the cost of tuning depends on whether the piano has been looked after, if it gets done regularly i would cost about £60. but if it hasnt been done for years then you are looking at paying more or it might not even be tune-able.
One funny thing - the QRS company *still makes player piano rolls*! Including somewhat-recent releases. (They have Norah Jones and the soundtrack to "O Father Where Art Thou")
So jealous, I hope you make a longer one in the future of it playing more songs from the inside too. I did one with my music box and got all close so I could see the vibrations of the little forks, would be cool to see on that
I did some amateur piano tuning and thank God I never had you tune a player piano. Reaching the tuning pegs is fairly easy compared to getting full access to the strings. You need to quiet *_all_* the strings *_except_* the ones you are working with by inserting rubber wedges and long felt strips between the strings all along the length of the piano's harp. That way you only hear the strings you are tuning. Rearranging these mutes as you tune your way along the piano is hard enough without having to work in such a limited space.
Very nice player piano, boy these post war pianos are so much nicer to work on as your root of your system the piano are in much better shape than prewar systems, i am working on a Werner piano with a Schulz player mechanism and using pierce piano atlas to date it is in lower 1920s, Werner made this player mechanism and offered it at time of manufacture unlike other player mechanism that can be added at a later time. The Schultz player mechanism is one of the more difficult to restore because of the valve block pouch arrangement and this system is not a reproducing system which adds another dimension of complexity to the restore project. Your piano and player look nice and I hope you enjoy it immensely. One set of books that is a must have for anyone contemplating these systems are both from author Arthur Reblitz (nice last name for someone who writes and restores pianos and player mechanisms) first book Piano servicing, tuning, and rebuilding, second book by same author is Player Piano Servicing and Rebuilding. The number of books on at least the restoration or servicing player piano mechanism are very limited if you don't count the reprints of the same book multiple times. Remember the majority of the industry mostly occurred between 1909 thru 1931. I am currently newly retired and can proudly list this as one of my hobbies.
Databits: upon looking at this piano it seems that it has a transposing tracker bar on it. I say this because on player pianos that have a standard bar, there is no space to slide the bar one way or the other, whereas on this piano it looks like there is. This feature comes in handy if you want the roll played in a different musical key (a pitch lower or higher than the piano plays it), or if you are having a problem with one note.
Oh, man! My parents have a player piano (have had it for over 40 years,) but the player mechanism doesn't work quite right any more (there's an air leak somewhere, so it plays very softly, and the tempo control is broken, so it plays very FAST.) Theirs is a manual/pedal-only model, no electricity there! But it also had that harpsichord-lever. It was *PERFECT* when playing the Star Wars soundtrack. Regular piano for the main theme and Vader's theme, but switch to the harpsichord mode for the Catina song, and back to regular piano mode for the end credits theme.
Nice player! I have one just like it, mine is a 64 note version without a transposing tracker bar. This piano if I’m not mistaken has an automatic sustain system to push the sustain pedal for you instead, sounds like yours isn’t working. (Try and fix?) thanks for sharing!
I just bought one! The Ukelano bar and linkage is missing, but the unit mostly works quite well. Do you know more about serial numbers or some way to tell when they were built? Also, I'm beginning to figure out the speed control, but it looks like the knob for it is broken off or missing. Do you have some photos of that area? Thanks for your great video. Inspiring.
Noticed, on your video that it appears one of the tracker bar holes is plugged (somewhere near the center) This could prevent that note from playing or producing a weak hammer blow. Use your vacuum cleaner with a crevice tool, or better yet buy a tracker bar vacuum pump from a supplier. Clean all the tracker bar holes every couple of weeks, depending on usage.
I've always wondered do player pianos always play at the same level or can they go from piano to forte, soft to loud I've never really found a way in my head for them to be able to distinguish something like that
That's a good question, I have a Wurlitzer player piano made the early 70s i believe. I bought it at an estate sale back in the mid 90s for $150. It was a nightmare getting it moved out of that basement having to remove doors and stair rails and turning the thing on end. I felt like they owed ME money just to move it, lol. Mine has a volume control that softens the sound but it's all the keys at once so no real piano/forte action. If you turn it down too low it starts missing keys. No manual foot pump pedals on mine , just the electric motor. It came with several dozen single song rolls and also quite a few of the bigger 3 song rolls. It gets to the end of a music roll it automatically stops and re-rolls it back up. It's a lot of fun to listen to, i am glad i got it.
