Player Piano Revival Episode 13: Review of the Tracking Device // How it Works

#ontrack #holes #marginal
This 105-year-old player piano is in dire need of an overhaul if it's ever going to be anything more than just a shelving unit.
I often feel like I'm operating inside a vacuum in my little piano shop. It's time to change that.
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Music: Play-Rite 5381 Among my Souvenirs, QRS Word Roll 1870 Schoolhouse Blues, QRS Word Roll 1115 BOW-WOW played on a 1917 Autopiano upright player piano.

[@iangillis1271]

Looks like you're right on track! Minor detail, but at 1:53 you're meaning the left side chuck, yes? A very edutaining vid, well done!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Woops! You're right. The left chuck is spring-loaded. I knew I'd get turned around somewhere in this one.

[@closeupchannel4365]

I am always blown away by what they managed to create back in the day without electronics. That pneumatic self-correcting mechanism is pure genius.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

It's quite the contraption. And still serviceable over 100 years later!

[@andrewbarrett1537]

Yes it is, and the parent company also produced a version of it with similar valve box and principle of operation, but with differently-mounted up-and-down pneumatics, for the Standard Player Action.

[@quantumleap359]

Very well explained, a complex mechanism indeed. And your outtakes at the end were enjoyable! Good doggie!

[@MichaelMcCloy]

I just discovered this video series, just a few weeks after taking on my wife's grandmother's 100 year old player piano to restore and get running again. Having a visual walkthrough of how to tackle this is a HUGE help! Thank you so much Nate for taking the time to make these extremely helpful videos. I have confidence my own project will be a success thanks to this!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

I'm glad I can provide indirect encouragement!

[@dcallan812]

poor dog, I can hear him "how many times!" very clever little box. great video 2x👍

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

He gets "paid" every time, so do overs aren't all bad!

[@johnfranck3908]

I can’t thank you enough for your videos.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

You're welcome! Thanks so much for watching.

[@TheComicMaker24]

Such a cute dog! Very smart too.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

I'm lucky that he puts up with me.

[@makerunderground]

Pneumatic logic gates! Gotta love analog tech!

[@westermayer.pianos]

But it's not analog. That's the cool thing: it's digital from 100+ year ago.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

As long as we still have air it's not entirely obsolete!

[@andrewbarrett1537]

It is slightly analog since on this device the level of suction can affect the performance of the tracking unit, so it should be rebuilt so as to function very well on low as well as high suction so the piano can be played with expression. In the next segment, the stack will be discussed. This is truly analog/digital since digital on-off signals in the paper trigger the pouches, valves and pneumatics for each note, but the response is more analog since the velocity of attack of the note pneumatics in that instant are proportional to the amount of suction in the stack at that instant as generated by the foot pedals, so you can play with expression and make the music sound better.

[@chriswareham]

That's such a clever feat of engineering. Nowadays it would be electronic and likely using optical sensors, but this pneumatic device made mostly from wood is so elegant.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Yes, they really knew what they were doing back then. This was the highest of technology back in its day - 1917.

[@jpdesroc]

@@nateoutsidethevacuum I'm in a big project of using this mechanism with fiber optics and microprocessor to read all the 80 notes holes and the 4 holes (2 on each sides) that 'track' the paper centering.. Same tracker bar as this one shown in the video. So far I'm having a hard time to 'use' what is read on the far edge holes to run a small motor to place back the paper roll to where it should on playback. So far, not enough precision to quickly compensate the paper movement.. These mechanism where acting like the earliest computers in these times !

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

@@jpdesroc thank you for sharing that! It helps me appreciate this old tech all the more.

[@andrewbarrett1537]

My friend Lee Roan in California built a rack-mounted optical music roll reader in the 1980s(90s?) which plays coin piano “A” rolls and can also convert them to MIDI. It plays them on a rebuilt player piano with suction unit and a large set of flute pipes and chest from a pipe organ. A neat homemade arrangement that sounds good. I should see how he’s doing. Another fellow (whose name I can’t recall) built another optical roll reader that in that case is portable and connected to a synthesizer I think, called the “Optiola”. This was in the 1980s and he was a professor or teacher or scientist or something like that who did it as a fun project. I don’t know if he is still around or if the Optiola still exists, but there is an article about it in an old 1980s or 90s AMICA “Bulletin” magazine, with photos, available among the back-issues on the AMICA website for members.

[@MarkMcCluney]

Okay I watched hard but I'm still pretty much baffled. But I will wrestle with it until I understand. I find it most impressive that these wooden vacuum passages and valves are enduringly airtight. Are they lined with rubber solution or something or is it a particularly dense timber? Or am I just particularly dense for finding this unusual? Thanks for this Nate, this series is endlessly fascinating and intriguing. The level of engineering is utterly astonishing; it's amazing they work at all, let alone so brilliantly! Thanks again.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Sorry I didn't come through clear for you. I highly recommend you check out the section on this device in the Rebuilding the Player Piano book if you'd like to find out more. All wooden passages are sealed with shellac. Air leaks are the enemy in these devices!

[@MarkMcCluney]

@@nateoutsidethevacuum Your video is completely clear Nate. The problem is me; I see only "in a glass, darkly, " I think slowly nowadays. And shellac, of course! Thanks again.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Thinking slowly is so much better than too quickly! There's no rush here.

[@andrewbarrett1537]

I like how you included an audio clip of the mistracking roll “Bow Wow” at the end so we can hear what it sounds like when the roll doesn’t track and ends up randomly changing keys!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Thanks for catching that detail!

[@wurly164]

Another great video, always entertaining. The museum I work at in Pennsylvania has probably over 100 thousand rolls of all types, kept in 2 building. Maybe I will make a video of them. They also have a Lazer roll cutting machine. The company was named Valley Forge Music Roll Co. But it's not really running anymore.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

That's quite the collection!

