The American Piano Company's Ampico Reproduction System was - like the Aeolian Duo-Art - very successful, especially in the home market USA and UK and is still rarely found in Europe - although in the late phase European pianoforte manufacturers such as Hopkinson, Grotrian-Steinweg and Bösendorfer also used this system.
The arrangement of the music slide block and the control elements as a drawer below the keyboard is striking. In this way the grand pianos were not artificially lengthened by the reproduction mechanism, as happened with Hupfeld, Welte and Duo-Art, because here the upper mechanism still had to find space between the soundpost and the keyboard. A 1.85m Grotrian-Steinweg grand piano with Ampico system is therefore a real 1.85m grand piano - whereas a 1.80m Niendorf-Welten grand piano, for example, only contains a 1.50m grand.
Here is an excerpt from the Ampico A test roll, played on a Grotrian-Steinweg Ampico grand piano
From 1913 there was the predecessor (Stoddard-Ampico) - from 1920 the mature Ampico A. The further development - the Ampico B - was on the market from 1929. Compared to other reproduction systems, the Ampico system is interesting mainly because of its special repertoire. The American Piano Company (formed by the merger of leading manufacturers/brands (Knabe, Chickering, Fischer, Haines, Marshall&Wendell and later Mason & Hamlin) succeeded in signing S. Rachmaninoff, who was very sceptical about reproduction instruments, exclusively for the Ampico system. This generated a lot of attention and attracted buyers for the Ampico - as well as other well-known pianists. In addition to the original roles recorded by S. Rachmaninoff, there is also the repertoire of the so-called Popular Music, i.e. American music from the 1920s-1930s.
The scale of the Ampico A system has 100 holes in the note sliding block including the two gauge levers for gauge control. In the Ampico Inspectors Book 1923 the following assignment is given.
The Ampico A scale has the following assignment (from left to right)
Hole 1: Paper Control left
Hole 2: Slow Crescendo
Hole 3: No 2 Intensity Valve
Hole 4: Loud Pedal
Hole 5: No 4 Intensity Valve
Hole 6: Almost Crescendo
Hole 7: No 6 Intensity Valve
Hole 8: Cancel Valve
Hole 9 to 91: 83 notes B2 to a4
Hole 92: Re-Roll
Hole 93: Cancel Valve
Hole 94: No 6 Intensity Valve
Hole 95: Almost Crescendo
Hole 96: No 4 Intensity Valve
Hole 97: Soft pedal
Hole 98: No 2 Intensity Valve
Hole 99: Slow Crescendo
Hole 100: Paper Control right
Even though Ampico A was replaced by the even better Ampico B in 1929, Ampico A was the main product sold - and is still in great demand today. Certainly one of the most beautiful reproduction systems!