tempo indicated on the roll for best results!

Agreed