Abstract: There is disclosed a method and apparatus for reducing the power required to activate the soft and playing mechanism of an electronic player piano and similar instruments. In accordance with the invention, full voltage on the solenoid is maintained for a short period of time which is more than sufficient to allow full travel of the solenoid and then the power is reduced by reducing the applied voltage. In accordance with the preferred embodiment, a timer is started when the solenoid is commanded on and then when the timer times out, the command gate signal is turned on and off with a waveform which can be set at a duty cycle sufficient to maintain the solenoid in the held-in position.

Abstract: There is disclosed an electronically adaptive player piano roll to magnetic tape formatting system which adapts itself to play the expression music generated from different sources. A plurality of control bits are inserted into vacant or unused bit positions of a prior art time division multiplex frame of musical data encoded, preferably, in a bi-phase mark/space code. The control bits identify the particular type of player piano roll music which has been well known in the prior art, such as a Welte, Ampico or Duo-Art, each of which have different manners of expression for reproducing the playing style of the original artist.