Cleaning up some stuff from my father, I discovered to have many old piano paper roll.
My father had a piano capable to play those rolls, but it was eons ago, so now I have probably 20 or 30 rolls but no means to play them.
I didn't really though about how to read them until today.
Let explore some ideas and collect resources and see to come up with a plan to build something capable to read these old rolls.
The problem
The idea and goal is to build a contraptions capable to read ad play these old rolls.
Other people did that and the best approach was to convert somehow the content of the rolls in MIDI and thus feed some MIDI instrument.
So there are at least three separate issues to handle :
- mechanical
- reading the paper roll (protocol)
- set up and connect a MIDI
Mechanical
It is needed a mechanical contraption capable to hold the paper roll, move it forward at a specific speed and be able to rewind it, without breaking the paper.
The movements (read/forward/rewind) needs to be smooth as much as possible, with a stop the moment some extra torque is required.
It is mandatory to avoid to break the paper, especially because they can be quite old.
Protocol
Once a mechanism is in place, is necessary to know how to interpret the paper roll code.
MIDI
The reading need to be converted in MIDI ad then played somehow.
Possible shopping list
Not sure how the original mechanism to read these rolls was, what I saw other people doing was to use a long scanner head to be able to identify a hole in the paper.
The mechanical part is more subtle, it will need to be build somehow.
Need to explore also the 3D print world.
Need to explore also the 3D print world.
Below some links I found, to start.
If anyone has ideas, are more than welcome in the comments !
Thanks
Thanks
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