Effective Effects

[jozz]

While in the privacy of my home, I sometimes use a Bugera V-22 tube amp fed by a Vox Wah-Wah, an Ernie Ball volume pedal, a Boss reverb/echo and an old Morley optical phase shifter. The biggest problem is getting the tweaked signal to dominate the acoustic sound.

:tup: phase shifter AND a wahwah is that not all over the place :?:

Cant you play with headphones (in-ears) off the amp, to reduce your acoustic sound?

 

[Keymn]

There we go again! Concern over all those “bells and whistles”. There is no right way or wrong way. But a good start is amp EQ and basic reverb. Believe me! With all my playing gigs, the client wants song choice, good volume and a happy face. I never sell/promote my act (as some do), with the type of accordion I have.
Check out my reviews, do you see any that mention anything about my accordion or amp effects?
https://www.larryrobertsent.com/client-feedback.html

 

[JerryPH]

There we go again! Concern over all those “bells and whistles”. There is no right way or wrong way. But a good start is amp EQ and basic reverb. Believe me! With all my playing gigs, the client wants song choice, good volume and a happy face. I never sell/promote my act (as some do), with the type of accordion I have.

No one is questioning all the good things your clients are saying about you, I think the OP is just looking at other peoples opinions about what they use for effects and what not. It was also fairly general as no distinctions were made as to home, studio, gigging location or whatever.

I tend to agree with you that the beginnings of good effects are setting up proper tonality and reverb is just such a classic and pleasing effect (used within reason of course... lol), that when you combine good equalization and reverb, the over all sound is well improved when compared to hearing the results without them.

Now, after the basics are covered... what other options does one have? I think that is what the OP was most interested in.

 

[Keymn]

I am using this Yamaha mixer, mg06x with my Qsc K12.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...MIgaX1gND-1wIVhrXACh1e6QbCEAQYASABEgIOTfD_BwE

At tonight’s gig in a house party. Had my accordion plugged into channel 2. Channel 1, my keyboard arranger. Accordion, Plenty of reverb and had gain set higher than usual with somewhat distortion (Red peak light would go on sometimes). I left it at the setting the rest of the night because it felt good playing with that setting. It was a party adding louder 60s, 70s, 80s. Even the organ sound sounded good with the little distortion. Probably not recommended...

To sum up, I think the simple effect of that $125.00 mixer is compact and sounds good. Nothing fancy...

 

[jozz]

Now, after the basics are covered... what other options does one have? I think that is what the OP was most interested in.

correct :tup:

But I also agree the essence of entertaining people is simply -being- entertaining, with or without perfect sound.

However, out of personal interest and the notion that sound guys are generally in-experienced with accordions, occasionally I search for little things that will make my output better overall. Tried and true best practices or clever tricks, anything.

A couple of years ago I couldnt find much information about effects other than guitarists sharing their stuff. Back then I found a post somewhere with a video of an accordionist on stage and his sound was so good, and the discussion online was about the things he used himself in an effects chain. One of them was the octaver, I never wouldve figured that out on my own I thought this only worked for guitars.

Sadly, now I cant find any references to it anymore, so I thought I might gain some knowledge here.

 

[Geronimo]

The problem with effects on accordion is that accordion is a polyphonic instrument rather rich in harmonics which are stacked in certain relations. That means that pitch is not strongly concentrated on a strong fundamental and multiple notes are standard fare. The upside is that you can do a lot with linear manipulations: EQ has a lot to work with (particularly nice in band contexts), and reverbation can work with a lot of phase relations, keeping the basic source identifiable. It's also a rich sound source for use with vocoders. The downside is that things can go wrong easily when doing too much or attempting nonlinear manipulations.

It's sort of "what effects to use for a reed ensemble?". There are a few things you can do to polish your material, but substantial changes are not a good fit. "How do I microphone this" really is more of a foundation for a great sound than most of what you can do afterwards.

It's like postprocessing photographs of a model with freckles. There is not a lot you can touch up without the results noticeably lacking coherence. If the original sound/lighting is deficient, you'll be in trouble that cannot easily and/or believably be fixed.

 

[Keymn]

To me, the Old spring reverb gave a nice effect on my acoustic years ago. Warm.

Look at the VAccordion. All those eq settings! I tend to set eg more on the bright side as in this video.

