First kudos to you for wanting to take up your father's love of accordions, you are about to embark on one of the most frustrating yet fulfilling journeys of your life.
That said, it seems like you have a setup pretty much like me except that instead of the MS40 I have aKetron X4. The X4 seems marginally newer so manuals are easier to find. You can use a manual for an M50 to get the MIDI setup,
that you can download from HERE.
Anyway, the setup should be relatively easy.
- Plug AC outlet in to the tone generator and in to a power bar. DON'T turn on yet
- Plug large cable from tone generator in to the accordion
- Plug M40 in to power bar, DON'T turn on yet
- The tone generator has a MIDI out connector, plug MIDI cable in to it
- The other end of the MIDI cable goes in to the MIDI IN of the M40
That covers the getting things basically set up, the other part is routing the audio cables from the M40 and tone generator to a mixer out to speakers (if using a powered mixer) or from mixer to amp to speakers (if not using a powered mixer), that should be self-evident how to do, but if you are lost, we can do a 2nd post for that later.
MIDI setup: This may or may not need any setup. What you are looking for is sending MIDI CHANNEL 4 from the tone generator to the MIDI RECEIVE CHORD section of the M40. Since this is a previous setup they *may* already be programmed, but if not refer to the manual on how to get this done.
Note: I don't see a foot pedal for the M40, you really need a foot pedal to turn the rhythm ON/OFF and to insert little drum solos, though possible to do it by hand, its a true pain in the derrier to do it that way.
How to turn on:
- turn on the tone generator, the lights should start moving from top to botto, hitting any key stops that and shows the active settings
- turn on the M40
- make sure that the mixer (and amp if not a powered mixer) are turned on, spend some time playing to get the levels right
- play and enjoy.
Note: These accordions are from the 80's and use electronics that degrades over time causing failures. You may find it needs repairing. I have the schematics for this accordion/tone generator and for the healthy sum of exactly $0 can make them available to you if needed... lol.