K
keelbolt
Guest
I have had the FR3X for a few days now, and played it out at two sessions - one, a fairly loose English folk singing / instrumental session, the other strictly an instrument only English tunes session. Thought I'd give my three penny worth on the instrument.
Yes, it's early days. But I love the sound. It fits in really well with both sessions, and all but the most traditional of players liked it. A few comments around 'it feels wrong' from the acoustic accordionists when they tried it. But mostly positive or very positive.
I like the variety of sounds. I am getting used to the bellows action, which can be VERY expressive once you've got it sorted. Battery life seems good - I bought a dozen Eneloop Pro AAs to run it, and will get eight more so I have a back up. One charge lasted both sessions - four to five hours - but I was careful to switch off between sets.
What don't I like? Firstly, having to remove the batteries to charge them, then replace them every time they are charged. This is a real pain, a cause of wear and tear, and a silly design fault. A small change in the circuitry and some temperature monitoring would allow them to be charged in situ. The connector between the battery pack and the circuit board is a square white clip connector, and the one on my instrument is loose and seems to be a potential fault in the making.
And changing sets isn't as straight forward as the manual would have you believe. Not sure yet if it's a fault, but when I press set and select a new accordion sound, it stays selected for a few seconds but then reverts back to the original setting without me doing anything. Need to work that one out. It feels like a fault, but I've been here before with new electronic equipment and it's usually turned out to be me not reading the destructions correctly. Will try a global reset or something first.
And finally, getting the paperwork out of Promenade Music is beginning to be a concern. I need a receipt both for the insurance and for registering the warranty. Have promises so far, but nothing yet in paper. But it is Christmas, and he's probably very busy....
Yes, it's early days. But I love the sound. It fits in really well with both sessions, and all but the most traditional of players liked it. A few comments around 'it feels wrong' from the acoustic accordionists when they tried it. But mostly positive or very positive.
I like the variety of sounds. I am getting used to the bellows action, which can be VERY expressive once you've got it sorted. Battery life seems good - I bought a dozen Eneloop Pro AAs to run it, and will get eight more so I have a back up. One charge lasted both sessions - four to five hours - but I was careful to switch off between sets.
What don't I like? Firstly, having to remove the batteries to charge them, then replace them every time they are charged. This is a real pain, a cause of wear and tear, and a silly design fault. A small change in the circuitry and some temperature monitoring would allow them to be charged in situ. The connector between the battery pack and the circuit board is a square white clip connector, and the one on my instrument is loose and seems to be a potential fault in the making.
And changing sets isn't as straight forward as the manual would have you believe. Not sure yet if it's a fault, but when I press set and select a new accordion sound, it stays selected for a few seconds but then reverts back to the original setting without me doing anything. Need to work that one out. It feels like a fault, but I've been here before with new electronic equipment and it's usually turned out to be me not reading the destructions correctly. Will try a global reset or something first.
And finally, getting the paperwork out of Promenade Music is beginning to be a concern. I need a receipt both for the insurance and for registering the warranty. Have promises so far, but nothing yet in paper. But it is Christmas, and he's probably very busy....
