After thirty years in the business, it surprised me to find that no one had ever taken the time to make a diagram of the basic tubing layout of a Standard Player Action. While it is indeed the most common of all player actions, this particular aspect of the mechanism seemed to have fallen through the cracks. The picture below is not fancy, but there is an explanation of the various vacuum lines (below) that should suffice. Also, placing your mouse over each of the parts will give a very brief explanation of that part (works with MS Internet Explorer and Netscape 5.0 or greater). To see how notes get played by holes in a paper music roll - click here! (Animation by J.E. Koehler)

The blue lines are vacuum supply tubing. One for the stack, one for the air motor, one for the tracking device, and three for peripheral devices (auto-sustain, bass soft, and treble soft). In all cases, locate the flanges (or air fittings) that are the same diameter and connect a tube between them. In 98% of all cases, the manufacturer placed each fitting (flange or nipple) so that its 'mate' was as close as possible to the component to which it was connected.

The red lines are control tubes (or signal tubes). They are used for turning the various devices 'on & off'. Control tubes are typically all the same diameter. To prevent confusion, the control tubes for the tracking device are not shown. (They are usually made of lead, and normally don't need to be replaced.)

The purple lines represent the mechanical linkage for the Play/Rewind Lever, which simultaneously controls the operation of the Cut-Out Box ('On' or 'Off'), the Tempo Control Box (Fast 'Rewind' or Normal 'Play'), and the Transmission ('Play' or 'Rewind').

The green line represent the mechanical linkage for the Tempo Control Lever. It controls the position of the sliding valve inside of the Tempo Control Box, which is used to vary the speed of the Air Motor while the system is in the 'Play' mode.