<YOUTUBE id=O_3nfrnisoE url=></YOUTUBE>

 

[Waldo]

Jazz,
Yeah man!
Didn't even think of the headphone approach. Aren't amps supposed to be loud, though?

Press on...
Waldo

 

[jozz]

yes they are :!:

your neighbours might think otherwise

To continue the story, recently Ive been experimenting with a Boss VE-20 which I had lying around, to test its compression (Boss calls it Dynamics). Being a voice processor it should pickup the accordion input nicely and not filter much. So far so good.

Heres one I made with it in another thread:
https://accordionists.co.uk/download/file.php?id=2972

Input is from my internal mics. Its not overly metallic for a digital multi processor, Im rather pleased with it. Also there is some delay (this is the Pop preset), and the compression does its job.

 

[jozz]

I love how YT ties your video to these suggestions :mrgreen:

anyway if there is time I will try to get a recording of the QSCs compression

Strange thing? On my Yamaha mixer, the accordion channel has a one knob compression. I turned it up full clockwise in this recording. I would think you would hear a more pumping sound trying to compress constantly. Maybe it is only me but compression made playing a bit more easy as far as bellow movement. Resulrs a smooth signal output. Give your thoughts on this if you try it on your accordion. Again I am not an expert on this but with many mixing YouTube’s do’s and don’ts, they always mention with EQ, compression, etc. “a setting may not make any sense, but if it sounds good, go with it”.
I think we should pull away from this thread and start a new one with effects, compression, EQ.
As far as You Tubes ties, do not know how it works. Think my key words were more like polka, Oktoberfest, etc.

here we go...

the QSC touch mixer has seperate compression on every input

Live I would say it makes perfect sense to compress an accordion, just as you would do with vocals as it is the same idea

But I know very little about this as this is always done by the sound engineer.

 

[JerryPH]

Live I would say it makes perfect sense to compress an accordion, just as you would do with vocals as it is the same idea
But I know very little about this as this is always done by the sound engineer.

Compression... sometimes good, unfortunately more times bad than good, but it all depends, of course.

First what is compression? Basic compression takes the wave peaks made by the higher volume sounds and lowers them. This is sometimes why the accordion comes out a bit louder, because it doesnt make the accordion louder, but it makes the other parts of the image (like the singers and drums that are also being compressed) quieter.

More advanced compression reduces the peaks and increases the volume of the quieter passages.

My big dislike about compression is that when recording the accordion, it takes out a LOT of the dynamics from of the recording. All that hard work we place to make the quiet parts quieter and the louder parts louder are evened out making it all relatively the same volume. There goes all your hard work in adding feeling to that piece in the first place!

Though this can help in a live situation, AND it helps in reducing distortion, on a recording, too much compression is the kiss of death on a song with a lot of loud and soft parts. For reducing accidental distortion due to too high a peak (too loud or too much gain on a channel), a limiter is a better idea. It keeps you from distorting, but does not affect the quiet parts of your songs, retaining your dynamic range.

When do I use compression? Its very much both song specific and even very channel specific. In music it is VERY subtle if used at all. Mostly, I use compression for vocals. When making my videos, my voice is compressed. I *want* that to be a very even and consistent volume level across the video.

 

[jozz]

I suppose the rolands don't need a lot of compression as they are basically synthesizers and 'speak' differently than acoustics

 

[Glenn]

I always see compression having two uses. Musical or technical.
Compression can be used to musical and artistic advantage and is a common use in popular music. It can also be used as a technical means to shoehorn a dynamic range that exceeds its recording carriers ability. A bit like 18 bits into 16 in digital world. The Roland has a digital engine inside but even that can exceed its dynamic range when stacking sounds hence internally some digital compression must be applied as I’ve never heard it “overload” as yet (maybe I’m not pulling hard enough on the bellows). Be an interesting experiment to do.

 

[Geronimo]

I suppose the rolands dont need a lot of compression as they are basically synthesizers and speak differently than acoustics

I cant speak for all Rolands, but on my FR-1b, the bellows effects on volume are too much and on sound character too little. Compression could conceivably help, but to make that work, youd have to switch off all kinds of chorus/reverb effect and add their equivalent externally after compression. Its not helpful in that respect that you cant convince the Roland to put out treble and bass side separately instead of a pre-panned stereo image.