[@wurly164]

@@nateoutsidethevacuum yes, it's a private owner. I had mentioned on some of my other posts, he's the one with the museum with over 300 music machines.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Yes, it's great that the owner is willing to make such a collection available to the public eye.

[@bpark10001]

You need a sonic cleaner for all the hardware. I rebuilt a Story & Clark player piano. It used mechanical "ears" rubbing on the paper's edge & a friction device to track the roll. That has the same problem as the pneumatic scheme you show. The ears can also catch on the roll edge & make tears worse. My concept for a roll tracker is to have in the tracker bar, below the line of "playing" holes, a 2nd line of holes. This line would have double the number of holes (18 to the inch versus 9 to the inch for the playing holes) aligned so there are 2 holes directly below each playing hole. Every other hole (all the ones below & to the left of playing holes) would be connected together, & the same for the ones to the right of the playing holes. These 2 lines would go to the tracker valve box. When the roll is properly centered, each playing hole will admit the same amount of air to both sets of tracker holes, so the tracker remains stationary. It would also remain stationary when no air is admitted to either set. When the roll shifts, this balance would be upset & the tracker would re-center the roll. As long as the roll were initially centered, & there were not too long periods of silence, the roll could remain centered even if the edges were totally chewed up. This would even track rolls that were punched skewed. Have you ever encountered such a system? I would have tried this but at the time I was in Jr high school & did not have access to a machine shop to make that bar.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

I have a sonic cleaner that I use for really small parts like bleed cups. Your tracker bar idea could work, but sounds like a lot of manufacturing to solve a problem that's already been tackled. If you move ahead with the idea, I've heard of people using a wire EDM (whatever that is) to make new tracker bars.

[@bpark10001]

@@nateoutsidethevacuum Actually, I have way to make it simpler. Put all the holes "to the left" above the tracker holes, those "to the right" under them. That way, holes do not have to be set close, & the interconnect can be channels cut in the back & a strip soldered ever them. I maintain it is not tackled! I had no end of trouble with tracking on the Story & Clark, & I have seen band organ videos in KZbin where the tracking runs off & the guy hurriedly runs to the back & manually re-tweaks it. On some large band organs, they use 1 yard wide rolls. The tracker had to be in 3 sections to expand/contract to account for paper dimensional change with humidity. On 11 1/4th inch piano roll paper, I have seen 1/8th inch expansion when roll gets wet. (I built a machine to punch rolls, mainly to make test rolls, so I know all about making tracker bars. I used 5/16-18 screw to make 9 holes to the inch spacing for the punch, having little more than hand tools at the time.) I would love to see this done, but I no longer have access to player piano.

[@Ififitzisitz]

Thanks! This video helped a lot

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

You're welcome! This one was definitely a challenge.

[@arnhemseptember2009]

I need a valve repair in my brain to get it all...

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Gotcha. We'll be doing just that in our very next episode!

[@andrewbarrett1537]

This is the most complex system in the entire piano. The rest should be relatively easy to understand.

[@jpdesroc]

I have a technical question about the tracker bar's four (4) far edge holes (2 on each sides) that keeps the paper centering ok. Let's say we call the 4 paper centering holes A, B, C and D. 'A' would be the far left one and 'D' the far right one. Are A and D to be the only considered holes to check for the wider paper rolls to auto-center ? and B and C to be the only considered holes to check for the narrower paper rolls to auto-center ?

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Generally speaking, yes. If you'd like to learn more there's nearly 3 pages of information on this device covered in the Rebuilding the Player Piano book by Art Reblitz.

[@jpdesroc]

@@nateoutsidethevacuum Thank you for the book info. I will not buy the book for the 3 pages needed but I'll try to find a PDF version of it. It seems that the complete centering mecanism is a 'not too fast but just right' analog feedback to the sending roll shaft left/right position. So far the centering holes I use have fiber optics that give ON/OFF response from the paper positions.. not quite analog.. So I need very small motor steps to compensate the centering..

[@vaderbase]

I do not get it but I love it.

[@greggilbert78]

I found the blue mouse at 8:42

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

There's one in every video. I revealed the mouse from Episode 10, but there's one hiding earlier in the Spoolbox Episode.

[@johntyjp]

He knows which ones are " dog eared ", to put in the bin!🧐

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

Yes! He prefers rolls that are in ruff shape. There seem to be plenty to choose from!

[@masklavier]

Interesting how your tracker bar has 2 holes on either side, mine only has one on either side and the pneumatics on the aligner are flipped so the hinge is on the bottom! Technology improved so fast back then. I don't remember when your piano is from, but mine is from 1888 so it certainly had more janky mechanisms.

[@dennismedvee8621]

There were no player pianos until about 1900. Many people are misled as to the age of their players by various pre-1900 piano patent dates found embossed on piano plates. The vast majority of players were made around 1920.

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

What brand is your piano?

[@masklavier]

@@nateoutsidethevacuum The brand is Pease. It was known for its reliable player actions and compactness. Also they often had very extravagant cases! The piano received an award an 1892 at the Columbia Worlds Fair in California for being the best and most reliable player piano in the entire festival. Scott Joplin was there and was said to have played on every piano there, so he might have played on mine!

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

I'd like to see it. I've never heard of a player piano that was made in the 1800s.

[@masklavier]

@@nateoutsidethevacuum How would you like me to send photos? I’d love to send you some pictures!

[@chrisstaylor8377]

The machine I’m fixing only has a manual cantering device

[@nateoutsidethevacuum]

I'm sorry to hear that. Though it's one less thing to fix.