Buffalo Convention

A piano-roll for Welte-Mignon, about 1919, according to the Buffalo Convention

The Buffalo Convention of December 10, 1908^[1] established two future roll formats for the US-producers of piano rolls for self-playing pianos. The two formats had different punchings of 65 and 88 notes, but the same width (11¹⁄₄ inches or 285 mm); thus 65-note rolls would be perforated at 6 holes to the inch, and 88-note rolls at 9 holes to the inch, leaving margins at both ends for future developments. This made it possible to play the piano rolls on any self-playing instrument built according to the convention, albeit sometimes with a loss of special functionality. This format became a loose world standard.

References

1. ↑ Music Trade Review, New York, NY, Vol. 47, No. 24, p. 31 from December 12, 1908.

• William Braid White: The player-piano up-to-date: a comprehensive treatise on the principles, construction, adjustment, regulation and use of pneumatic mechanisms for piano-playing: together with a description of the leading mechanisms now in use and some hints on the playing thereof. New York, Edward Lyman Bill, 1914 (The date of convention is given wrongly as 1909).