Hello all, it's been a while. Thought I would share my main instrument for the last two years. This is a late '50s-early '60s custom made bayan with reeds by the master Fyodr Figanov. It's also a converter with a slider switch on the bass side. Figanov was one of the best reed makers in the Soviet Union and worked with Yury Kazakov to develop the free-bass bayan (though we can dispute who really invented the converter free-bass in another thread...). Simply put, this instrument is incredible. It has two treble voices with no register switches, yet I truly don't miss registers with the incredible sound and response. The reeds are bright but not sharp, with an almost violin like quality. It is extremely loud at fortissimo. The bass and treble reeds are beautifully balanced unlike many cheaper bayans with overpowering bass and wheezing treble. The free bass mechanism is wonderful and smooth, and the free bass notes have a wonderful cello-like sound in the mid-range. I got this instrument from Sergey Semenov in Lancaster, PA and cannot recommend his work highly enough. He restored much of the inner workings of this instrument and it is truly one of a kind. Excuse the missing button, that's being fixed right now.