There is a more advanced type of player piano called a "reproducing piano". This has additional mechanisms - and the rolls have additional markings - to control volume.
Yes some do. The roll has to be punched specially to make use of the feature, and I believe the piano has a switch to enable or disable it, so normal rolls can be played as well. The columns for the leftmost 4 and rightmost 4 keys are used to encode the volume of the left and right halves of the keyboard respectively. It is much like binary numbers in computing. Therefore each side of the keyboard can play at one of 16 different volume levels at any time. Such pianos actually contain pneumatic digital to analog converters to produce the different volume levels. Naturally, this reduces the usable range of the keyboard to 80 keys. Some player pianos can also work the sustain pedal, and rolls have a separate column reserved for that.
This can be considered as an anologue computerized piano. I wonder how many peoples did had such lux piano and if and how many songs were put & released on roll paper, would be interesting, just imagine of today’s music will be also released in piano form on roll paper, would be interesting for music composers too.
I have an Aeolian pianola a few years newer than yours. You can check it out on my channel. I think you can remove a screw and pivot the wind motor forward to make tuning easier. Also, your tracker bar needs cleaning. It accumulates paper debris, causing dead notes. Welcome to the club!
I remember these players many years ago and the inaccessible ability to work on them with their plastic unit valve blocks glued onto the decks of the stack and they were a player technicians nightmare to service and the noisy vacuum cleaner motor in them was dangerous if it overheated. Sorry to be a killjoy but that's why you got it for a princely sum of $300 still it's a lovely looking piece of furniture as a piano.
hey databits i am a big vinyl collector and i was wondering you could record a record for me if you want i can pay you there is just one song i realy want on 78 if you can i will send the material for you to record on
Thanks for the video. I have always loved these pneumatic pianos. These were recently used as a cool prop in series called Westworld. But - can you please stop jamming social network following down our throats? As you can see in the comments below, there are quite a lot people who doesn’t like or use social networks, and while we like your content, we would greatly appreciate that you would just put the link to your profiles at the end credits of video (as most yourubers), instead of announcing it.
You never demoed the sound that you get when you toggle the Ukelano feature :(
crazy to think that for a long time pianos, and later player pianos like this were the only way to really have music in your home
Wow, $300 seems like a really good price! 👍
Tim Adams yeah.. amazing! would be interesting, what he paid for tuning this thing and if there were other things to repair..
the cost of tuning depends on whether the piano has been looked after, if it gets done regularly i would cost about £60. but if it hasnt been done for years then you are looking at paying more or it might not even be tune-able.
One funny thing - the QRS company *still makes player piano rolls*! Including somewhat-recent releases. (They have Norah Jones and the soundtrack to "O Father Where Art Thou")
They even have things as recent as the Frozen Soundtrack.
I used to have one of these, and I did a lot of looking at rolls I wanted to buy.
So jealous, I hope you make a longer one in the future of it playing more songs from the inside too. I did one with my music box and got all close so I could see the vibrations of the little forks, would be cool to see on that
I did some amateur piano tuning and thank God I never had you tune a player piano. Reaching the tuning pegs is fairly easy compared to getting full access to the strings. You need to quiet *_all_* the strings *_except_* the ones you are working with by inserting rubber wedges and long felt strips between the strings all along the length of the piano's harp. That way you only hear the strings you are tuning. Rearranging these mutes as you tune your way along the piano is hard enough without having to work in such a limited space.
Thanks for sharing. I have a 1963 Cable player piano very similar to this and it helped me out with trying to figure out how to work it.
Thanks for having it tuned. Sure does make a difference.
