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Subject: Welcome

Author:
Mark Fontana

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Date Posted: 19:00:38 06/03/01 Sun

Welcome to the Pianocorder Forum, a discussion area for Pianocorder owners and technicians. Over the last few years, I have corresponded with numerous Pianocorder owners via the Internet, and this forum is an attempt to gather everyone together so that we can share our interests and technical knowledge.

I originally planned to host this forum on my own site, but my work schedule keeps me rather busy, so we'll try this commercial location for now. I have used voy.com forums before and find them less bloated than the alternatives offered by Yahoo, Lycos, etc. They also don't require users to register and consent to monitoring for marketing purposes, etc. That's a good thing.

A little about me: I'm a software engineer in my late 20s who enjoys mechanical musical instruments as a hobby. In the late 1990s, as part of my Master's thesis at the Ohio State University, I completed a project to archive the entire Pianocorder music library on CDROM and also convert the performances to MIDI format. At OSU, I also studied computer graphics, and after graduation, ended up at Pixar Animation Studios working on the films A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2. My current employment is with a company that develops imaging and printing products for the graphic arts industry.

I continue to work on mechanical music projects in my spare time. Most recently, I have been working with another Pianocorder enthusiast, Jim Alinsky, on a hardware-software kit to permit connecting the Pianocorder directly to a computer via the parallel port. This will permit removing the aging cassette deck entirely and using a computer to control the piano instead. Using this system, it will be possible to play MIDI files and Disklavier diskettes on the Pianocorder, as well as any of the original Marantz tapes (which will be distributed on CDROM if licensing can be arranged). This will greatly expand the library of music available to Pianocorder owners. I will post additional details on the forum as they become available, and hopefully Jim will join the forum as well in the near future.

At this point, I'll open the forum for general discussion. All Pianocorder-related topics are welcome. You needn't include your email address in any postings unless you would like people responding to your message to be able to contact you directly. (Not using your email address may help prevent spam.) My preference is that everyone use their real name on this forum, as we are all adults and professionals. This makes for a friendlier environment.

Thanks, and enjoy the forum.

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: Welcome	Harvard Wood	20:32:26 08/20/01 Mon


Re: Welcome	Ronald M. Davis	16:24:05 10/20/01 Sat


Re: Welcome	Frank Bruno	21:50:04 03/20/02 Wed
Re: Welcome -- KW, 04:07:04 05/18/02 Sat

Re: Welcome	Hubert Kennedy	16:25:03 05/31/02 Fri


Re: Welcome	Nick Damer	13:24:54 07/29/02 Mon


Re: Welcome	Barbara Collins	14:57:20 11/03/02 Sun


Re: Welcome	John Ledwon	15:05:08 11/21/02 Thu


Re: Welcome	Jules Coco	18:52:08 08/02/03 Sat


Re: Welcome	Rich Newman	13:11:56 03/13/05 Sun