Piano Roll Manufacture
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PUNCHING OUT THE POPS
(Extract from The Golden Jubilee Catalogue, issued at Canterbury in 1969.)
To ensure that the Mastertouch Piano Roll Company continues to present the best in home entertainment, the Musical Director, in consultation with the artists, prepares a monthly cutting list. This list contains popular requests from the Hit Parades of Radio and T.V., and selections from the brightest musicals from the stage and screen. From this list the artists prepare arrangements which are recorded at the factory. This is not quite so straight forward these days,(1994), as Hit Parades are devoted to groups and air-playing time is given over to the artist rather than the song. Some artists transfer to piano roll rather well as the piano is part of their image. Elton John springs to mind in this category. Some sounds such as reggae do not. The "revivals" of today were the hits of the Sixties and the Seventies. The songs of the prewar days are now largely forgotten, as dated as a Fitzpatrick Travelogue.
The recording pianola is connected by means of electrical circuits to the recording machine. Because all the machinery has been classified by the National Trust, the "old ways" of recording have been retained, but at this point, however, since 1990, a computer interface has been installed to allow the artist to call up the piano roll on the computer screen. All the corrections can now be done by computer rather than pasting and punching in the corrections by hand. In this way a perfect master is created even before the punching process on the recording machine commences.
The original pneumatic carbon-ribboned recording machine (1917) activated from the keyboard of the recording pianola worked a series of fingers to mark out the master. This in turn had to be hand-cut in its entirety by the master-worker and a considerable amount of time lapsed before the artist could hear what had been recorded.
In the 1963 process, the recording machine was effectively divided into two parts - an electric cutter, with variable speeds so that the machine was always cutting at a speed faster than the artist was playing; and an electronic computer device, so that the machine could "remember" what the artist had played. Under this system the artist could then play back immediately what had just been recorded and could also play duets against themselves! The recording still had to be handed back to the artist-editor, however, who, using a scaled music ruler, examined the myriads of dots and measures to translate the recording into a faithful reproduction of the original arrangement. At this stage too, frequently a "third Hand" was added to the arrangement as actual hand-playing sounds very "thin" on piano roll.
The corrections indicated during this rigorous inspection were made by a skilled masterworker using a special clutch on the master cutting-machine. The master-machinist operated much as an editor does in editing a movie. Whereas the original arrangement may have been recorded in segments, on the master-machine these pieces were finally joined. In a selection from a musical comedy this may have involved joining hundreds of "takes" with frequent changes of key, before the title was presented in its final format!
The artists hearing their recordings became their own critics.
If further changes were to be made in deference to their wishes to alter their original perfomances, these could be effected on the final master again by using the scaled music ruler, a hammer and a punch.
A TOUR OF THE MASTERTOUCH FACTORY.
Taken from the Golden Jubilee Catalogue (1969).
The processes indicated here are still current today.
When the master "copy" roll has been checked to make sure there are no extraneous perforations, it is taken by the stencil cutter, who steps out the lyrics on the stencil ribbon in the syllable format, which is the unique feature of the piano roll. The words are then cut out letter by letter to make the printing stencil.
Both the master and the stencil are now passed into the factory proper to commence ordinary production. In the heyday a run of twenty cuttings could be considered for a first run, but many less are required today!
The pneumatic perforators over which the master passes are loaded with quality paper. This paper is strong, but not so thick as to make the completed roll too large; it punches clean, it is stabilised to allow a minimum of swelling and shrinking with changes in humidity; and it is white so that the words can be easily read. Over the years many types of paper have been used. The natural sulphite golden paper was very popular before the war, while the bleached bag kraft or pie-bag paper served very well too. Nowadays Excel computer paper is proving a very suitable alternative. The timing perforations along the edge of the master - similar to the sprocket holes on a film - ensure perfect registration between master and machine.
During the cutting process, the rolls are cut to a "V" at the beginning. The identifying block work is stamped on the roll fronts. In the old days this stamping was an elaborate printing process done on a proper printing press, which allowed a very artistic "apron" to become the feature of the beginning of the roll. The entire cuttings of the particular title are now racked for stencilling. The stenciller has already set up the stencil ribbon around a series of tension bobbins. The driving wheel of the stencil machine is packed with tape to increase or decrease the travel of the roll so that the words accurately align with the notes of the music.
The trolleys of stencilled rolls pass next to the reeler, who, by fastening the back end of each individual roll to the cardboard core of the made-up flange, can reel up the roll into its more familiar shape.
The trays of rolls are passed to the tagging bench where the leader tags with the eyelets in them are affixed. Next the rolls are stamped for royalty, then boxed and stacked in the despatch room awaiting shipping.