Rosie goes digital!

[Rosie C]

So.... when do we get to see the v-accordion in a video?

I shall try to do one this evening!

 

[jozz]

Well, I've had it less than a day, but I already love it! I had expected it to be quite a bit different to an acoustic accordion, but it isn't that different. At least not for banging out my Morris tunes in G major. It came with a Roland WNA1100 USB dongle, which I've not used yet but looks interesting.

I've already hooked it up to my XV3080 with a MIDI cable and initial results are promising. I'll have to create a 'performance' set with the right voices for treble, bass, chords to get the best out of it. The XV only has a couple of built-in accordion voices, but there's expansion cards with another dozen that sometimes come up on ebay.

It also came loaded with some 3rd party voices, though I've not yet worked out how to access them.

nice!

I did pull mine out this weekend for a small gig. I brought it mainly because we lacked our bass player and I had to keep it on a campsite in a car. So I decided the Roland had to come instead of an acoustic. A while ago I had abandoned the idea of actually using the Roland for live work.

I was struggling to get a good sound out of it (ok, I was hardly prepared and winged it). All in all again it was not a very pleasant experience. I know it can be done because one of the top Dutch players uses it all the time professionaly.
SO I am curious how you will find it 'in the field'.

 

[Rosie C]

I was struggling to get a good sound out of it (ok, I was hardly prepared and winged it). All in all again it was not a very pleasant experience. I know it can be done because one of the top Dutch players uses it all the time professionaly.
SO I am curious how you will find it 'in the field'.

So far I've only played it at practice but it went well. The rest of the band was violin, banjo, octave mandolin x2 (lead and rhythm), acoustic accordion, drums and washboard. I had it set to "U4 Scottish" so a very wet tuning. I also changed the settings to boost the bass volume considerably. I didn't take an amp and found the built-in amp wasn't loud enough, though the batteries lasted the whole 2 hour practice which was better than I expected. I have a performance on the 17th, I'll see how it goes then

 

[Tom]

So far I've only played it at practice but it went well. The rest of the band was violin, banjo, octave mandolin x2 (lead and rhythm), acoustic accordion, drums and washboard. I had it set to "U4 Scottish" so a very wet tuning. I also changed the settings to boost the bass volume considerably. I didn't take an amp and found the built-in amp wasn't loud enough, though the batteries lasted the whole 2 hour practice which was better than I expected. I have a performance on the 17th, I'll see how it goes then

How did the rest of the band like the sound? Any positive or negative reactions to “digital” sounds?

 

[JerryPH]

What I have seen over and over... for the general public, they could not care less about if you are playing acoustic or digital, they want the music that comes from your hands to make them feel good, that means, happy, sad, energized, whatever. As long as it is a positive experience, they'll love you.

The only people that may complain are other accordionists that are "purists". Unless you are playing for them or they are signing your cheques, I'd not really worry too much about them.

I actually had an acoustic accordionist come up to me while I was playing and tell me how bad the V-accordion was and how one could not play fast on it. When I told him I had no such issues and that he needed to check out a couple YouTube videos of Cory Pesaturo and how he had no issues playing 200 miles per hour, he gave me the old nose in the air and walked away... lol

 

[Rosie C]

How did the rest of the band like the sound? Any positive or negative reactions to “digital” sounds?

They liked it! The acoustic accordionist admitted she hadn't liked the idea, but that it sounded much better than she'd expected.

 

[JerryPH]

They liked it! The acoustic accordionist admitted she hadn't liked the idea, but that it sounded much better than she'd expected.

OOOhhh... be careful, you may start to convert some people... LOL!

 

[Mike t.]

What kind and how many watts would it take to jam with your group? Is there a battery powered amp? Would it only have to be loud enough for the microphones on stage to pickup the sound? The acoustic accordion players sound must be picked up from the stage mics?

 

[Rosie C]

What kind and how many watts would it take to jam with your group? Is there a battery powered amp? Would it only have to be loud enough for the microphones on stage to pickup the sound? The acoustic accordion players sound must be picked up from the stage mics?

We mostly perform outdoors - more likely to be in a field than on stage. We use a mixture of battery amps - a Crate TX30 (banjo), Crate TX50 (octave mandolin), Roland Cube Street (accordion) and Roland Cube Bass LX (violin) amps. I've just bought the larger Roland Cube Street EX which claims 50W - but it's a faff to carry around along with the accordion so I was hoping I'd manage without, but alas, I'll have to take it next time.