Slightly O/T - Our visit to Zaharako's Soda Fountain & Welte

[JohnM]

John,

I have to say that we have passed though Terre Haute a number of times and stopped at some local malls. But getting off the main drag and staying at a brand new Hilton hotel downtown and attending the amazing Indiana Theater which is a Jewel in its self was quite a surprise. Overall I was more than impressed with the mid sized town's quality in the residential areas and great college's, one campus only two blocks from the downtown which perhaps survives reasonably in tack due to its presence. But your right, one wouldn't expect to find a great collection in that location. The reason behind it is that the person we visited is a professor at the local college which probably explains why he is there. But still the town is more than one sees from the highways for sure. I look forward to returning.

I would also like to at some point visit the Zaharako's soda fountain which he also mentioned but I was somewhat aware of also. I need to check out another rather out of the way collection not far from me. A rather large collector of musical mechanical machines is located in a small town a few hours from me and I need to get there too.

Larry,
Have you ever been to Dr. Ted's Musical Marvels near Dale, Indiana, and right off I-64? How close is that to you? http://www.drteds.com/

Terre Haute used to be widely known for the pervasive stenches of a large pole creosoting operation and the local stockyards combined. There is a joke, but I can't repeat it on the board.

John

[larryh]

John,

Thanks for that link. No I had not ever heard of that place. It looks interesting but I see he says open to groups of 15 or more? Its probably about two hours from my home. Seeing all those mechanical musical machines reminds me of when I worked at the Gay Nineties Musical Museum in St. Louis. It was owned by Paul Akins of Sikeston Missouri where he had previously had his collection housed. It only lasted a few years in St. Louis right across from the Ball park. There was a series of LP records made that had the same name as the museum.

Larry

[JohnM]

John,

Thanks for that link. No I had not ever heard of that place. It looks interesting but I see he says open to groups of 15 or more? Its probably about two hours from my home. Seeing all those mechanical musical machines reminds me of when I worked at the Gay Nineties Musical Museum in St. Louis. It was owned by Paul Akins of Sikeston Missouri where he had previously had his collection housed. It only lasted a few years in St. Louis right across from the Ball park. There was a series of LP records made that had the same name as the museum.

Larry

If you just call Dr. Ted, he'll open it up for you. He lives in the house right in front of the museum.

I'd never been to the St, Louis location, but I used to go to Sikeston when Paul Eakins was still living. I still have my LPs of Sadie Mae and Big Bertha.

[larryh]

I think I still have those records, but perhaps on tapes by now? One thing about Paul was he wasn't keen on keeping things in tune. In fact most of them were so out of tune it almost added some charm to them. I loved feeding those large folding books of music into the large band organs. Nothing quite like it.

[Lenoirstreetguy]

larryh, I am fascinated that you have that Steinway AMPICO which is a major rarity! They really do perform well if they've been rebuilt properly. The nice thing about the AMPICO system is that from my (not extensive) experience with them is the fact that the AMPICO seems to keep its regulation better than the Duo Art. One of my clients years ago had quite a lovely Steinway B with the Duo Art system. He and I used to spend a day obsessively regulating the player, manual and test roll in hand. When they are freshly done they can sound sublime, but once the weather changes they lose that quality which makes them sound utterly realistic on the best rolls. The Ampico seems to take all this in stride. I think the recording system for the AMPICO was supposedly a bit more automatic, at least in the later days. Duo Art depended a lot on the manual editing process for the dynamics and some of the rolls really don't sound as realistic as they might.
Jim

[larryh]

