FR-1xb sounds

[micahcowan]

I am not familiar with the Dale Mathis User Programs. I tried to get them some time ago, but they are not for sale. They only come with a purchased accordion from Kraft Music (previously available from Crown Music in Arizona). Tom has the best information on the Dale Mathis Programs.

I purchased the Richard Noel User Programs. They are $150 for 31 Program Banks of 14 User programs in each Bank. That's 434 User Programs. As Tom said there are a very wide variety of sounds, like 2001 Space Odyssey, Rocky 1, Star Wars, etc. However, Richard also has many more traditional Accordion sounds, Organ, and Orchestral sounds. I have never spoken to Richard, but I had several questions for him. He answered every one in detail. All correspondence was via E-mail,
John

The FR-1x only has memory slots for a total of 8 "user programs". Note also that a "user program" has no sounds in it, it is a saved snapshot of user settings, only. A library of hundreds of these does no one much good, as no matter how many someone else may have, you will generally want to create your own according to your needs and preferences. Someone selling hundreds of "user programs" is completely uninteresting to me (but makes for excellent, if quite misleading, marketing). You'll get differences in reverb, in bellows curve (or disabling the need for bellows completely), things like that, but nothing that modifies the core sounds themselves.

The sound samples are stored in two available slots for user sample library files. Two files. These are accessed by up to four "user sets". A "user set" is a mapping of some of those samples in one of the two files, to the available registers. Thus, when it comes to accordion sounds, you can have at the very most*, four total unique, non-factory instruments loaded on the instrument at a time. And that's only if all four happen to be representable in the two samples files you've loaded (but you can presumably edit them using Roland's software, to contain the sounds you need for two of the sets you want). Please bear all of this in mind as you consider spending $150 on any expansion library. Before doing that, I suggest trying the Dallape sound expansion that Roland makes available for free.

* You get more sounds if you use their sound programmer to "mix and match" different accordion sounds into a given sample library and user set, I suppose, but since one user set = one mapping of the registers, from an accordion perspective I find it most useful to think of one user set = one complete, virtual accordion. If you use one of the orchestral expansion libraries (Roland provides one for free, and it's necessary if you want to play, say, an Electric Piano sound), then obviously you are loading many more "instruments" in a user set than one... but it's still "one accordion's worth" to me, since it still amounts to a register-mapping.

All this information is available in the FR-1x manual, available for free from Roland's website. See sections 11 and 12 for user programs, user sets, and sound files.

 

[dak]

Why did I throw a couple grand at an instrument whose sound I mostly hate? Because (a) it's worth having an instrument I can play at night while still keeping my relationship with the household intact, and (b) it's the cheapest damn free-bass converter you'll ever see (and actually, the free-bass is IMO the one exception to "sounding like crap" on the instrument, much better than the bass reeds of affordable and compact converters I've had my hands on).

Huh. Then they may have improved on the FR-1b in that area.

Seriously, have you played a 1x? Do you genuinely not consider it to sound like absolute poop, out of the box? If so, you would literally be the first person from whom I've heard that opinion.

I think you are talking about the internal speakers? If so, that might have been the reason that the original FR-1 has been only available without speakers, and the FR-2 (I think) and the FR-3 only optionally with speakers using model names like FR-3s. For practice purposes, I've hooked the FR-1b up with a cheap "computer sound bar", playing at nocturnal apartment house compatible levels (essentially proofhearing). I did that at the rehab center after my stroke when I was afraid of losing access to my instruments. Fugue #1 in C Major from the Well-tempered Clavier mainly…

Internal speakers working at that level would be practical for that kind of setting if nothing else, and less cumbersome than headphones.

As a frontal instrument for an audience, I am not surprised that the speakers don't convince standalone. I still imagine them to be helpful for strolling when you have some wireless PA doing the main job, just to bring a bit of closeup illusion to the people next to you. You don't need the low frequencies for that if they are carried by the PA.

 

[Ventura]

A FR-1xb

"A FR-1xb is not "many thousand dollar". It's two."

spoken like a Trump American.. 2 grand is a lot of money to a lot
of people, especially newbies timidly and with trepidation making their
first investments into Instruments.. 2 Grand is many thousands to people
who have had to sacrifice to afford their first $200 guitar

"Seriously, have you played a 1x? Do you genuinely not consider it to sound like.. "

what i think of the sound is irrelevant in this thread.. all these different people
developed a sense of what they fiound good, bad, or ok from their years of experience
with their unique personal exposure to speakers, music, instruments, musicians, etc.
and therefore everyone's personal judgment of sound is unique.. i just
have this issue with the mass hysteria seeming to force all the Roland
inexperienced newbie possible customers into making pre-selective and
expensive decisions before they even acquire the instrument, or give
their own perspective a chance to even like it (or not)

"But it's a nearly universal experience, as far as I can tell,"

personally i would not presume to speak for the entire world's opinion
on a subjective matter..