Very nice player piano, boy these post war pianos are so much nicer to work on as your root of your system the piano are in much better shape than prewar systems, i am working on a Werner piano with a Schulz player mechanism and using pierce piano atlas to date it is in lower 1920s, Werner made this player mechanism and offered it at time of manufacture unlike other player mechanism that can be added at a later time. The Schultz player mechanism is one of the more difficult to restore because of the valve block pouch arrangement and this system is not a reproducing system which adds another dimension of complexity to the restore project. Your piano and player look nice and I hope you enjoy it immensely. One set of books that is a must have for anyone contemplating these systems are both from author Arthur Reblitz (nice last name for someone who writes and restores pianos and player mechanisms) first book Piano servicing, tuning, and rebuilding, second book by same author is Player Piano Servicing and Rebuilding. The number of books on at least the restoration or servicing player piano mechanism are very limited if you don't count the reprints of the same book multiple times. Remember the majority of the industry mostly occurred between 1909 thru 1931. I am currently newly retired and can proudly list this as one of my hobbies.
So. Instrument only music with syncronised lyrics... It's early karaoke then?
Yup!
Databits: upon looking at this piano it seems that it has a transposing tracker bar on it. I say this because on player pianos that have a standard bar, there is no space to slide the bar one way or the other, whereas on this piano it looks like there is. This feature comes in handy if you want the roll played in a different musical key (a pitch lower or higher than the piano plays it), or if you are having a problem with one note.
Thanks for your comment!
The paper is like a hard copy of a midi file 🤣
Wish you show how to unclog and clean the piano tracker bar
Now you better mod it to play midis
Just don't play one of those black MIDI things.
The initial compressor startup sounds like a air start Mack truck preparing for starter engagement !!
Andrew Hallett-Patterson not a compressor. It works on a vacuum. Like old wipers and other gadgets found on an old T'Bird.
Oh, man! My parents have a player piano (have had it for over 40 years,) but the player mechanism doesn't work quite right any more (there's an air leak somewhere, so it plays very softly, and the tempo control is broken, so it plays very FAST.) Theirs is a manual/pedal-only model, no electricity there!
But it also had that harpsichord-lever. It was *PERFECT* when playing the Star Wars soundtrack. Regular piano for the main theme and Vader's theme, but switch to the harpsichord mode for the Catina song, and back to regular piano mode for the end credits theme.
You should fix it. If you don't know how, learn on here. We have to keep our skills. It is so important.
I don't use social media....sorry.
Nice piano though for 300
Nice player! I have one just like it, mine is a 64 note version without a transposing tracker bar. This piano if I’m not mistaken has an automatic sustain system to push the sustain pedal for you instead, sounds like yours isn’t working. (Try and fix?) thanks for sharing!
I have this same piano and the lower half of the keys will not push down, any suggestions?
I just bought one! The Ukelano bar and linkage is missing, but the unit mostly works quite well. Do you know more about serial numbers or some way to tell when they were built? Also, I'm beginning to figure out the speed control, but it looks like the knob for it is broken off or missing. Do you have some photos of that area?
Thanks for your great video. Inspiring.
www.player-care.com/system56.html
This is fantastic! Would love to own one !!
Noticed, on your video that it appears one of the tracker bar holes is plugged (somewhere near the center) This could prevent that note from playing or producing a weak hammer blow. Use your vacuum cleaner with a crevice tool, or better yet buy a tracker bar vacuum pump from a supplier. Clean all the tracker bar holes every couple of weeks, depending on usage.
cool they have one of these at the winchester house it also has a organ in it
We recently squired a pianola player piano very similar to yours. It doesn't have power, but needs tuning. Could you recommend someone?
AMAZING !! 😄
Can you buy the Westworld stk for that?
Yeah! This thing has a serious Westworld vibe.
Did older player pianos also have that electric pump for the air or did you need to necessary pump with the feet?
The feet work was required
@@databits Thank you!! Actually, I'm now an owner of one beautiful 1929 Lippola player piano and it's just so amazing, has foot pedals and metal pumps
I've always wondered do player pianos always play at the same level or can they go from piano to forte, soft to loud I've never really found a way in my head for them to be able to distinguish something like that
Cristian Cortez usually below the keys is a compartment to adjust speed, sustain and the level of playing.
