Perforated Music Scanner 1.0

The Perforated Music storage media Scanner (PMS) is based on a modular architecture properly conceived to be easily adapted to various types of perforated music storage media. Images of the linear ones are obtained by a scanner equipped with a linear camera and whose traction control system is implemented in the Arduino microcontroller board. Two distinct interchangeable mechanical traction systems are dedicated to scan both paper rolls and cardboards. The obtained images can be successively elaborated by a proper computer program to convert images into MIDI file format. Notes, dynamics, tempo changes (not necessarily perforated but also printed), mechanical music peculiarities as themodist and other customizable music effects are digitally recorded and can be successively faithfully reproduced. Also perforated discs as Ariston and Polyphon can be digitally converted by a piece of software properly realized to "straighten" their geometry and be treated as other linear music storage media.

During the presentation technical aspects, programs and developed algorithms will be shown. A live demonstration of the system will be given and an unpublished piece of music of the Italian rolls producer FIRST, converted by the realized scanner, will be reproduced through a music expander to appreciate the conversion quality.

During the various tests, we saw that if we had a color camera, the result would have been much higher ...

So, we started thinking about how to get color images starting from a monochrome camera ...

Read this article to understand what we have achieved.