You don’t need someone sitting at the bench to enjoy live acoustic music. We specialize in retrofitting, upgrading, and maintaining digital player systems for grand and upright pianos across the St. Louis area.
You will play your piano more, and your kids will too!
Instead of listening to recorded music through digital speakers, a player system physically moves your piano’s keys and hammers. You experience the full resonance, vibration, and depth of a live acoustic performance in your room.
Modern systems replicate every subtle nuance of an artist’s original performance—capturing exact pedal movements and striking velocities. You can stream digitized performances ranging from historical legends like George Gershwin to modern artists recorded live in the studio.
Imagine being able to re-experience your child’s first recital, or the last time that grandma played the piano, for generations to come.
If you own an older player piano with an outdated control box that relies on floppy disks, CDs, or old wired controllers, you do not need to replace the instrument. We can retro-fit most legacy setups with modern wireless technology.
This allows you to control your piano entirely from an iPad, smartphone, or smart-home voice commands. We specialize in upgrading and servicing the industry’s leading systems.
Click on your manufacturer’s name to learn more about specific upgrades available to you:
Unsure what system you have? Look underneath the keybed of your piano at the power or control box. If you cannot find a brand name, simply text a clear photograph of the control unit to 314-236-7841 and we will identify it for you.
Having a player piano allows you to enjoy live acoustic music without the need for a live pianist. The presence of an authentic acoustic instrument playing in your home, hospitality lobby, care facility, or common venue provides a rich, resonant ambient depth that standard audio speakers simply cannot approximate. Whether you want to study historical performances or add a pristine musical backdrop to your next social gathering, a modern player system unlocks the true utility of your instrument.
Because premium systems like Yamaha Disklavier and Steinway Spirio are exclusively installed at the factory on brand-new instruments, converting an existing piano requires a specialized aftermarket installation.
We are certified dealers and installers for both QRS PNOmation3 and PianoDisc Prodigy systems. Both brands offer exceptional engineering, seamless wireless reliability, and cost roughly the same to implement.
When installing a system, you can choose a playback-only configuration or add advanced performance options. By adding a physical mute rail (which mechanically stops the hammers right before they strike the acoustic strings) alongside a recording sensor strip beneath the keys, you turn your instrument into a hybrid MIDI powerhouse.
This allows you to plug in headphones and play silently late at night, record your own performances directly into a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), or layer your acoustic piano with digital instrument tracks.
Modern setups allow you to integrate your piano directly into existing multi-room home audio systems or link it directly to your television. This enables you to watch a recorded live performance on screen while your piano physically plays the corresponding keystrokes in real time. This technical framework also facilitates high-fidelity remote piano instruction, allowing a synchronized exchange where keystroke data travels instantly between your instrument and an instructor’s player piano anywhere in the world.
We only install systems in our shop, never in your home. Mounting the solenoids requires cutting into the piano’s keybed, which is loud, messy, and requires specialized power tools to fabricate custom parts for your specific instrument. Every piano is shaped differently, and we take the time to do a clean, mathematically precise fit.
We pride ourselves on executing clean, mathematically precise retrofits. Depending on the mechanical options and recording features selected, a complete system installation requires between three business days and a full week in our shop. We manage the process meticulously to ensure the structural integrity of your instrument is maintained perfectly.
After a thorough burn-in session and post-installation testing, the piano comes back to you. If you are within a 90 minute drive, a member of our team will walk you through setting up apps and basic instructions in your home. If the piano is farther from us here in St Louis, we will be available to you via telephone as you familiarize yourself with your new system.
There are many good and common questions about modern player pianos – if you have a question that isn’t answered here, please send me an email or text.
I’ve been installing and troubleshooting digital player systems for over 30 years. Installing a system isn’t just an electronics job; it’s a major mechanical modification. Because I’m a factory-certified installer for both QRS and PianoDisc, I handle the physical action regulation and the digital integration myself. Very few techs in the Midwest work on both sides of that fence.
Yes. When a system is properly calibrated and aligned, the physical solenoids sit entirely clear of the traditional key action. The piano will feel, respond, and play exactly as it did originally. If your existing player system makes the keys feel heavy, sluggish, or altered, it is typically due to a poor initial installation or a lack of regulation, both of which we can correct.
This is a very common issue with older or heavily used systems. Pianos with player mechanisms receive far more physical usage than traditional instruments, causing the action to fall out of regulation more quickly. When this happens, the system loses its low-velocity control. We resolve this by performing standard action regulation, voicing the hammers, and running a digital system re-calibration.
A complete aftermarket player system installation typically runs between $8,000 and $10,000 total, depending on the specific model layout and your piano’s condition. A standard, playback-only installation averages right around $8,500, which covers all component hardware, precision shop labor, and final in-home calibration. Adding silent-play mute rails and MIDI recording strips generally adds around $3,500 to the base project.
More than 95% of standard modern grand and upright pianos can receive a system. The rare exceptions are historical square grands, instruments with unique or highly ornate furniture casings, or spinet pianos. Due to the small size and dropped-action mechanics of spinet pianos, we do not perform player installations on them.
No, our shop focuses exclusively on modern electronic and digital MIDI player systems. For traditional pneumatic, paper-roll player piano restorations within the St. Louis area, we recommend reaching out to local technicians who specialize exclusively in vintage internal bellows and vacuum pump mechanics.
The fastest way to reach me is via text. > Because I am often tuning in quiet environments, I can respond to texts much more quickly than voice calls or emails.
Text or Call: [314-236-7841]
Phone & Text Support (Office Hours):
Monday – Sunday: 10:00 AM – 10:00 PM
In-Home & Institutional Tuning: > Monday – Friday: By Appointment
