The Lösche Jazzband music roll mechanism is, as is obvious in the above photograph, a very complicated and interrelated combination of mechanics and pneumatic control chests and multiplexing devices to accommodate two very different music roll types: Lösche Jazzband music rolls and Empeco (piano only) expression music rolls, which are 11¼” wide with a hole spacing of 9 per inch, and a total of 98 holes. There was a trend in Germany for Hupfeld, Lösche, Popper, and probably some others to change from their previous roll scales with larger, more widely-spaced holes to the standardized 9 per inch scale, with smaller mechanisms responding to the smaller tracker bar signals.
Above the roll mechanism and in front of some of the piano tuning pins is the supporting frame for the mandolin attachment, which only the top of the frame is partially visible and it only spans a selected portion of the piano scale. The mandolin attachment is a curtain type fastened to a wooden frame that has guides causing it to slide straight up and down instead of pivoting from side arms as in many other coin pianos and orchestrions.
Each tracker bar hole that has two different functions—one function for Jazzband rolls and another for Empeco rolls—that go to a wooden tee rail behind the tracker bar. This wooden rail contains internal channels that connect each group of three tubes together. Of each group of three, one is tubed from the tracker bar, the second goes to the pouch for its Jazzband function in the appropriate valve chest, and the third goes to the pouch for the Empeco function in its appropriate valve chest. (These include the large valve chest sitting on top of the spoolbox, a smaller chest behind the spoolbox, and various other controls on the pump expression box.)
The lower bass and higher treble tracker bar holes are the ones that have different functions for the two different music roll types. The primary valves for each group of functions associated only with one roll are enclosed in one or more small wooden boxes or chambers that are connected to a controlling secondary valve. If the manual roll selector switch is set on “Jazzband,” it turns on the secondary valve that feeds suction into the boxes surrounding the primary valves for Empeco-only expression functions, causing them to deliver suction to their associated secondary pouches whether the primaries are playing or not, preventing the secondary valves for those Empeco functions from working. The roll selector switch set on “Jazzband” simultaneously turns another secondary valve off, sending atmosphere to the box covering the valves controlling Jazzband percussions and other functions. With atmosphere available to the tops of those primaries, they work as ordinary primaries do, sending atmosphere signals to their associated secondary pouches when they play so the Jazzband secondary valves work. Setting the roll selector switch to the setting for Empeco expression rolls reverses the suction or atmosphere going to the control boxes surrounding the groups of primary valves, allowing the Empeco notes and expression functions to work instead of the Jazzband valves.
What makes the Jazzband music rolls even more intriguing, setting aside the commplicated encoding of system controls, is that there seem to be at least 6 tracks in the rolls for ranks of pipes and xylophone. No example of a larger Lösche Jazzband with any ranks of pipes or a xylophone is known to exist, but should such a specimen have survived it would, no doubt, be a wonderful sounding orchestrion, despite the excessive complexity.
The roll mechanism is actually much more complicated than described here, because there are also other types of multiplexing mechanisms. These include (1) pneumatics that hold certain primary valves down to prevent them from working; (2) trigger pneumatics that open one or more lead tubes to atmosphere; (3) one main expression valve that is turned on and off by two opposing pneumatics from one type of roll, or by an ordinary pouch under its valve stem from the other type of roll; and (4) other mechanisms that are even more complicated. Meanwhile, the midrange tracker bar holes play the same piano notes for both types of rolls, so their tracker bar tubes go directly to their stack pouches without going through the wooden tee rail. |