Nickelodeon, Orchestrion, Band Organ and Mechanical Music Revival

When I was a kid, I used to spend whole summer vacations listening to this fabulous Wurlitzer Style 30-A. For over 30 years I wondered what happened to that marvelous instrument and what its history was. Now, thanks to Terry Hathaway and Mike Ames, I know where to shop, after I win the Lottery!

Antique Instruments

These are some of the most well-known names in antique Mechanical Musical Instruments.

Wurlitzer! - No, no, not the jukebox.
Check out Phil's unique Player Theater Organ.
Seeburg! - No, these aren't jukeboxes, either.
Check out Eric's beautiful Seeburg B.
Coinola!
Hupfeld!
Welte!
Pianola!
Mills!

New Instruments

	You won't believe the number of contemporary builders of Mechanical Musical Instruments! In mostly alphabetical order. Corrections appreciated.
your logo here	D. C. Ramey Piano Company Home of the Banjo-Orchestra.
your logo here	Dean Organs Check out the magnificent street organs on this UK site.
your logo here	Decap Brothers Herentals, Belgium
your logo here	Flora and Company Busker Organs
your logo here	John Smith Busker Organ Builders
your logo here	Le Ludion (France) Angelo Rulli is also the North American representative for Alan Pell (England)
your logo here	Miner Manufacturing Co. Dave Miner has been producing the Tangley Calliaphone calliope for about 13 years. Says Dave: "It is the only REAL calliope in production today. We don't make any of that cheap plastic stuff!"
your logo here	Pooker Organ Products I've gotta drive down and hear these instruments!
your logo here	Raffin Organs Busker Organs
your logo here	Ragtime Automatic Music has an incredible variety of instruments!
your logo here	Stinson Band Organ Company Check out the sound clips of these beautiful instruments!
your logo here	Waldkircher Orgelbau Contact: Jaeger and Brommer-Orgelbaumeister

	Unbelievable! Check out this "propane powered explosive organ," the LHPO
	WoWsers. Check out the new MIDI-powered Harpsitron from the workshops of Bob Lang
	It's a Xylotron! And you can build one yourself, courtesy of Bob Lang. Check out the PIC-based MIDI board Bob uses.
	Here's a really beautiful pipe chest design that you can build in your backyard, like John DeMajo did.

Are you interested in purchasing Recordings or Rolls?

Please see the MMD 'web site!

An instrument to buy or sell? Try:

Nick Dean's new For Sale and Wants Page (England)
John Tuttle's For Sale Page
Joyce Brite's Music Exchange Page
Todd Augsberger's Mechanical Music For Sale Page

Great Links

Many folks are interested in controlling Automatic Musical Instruments via MIDI. Check out MIDI-to-Anything, where I have archived the various builders of "MIDI-OUT" electronics.
Punch your own music rolls in any format directly from MIDI files at the MIDster site.
Check out the fascinating collection at Ashorne Hall.
Here's another collection of instruments and stuff for sale.
Here's an Italian Mechanical Music site: Musica Meccanica
and a Dutch one: Kring van Draaiorgelvrienden (KDV).
Check out Cooley's Piano Shoppe's Web Page! Rick has lots-O-photos of beautiful mechanical musical instruments.
Check out John Roache's Ragtime page. He has some great MIDI files available!
Check out the beautiful Mechanical Musical Instruments for sale at Mechantiques.
If you like fairground organs ("band organs" in the U.S.), you may wish to join The Fair Organ Preservation Society. Established in England in the 1950s, the F.O.P.S. encourages the preservation and enjoyment of these automatic organs used in fairs, dancehalls, and streets in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Society issues a quarterly magazine, and a yearly coming-events booklet. To join, contact Philip Jamison for more information.
Michael Waters has a great new 'web site dedicated to player pianos. Check it out!
INLUX EDITIONS! George Bogatko is a very talented composer/arranger. Check it out.
Check out John and Pandora Tuttle's Player Piano and Nickelodeon Pages. John has some great information about the care and feeding of Player Pianos!
Be sure to check out the wonderful "Spanish Polka Auto-Organ" mp3 recording at John Fitz' indescribable Oddball Auditorium. It's tough to get this tune out of your head.
Here's a whole mess of sources for Piano Rolls!(Thanks to Larry Fisher, Michael Waters and the great folks on the Mechanical Music Digest for maintaining this list!)
For more info on Ragtime music, visit the Ragtime Home Page.
You may be interested in joining the Musical Box Society International (MBSI) . Contact Beatrice Robertson for more information about MBSI.
Check out Terry Smythe's Automatic-Music Site. He provides a nice historical background of piano-based AMI. He also includes information about AMICA, the Automatic Musical Instrument Collectors Association.
Need Piano parts or tools? Check out Piano Supply's Web Site.
Check out Copyright Law links.

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Nickelodeon, Orchestrion, Band Organ and Mechanical Music Revival

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Nickelodeon, Orchestrion, Band Organ
and Mechanical Music Revival