but basing the relative quality of programming on tiny speakers
inside a phone or tablet is no benchmark, as is disallowing the conditioned
sensibilities of people who used itty bitty transistor radios all through
their childhood, or who use only the free earwigs provided with
iPods and the like for near constant listening while walking down the street
oblivious to the world

trust me, i consider a LOT of equipment that seems to thrill many of you
to be pretty much a joke in MY WORLD. however, i do gladly share my
hard earned experience with those who want it and stop by for
help or a chat.. but i am no longer seeking to educate the world (as
i may have erred doing in my more arrogant youth)

 

[Jim S]

Very interesting to read people's thoughts about the FR1x's sounds, and choices to augment them. I've played the accordion for over 50 years, mainly a gorgeous Paolo Soprani musette, but moved to a second hand FR1X last spring simply for the possibility of playing silently at home. I was frankly unimpressed with the sounds at the start, and especially through the internal speakers, and it felt like a very artificial and inferior alternative - but I bought it so I could play.

And play I did. And getting a set of very cheap headphones helped enormously. Then focusing upon a few favourite sets, such as the 32 French style, again made it sound much better. I then started playing out at open mics, where a lot of people just assume it's an acoustic accordion. Even my old accordion teacher from my childhood, a hugely experienced and talented chap, said he'd be pushed to know it wasn't a traditional accordion through a good PA system. And the more I play it, the more responsive and nuanced it sounds.

In short, I feel the standard version offers a lot already and sometimes having even more choices of sounds simply gets in the way of actual music. I also have a dishwasher with perhaps 16 settings, but only ever use 2, so perhaps bear that in mind too - I like to play / clean and not fiddle.

 

[Pipemajor]

. I also have a dishwasher with perhaps 16 settings, but only ever use 2

My dishwasher only has 2.
Do I wash them straight away or later.

 

[dak]

My dishwasher only has 2.
Do I wash them straight away or later.

Mine got stuck in the second setting.

 

[Jim S]

I hope we won't be awash with further comments - I just wanted to point out the dish-tinction of the standard version.

 

[micahcowan]

"A FR-1xb is not "many thousand dollar". It's two."

spoken like a Trump American.. 2 grand is a lot of money to a lot
of people, especially newbies timidly and with trepidation making their
first investments into Instruments.. 2 Grand is many thousands to people
who have had to sacrifice to afford their first $200 guitar

Who's arguing that it's not a significant expense? Your claim was specifically that it was "many thousand dollar", and I clearly was refuting that. In part because I suspected you'd missed that we're discussing that specific instrument. Two is, objectively, never "many". Moving the goalpost is a misdirection tactic. Taking it ad hominem is also unhelpful.

but basing the relative quality of programming on tiny speakers
inside a phone or tablet is no benchmark

Making some assumptions here IMO. What makes you think people are basing it on that, and not, say, the fact that everyone who's gotten their hands on it, and actually listened to it, including via headphones or sound system, seemingly finds it to be seriously underwhelming. Ideally, you make decisions based on what your own ears tell you from quality equipment plugged into the thing. I've done that, and personally concluded it's pretty underwhelming, though it certainly suffices for my needs of practicing quietly at night.

You keep assuming that people making their judgments based on low-fi earbuds or phone or tablet speakers, etc. Why not entertain the possibility that people are making these assumptions based on the fact that experienced players are saying it, and worse, they may not even be able to find a contrary opinion (I certainly haven't - not to say that it doesn't exist, but it must surely be rare indeed).

You used the analogy of sending a new accordion to get repairs, sight-unseen, but that's hardly apt, since it's an order of magnitude difference in cost to ship it out for repairs rather than just shell out a hundred dollars. If you're saying it's foolish to pre-buy the $150 Richard Noel stuff before you've even evaluated the instrument for yourself, fine I agree with that. But given that the only options on the table seem to be that and Dale Matthis, who only supplies his on instruments that are bought from him, then it doesn't seem like "mass hysteria" to me to do some pre-planning and ask advice on which to get, on the presumption that you should in fact get one or the other, since that's the overwhelmingly prevailing wisdom, before you have the instrument in your hands, given that once you've made the choice to buy from Dale or not, you can't change it later.

Personally, I didn't do either. There's too little available space for user samples, for me to trust that someone else's choice for two instruments is going to be massively better than the sixteen that are included (speaking strictly of accordion samples), plus (apaprently) a dizzying array of user-setting presets ("programs"). IME it's not even so much that there aren't any good sounds included on the device - it's that there's not a single set that sounds good across the registers I'd want to use. One that has a fairly sweet musette, doesn't sound great on the master or single-reeds. Another that sounds good on the single reeds, has a very hollow master. None of them are beautiful, but they're... fine (through headphones, anyway). Presumably I could use the editor (haven't checked it out to confirm) to mash together the "best registers" from a variety of the included instruments, but it seems likely to me such an instrument would then sound fairly inconsistent. I'd give it a try, but the instrument on the whole is never going to be a joy for me to play, and it's not really worth the time investment for me to try to make it marginally better. It does what I need it to.