Jim,

I was friends with a major Duo Art Rebuilder in St. Louis when I was a teenager. He is perhaps one of the best restorers of Duo Arts. I must admit that if one isn't overly familiar with piano playing they are extremely impressive with there ability to "crash" or add very quick loud notes. But after a while they can become overbearing in my ear. And yes they all were weather dependent to some degree due to humidity in the air being dryer in most houses in winter. I can recall the fellow as you say, adjusting the low intensity's to compensate and get the softest playing without excessive skipping. Ampico's on the other hand, especially the later design B mechanisms play with a more realistic sound and don't use the gimmicks that Duo Art used to produce those rather flashy rolls. They also used a lever on the bottom of the piano that adjust the whole system's lower end so that when weather begins to effect the playing the owner could move the lever a few notches in its track and get just the right amount of air to the system to maintain low end pressure and soft playing. Ours was rebuilt by Robert Taylor who is a well known rebuilder and expert on model B pianos. We played it all evening last night as it was recently tuned and the neighbors were over for our monday night dominos. The real advantage to the B grands was the ability to play rolls that last up to 20 minutes and you can set the player to replay the selection if you wish.
As to the recording process and editing, well I think towards the end of the AMPICO's run in the mid to late 30's most of the rolls were played by Frank Milnie many under other names to make it appear that they were still employing a number of artist to create the popular rolls. I believe he also was involved with the editing of the pieces. I know that I have read accounts of how the classical artist were recorded and was rather surprised to hear that a lot of it was done with a music editor basically listening to the playing and making notes on the performance then having the roll dynamics set to reflect that. The basic pedaling and actual striking of notes was recorded on the master recording rolls and then hand punched with the dynamics calculated for the extra expression holes on the left and right of the roll.

[JohnM]

On all pneumatic reproducing systems, the keyboard is simply divided into sections and varying amounts of vacuum are uniformly applied to all the keys in that section. Ampico had more steps of vacuum than Duo-Art, and so for that reason alone is considered a better performing mechanism. However, both (all pneumatic systems, actually) approximate the performance of the living pianist. Even the digital Yamaha Disklavier applies infinite-action solenoids to pairs of keys rather than individual keys. Only the Steinway digital 'Pianodisc' system applies infinite-action to each individual key and is capable of reproducing a pianist's exact performance.

[larryh]

John, I respect your opinion, but the duo arts have a tendency to be what I call "thumpers" due to the heavy pounding effects edited into them to make them more showy. Granted they can as all systems did do a pretty fair job of recreating the music, but I don't think I have ever really heard a recording of artist that have quite that amount of "punch" that the duo art presents. Some people like that effect and I found it some what amazing also at first, but latter I had the feeling it was over doing the effects which is not the same with Welte or Ampico. Welte was really the most wide ranging system due to its patents for the expression system that used a graduated slide valve that could be opened or closed to any position.

Having said that nearly any piano can be over powered if the bleed settings aren't correct resulting in overly loud playing. Proper adjusted pianos most likely all give a thrilling performance. Sometimes even the professional recordings of things are less than desirable. Those first Welte recording of the Welte Legacy Series were rather stiff sounding and limited in range. When I heard the same machine in Terre Haute it was evident that the rebuilding of the former was not quite up to snuff giving a less that satisfactory performance. I have in my home a Yamaha Disc Klavier of the largest upright style. I must say that it more faithfully can reproduce the original playing than the paper roll system did. But for what they were doing in a time way before Radio or even decent records, it must have been a real thrill to hear ones self playing back from the machine. I think that is why so many composers such as Debussy, Strauss, Mahler, ect were willing to put there signature on the rolls and state is was their exact playing. There was nothing to compare it too and it was and still is a thrill to hear a paper roll recreate as well as it does the playing of great artist.

[JohnM]

Not to take anything away from any of these systems -- just trying to touch on the differences. The 'thumping' tendency of the Duo-Art, IMHO, is a result of not having as many levels of expression as the Ampico. Certainly for simplicity of construction and servicing/rebuilding, the Ampico B system has got it hands down for a pneumatic design.

[larryh]

John

I believe its more due to the use of what the duo art called the "Crash" effect, the very fast ability to open a valve that admits extra vacuum causing a very fast raise in volume. Especially used on quick loud accents as well as in conjunction with the themodist mechanism which also admits vacuum to accent the theme notes above the rest. There's no doubt its the flashiest sounding of them all, but unfortunately most real artist didn't quite play that way. I suppose that many owners were fond of that effect as lots of duo arts were sold, they were sort of the Victor of the reproducing piano world. It seems the poor Welte which actually started it all ended up being the Sear Roebuck of system. That may have been partly due to the fact that world war I came along and if I recall correctly there were some issues between a German firm and the Government.

Larry