That's a good question, I have a Wurlitzer player piano made the early 70s i believe. I bought it at an estate sale back in the mid 90s for $150. It was a nightmare getting it moved out of that basement having to remove doors and stair rails and turning the thing on end. I felt like they owed ME money just to move it, lol. Mine has a volume control that softens the sound but it's all the keys at once so no real piano/forte action. If you turn it down too low it starts missing keys. No manual foot pump pedals on mine , just the electric motor. It came with several dozen single song rolls and also quite a few of the bigger 3 song rolls. It gets to the end of a music roll it automatically stops and re-rolls it back up. It's a lot of fun to listen to, i am glad i got it.
There is a more advanced type of player piano called a "reproducing piano". This has additional mechanisms - and the rolls have additional markings - to control volume.
Yes some do. The roll has to be punched specially to make use of the feature, and I believe the piano has a switch to enable or disable it, so normal rolls can be played as well. The columns for the leftmost 4 and rightmost 4 keys are used to encode the volume of the left and right halves of the keyboard respectively. It is much like binary numbers in computing. Therefore each side of the keyboard can play at one of 16 different volume levels at any time. Such pianos actually contain pneumatic digital to analog converters to produce the different volume levels. Naturally, this reduces the usable range of the keyboard to 80 keys. Some player pianos can also work the sustain pedal, and rolls have a separate column reserved for that.
Cool beans. What a perfect machine for audioheads.
So is it electric or do you have to pump it with your feet? I am looking at one of these.
Mine does either one.
Do you actually have your own piano (besides this one)? And do you play it professionally?
beatiful
Cool old tech...
Nice. I own a 1912 german made Steck Pianola-Piano.
I love it it is the same way with a self-play Coliape for circuses
There is a clogged hole about in the middle of the tracker bar.
This can be considered as an anologue computerized piano.
I wonder how many peoples did had such lux piano and if and how many songs were put & released on roll paper, would be interesting, just imagine of today’s music will be also released in piano form on roll paper, would be interesting for music composers too.
I forgot to mention, we live in Booneville, Arkansas.
i have the same piano but with stained glass
I have an Aeolian pianola a few years newer than yours. You can check it out on my channel. I think you can remove a screw and pivot the wind motor forward to make tuning easier. Also, your tracker bar needs cleaning. It accumulates paper debris, causing dead notes. Welcome to the club!
I remember these players many years ago and the inaccessible ability to work on them with their plastic unit valve blocks glued onto the decks of the stack and they were a player technicians nightmare to service and the noisy vacuum cleaner motor in them was dangerous if it overheated. Sorry to be a killjoy but that's why you got it for a princely sum of $300 still it's a lovely looking piece of furniture as a piano.
You never demonstrated the ukelano! Bummer man. :-(
If you want to get your mind blown by what you can do with a player piano, look up a composer named Conlon Nanacarrow.
Back in the day when you received a copyright strike from Edison, he would send a guy to your house to burn down your shed.
You've totally gotta score a roll for Marc Andre Hamelin's "Circus Galop"...Trust me, it'll be worth it!
hey databits i am a big vinyl collector and i was wondering you could record a record for me if you want i can pay you there is just one song i realy want on 78 if you can i will send the material for you to record on
Not too many things make it to it's centennial birthday (A Young Man's Fancy). Even most human's don't make it to their centennial birthday.
Thanks for the video. I have always loved these pneumatic pianos. These were recently used as a cool prop in series called Westworld. But - can you please stop jamming social network following down our throats? As you can see in the comments below, there are quite a lot people who doesn’t like or use social networks, and while we like your content, we would greatly appreciate that you would just put the link to your profiles at the end credits of video (as most yourubers), instead of announcing it.
Find some music by Conlon Nancarrow!
We do not even have the whole song "Lol."
Paid 300 dollars for a gramaphone needed a new motor
witchcraft !
Well, enjoy shilling your facebook, I'm out. Peace.
Bye, Felicia.
It doesn't look like anything to me.
first dislike lol I don't hate u