The player piano stands as an icon in automated music, eventually giving birth to technologies that range from the theater organ up to today's ever popular protocol called MIDI. The piano player has impacted MIDI so much that the piano roll, albeit today's paperless form, has carried on as one of the forms of editing MIDI data. While MIDI has significantly electrified music as we know today ranging from synthesizers up to antique pipe organs, Ragtime Automated Music Instruments are bringing back the old vintage appeal of the player piano and other acoustic instruments and integrating them with MIDI instead of the traditional paper piano roll.

The Ragtime Automated Instruments in general are acoustic instruments that play automatically via MIDI, similar to how player pianos operate (e.g. Yamaha Disklavier). Ragtime takes these MIDI-enabled instruments a bit further as they have been known for building entire automated ensembles, much like the theater organs of yesteryears. The MIDI valve is the basic moving component of these instruments, being responsible for bringing to life beaters, hammers, mallets, wind valves, and anything that can manipulate acoustic instruments with very little human intervention.

Among the featured Automated Music Instruments in Summer NAMM 2009 are their automated Bluegrass Special and Steel Drum Special. The Bluegrass Special is an automated ensemble that consists of a variety of instruments such as a guitar, banjo, and a host of drums and percussion. Other variations of this ensemble could even be so big that it includes instruments such as timpani, accordions, flutes, and other instruments. The Steel Drum Special consists of an automated steel pan along with drums and other percussion instruments. There are also automated instruments that are solo including traditional MIDI-enabled player pianos, guitars, steel drums, etc.

Prices for such instruments anywhere from about 9,000 USD for a solo steel drum up to as much as 219,000 USD for a horse-drawn bandwagon. Final prices of course depend on the number of instruments per ensemble as well as other fitted accessories. If you have enough cash to buy and maintain any of the Ragtime Automated Music Instruments, you need not worry anymore about how artificial you might sound compared to sample-playback synths; after all, they're acoustic instruments. Unless you're delivering MIDI data directly via a MIDI controller, the only thing you have to worry about next is how to make them sound human.