 

[Keymn]

I suppose the rolands dont need a lot of compression as they are basically synthesizers and speak differently than acoustics

I cant speak for all Rolands, but on my FR-1b, the bellows effects on volume are too much and on sound character too little. Compression could conceivably help, but to make that work, youd have to switch off all kinds of chorus/reverb effect and add their equivalent externally after compression. Its not helpful in that respect that you cant convince the Roland to put out treble and bass side separately instead of a pre-panned stereo image.

I think compression, Something these Roland’s should have internally. It just makes it easier to concentrate on your music since compressors smooths out your bellows expression mistakes. Smooth bellow expression is more pleasing to the ear. Expemsive is not always better. Behringer has inexpensive compression modules. Something to try at your local music store. Just curious?
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...pTHIiJER41k5q540XYuFYjMP6XincIvhoC3xIQAvD_BwE

 

[Keymn]

I suppose the rolands dont need a lot of compression as they are basically synthesizers and speak differently than acoustics

I cant speak for all Rolands, but on my FR-1b, the bellows effects on volume are too much and on sound character too little. Compression could conceivably help, but to make that work, youd have to switch off all kinds of chorus/reverb effect and add their equivalent externally after compression. Its not helpful in that respect that you cant convince the Roland to put out treble and bass side separately instead of a pre-panned stereo image.

I think compression, Something these Roland’s should have internally. It just makes it easier to concentrate on your music since compressors smooths out your bellows expression mistakes. Smooth bellow expression is more pleasing to the ear. Expemsive is not always better. Behringer has inexpensive compression modules. Something to try at your local music store. Just curious?
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...pTHIiJER41k5q540XYuFYjMP6XincIvhoC3xIQAvD_BwE

Check out my version of Edelweiss using full compression. Notice on :22 mark, pumped down that higher note...

 

[Geronimo]

I suppose the rolands dont need a lot of compression as they are basically synthesizers and speak differently than acoustics

I cant speak for all Rolands, but on my FR-1b, the bellows effects on volume are too much and on sound character too little. Compression could conceivably help, but to make that work, youd have to switch off all kinds of chorus/reverb effect and add their equivalent externally after compression. Its not helpful in that respect that you cant convince the Roland to put out treble and bass side separately instead of a pre-panned stereo image.

I think compression, Something these Roland’s should have internally. It just makes it easier to concentrate on your music since compressors smooths out your bellows expression mistakes. Smooth bellow expression is more pleasing to the ear. Expemsive is not always better.

Fiddly is not the same as expressive. My big acoustic accordion does not react to bellows pressure proportionally: the various reed ranks and pitches have different responses and the overall balance and sound intensity changes quite a bit over pressure. With the Roland (this is a first-generation FR-1b), I get a fiddly volume control rather than an organic intensity and balance control. I could imagine compression to smoothe over some of the fiddliness but havent tried this so far.

 

[JerryPH]

I suppose the rolands dont need a lot of compression as they are basically synthesizers and speak differently than acoustics

Yes and no.
Yes, they speak differently.

No, compression still may be a good thing to do and just might help if for example we are layering accordion and guitar sounds and the guitar sound is too loud for whatever reason. Ideally, either the guitars could be lowered or the accordion raised... or both (depending on what compressor is being used), so a more pleasant final effect/sound could be the end result.

Now, ideally, we should balance out the 2 sounds in the accordion and get them properly balanced so we get the desired effect, but a compressor could be the easy way out.

 

[Keymn]

I suppose the rolands dont need a lot of compression as they are basically synthesizers and speak differently than acoustics

Yes and no.
Yes, they speak differently.

No, compression still may be a good thing to do and just might help if for example we are layering accordion and guitar sounds and the guitar sound is too loud for whatever reason. Ideally, either the guitars could be lowered or the accordion raised... or both (depending on what compressor is being used), so a more pleasant final effect/sound could be the end result.

Now, ideally, we should balance out the 2 sounds in the accordion and get them properly balanced so we get the desired effect, but a compressor could be the easy way out.

Yes Jerry, I agree. See there is compression on the piano sounds built in on my Korg. Other sounds too. Have look at accordion sounds too.
FR8x have compression? Or just EQ like 4x? I am going to demo compressed and uncompressed demo in the near future...

 

[jozz]

what I mean with 'speak' is that the waveform they output, will already be smooth comapred to acoustic as Roland's modelling will no doubt be optimised

compressing something that you can set with levels seems a bad idea (unexpected results)