How to make your own music rolls

Most people who have build a crank organ of their own have often two right hands. They know how to
use tools and have sufficient technical skills to buils such a greau music box.
A second skill which you should have as a crank organ builder is the making of the data medium for the music.
Often will this skill be viewed negatively because this work takes a lot of time and that one should have
musical knowledge for making music rolls.
Fortunately it is easier as it look. Assuming thay you have a computer (otherwise you could not read 
this page), you can use it as a very useful tool for this.
As already described in the chapter "What is MIDI", we use midi files for making books or rolls.
With the help of computer program Midiboek (Midibook) of Piet Paardekam (see links), a midi will be 
translated into a template for a book or roll, which will be printed by the printer. You can use the 
printed sheets, provided that the sheets will be glued properly.

For punching of the books/rolls you should count of the physical specifications of the music instrument.
For instance with books, you should have a distance between two following holes of at least 2 mm of one key,
so that there is sufficient carton forpushing down the key. The mimimal size of a hole should be at least
the size of the key so that a tone can be played.

With a paper roll between two following holes of the same position there should be at least 1,5 times 
the size of the hole be used so that the membrane is able to close. With long notes you can make better
make a distance of 1,5 - 2 millimeter between theholes, so that the paper remains stabile. Through this 
distance there will always flow air and athe organ will play a constant tone.

On the beneath standing photo you see a simple punch machine: a 3 mm pen is driven by a electromagnet.





Will be continued.....