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New rolls

Basically, paper piano rolls are just a long strip of paper with many holes in it. It's actually much more than this. In fact, all piano rolls are masterpieces of musical, editorial, technical and pianistic art. Even though, the many copies sold during the golden era had also been commodities for use with a pianola. The more a roll was admired - most often being very popular pieces - the more it had been played, and the sooner it had defects, because even the highest quality paper had its limits. We know of stories told by first owners of Welte instruments living in Freiburg close to the factory, that whenever a roll didn't work any longer, the kids got some money and the order 'to walk over to Welte and purchase another copy'.

As merely all former companies like Welte, Hupfeld, Philipps, etc. have disappeared decades ago the roll production ended esp. in Europe. Many of the ten-thousands of player instruments have disappeared, still there is a demand for new copies or even new rolls. QRS (US) long-time continued the roll production, so did other brands like Broadway / Mastertouch (AUS).  Thomas Jansen (‘Musikwerkstatt Monschau’) had been one of the first producing new rolls on a professional scale in Europe. Today there are a couple of individuals and companies offering new rolls of various types, like e.g. iDMP (GER), Euterpe (NL), Julian Dyer (UK, and others.

New paper rolls not just make music available again to owners of player instruments, but also provide insights into the roll production challenges the companies a hundred years ago had to master. The research on papers used, recording and editing procedures as well as production machinery continues to deliver key insights.