B
Bill Palmer
Guest
There has been some question about the Quint system of converter accordions. The Quint system of free bass converter accordion is based upon the Stradella system counterbass and fundamental bass rows. There are several different mechanisms that have been developed over the years that made this possible. All of them depended on the principle that the counterbass and fundamental bass notes were present in the chords of the Stradella system. It was necessary to figure out a way to play just those notes when single notes were needed. It also helped if the chords were in inversions that placed these notes in a higher octave on the 7th and diminished chord rows. Otherwise, the last octave of single notes would be in the wrong range.
For example -- In the C row of a typical Stradella system instrument, you have E, C, CM, Cm, C7 and C dim. If your registers are set up so that only the E in the CM , the C in the Cm, the E in the C7 and the C in the C dim chords sound, then you have the basic notes of this system. Likewise, the G row becomes B, G, B, G, B, G instead of B, G, GM, Gm, G7 and G dim. The Quint system gets its name from the fact that the notes in each row are a fifth above the notes in the row below it. It was originally called the Palmer Converter System or the Palmer-Hughes Converter System by the Traficantes, who had trademarked these names. The patents expired long ago, but the trademarks remained active until Ernest Deffner, Inc. ceased to manufacture Palmer Models or Palmer-Hughes Models. There needed to be another name, and Quint works just fine.
This drawing shows how this works for several of the rows of this system.
<ATTACHMENT filename=converter basses.jpg index=1>
Although my father has often been credited with inventing this system, he did not. He did have a great deal of input in the process of producing it, but the first version, which was manufactured by Victoria in Castelfidardo and imported by Traficante, Inc., was invented by Alberto Picchietti. The patent was granted in 1957, at which time Emil Baldoni began working on an improved model, which was patented in 1962 and imported by Traficante, Inc.
At that time, the US patents had been assigned to Traficante, Inc. The Baldoni version was smoother and eliminated a jamming problem that existed with the Picchietti model.
So, why did my father promote this system?
One of the contributions he made to the system was the idea of extra rows that were arranged an octave lower than the counterbass and fundamental rows. As early as 1946, he was playing a 160 bass accordion that was made for him by the Excelsior company. This had the four rows of Stradella chords and four rows of single notes. This arrangement added some weight to the instrument, and it made the reach to the outer rows of the bass section a bit of a stretch, but he (and Bill Hughes, who also played this type of accordion) had long enough fingers that they could handle the reaches. He found the convenience of playing two-octave scales without having to use the bass shifts quite convenient and very intuitive. The Quint system was natural for him.
He and Bill Hughes played these Excelsior 160 bass accordions on the Concert Trio album. Sometime in the middle 1950s, they switched over to Titano, and each of them had a 160 bass Titano, which was replaced later by a pair of 120 bass Titano accordions. These came from the Traficantes.
There have been other converter systems. In 1933, Ernst Hohner patented a system that may be the basis for all of the Hohner converter instruments. Ive seen the patent papers, but Id really need to see an actual accordion to get a handle on how it worked.
Free bass systems have also been around for a very long time. Pietro Frosini used one which looked like this:
<ATTACHMENT filename=800px-PietroFrosiniAccordionBassSystem.png index=0>
It had 102 basses. Frosini played a chromatic accordion which was disguised to look like a piano accordion. The diagram came from a Finnish source, so remember that H is actually what we call B.
The manuals for the Roland V accordions have a number of diagrams of the various free bass systems that can be accessed on these instruments. You can download the manual for the FR-3x at http://www.rolandus.com/products/details/1072/support Im sure Roland Europe has a similar web site.
As a side note, Dad always marked the C bass buttons (in the C row) the B buttons (in the B row) and the Db buttons (in the Db row) instead of the normal C, E and Ab.
I hope this information clears up some of the confusion.
For example -- In the C row of a typical Stradella system instrument, you have E, C, CM, Cm, C7 and C dim. If your registers are set up so that only the E in the CM , the C in the Cm, the E in the C7 and the C in the C dim chords sound, then you have the basic notes of this system. Likewise, the G row becomes B, G, B, G, B, G instead of B, G, GM, Gm, G7 and G dim. The Quint system gets its name from the fact that the notes in each row are a fifth above the notes in the row below it. It was originally called the Palmer Converter System or the Palmer-Hughes Converter System by the Traficantes, who had trademarked these names. The patents expired long ago, but the trademarks remained active until Ernest Deffner, Inc. ceased to manufacture Palmer Models or Palmer-Hughes Models. There needed to be another name, and Quint works just fine.
This drawing shows how this works for several of the rows of this system.
<ATTACHMENT filename=converter basses.jpg index=1>
Although my father has often been credited with inventing this system, he did not. He did have a great deal of input in the process of producing it, but the first version, which was manufactured by Victoria in Castelfidardo and imported by Traficante, Inc., was invented by Alberto Picchietti. The patent was granted in 1957, at which time Emil Baldoni began working on an improved model, which was patented in 1962 and imported by Traficante, Inc.
At that time, the US patents had been assigned to Traficante, Inc. The Baldoni version was smoother and eliminated a jamming problem that existed with the Picchietti model.
So, why did my father promote this system?
One of the contributions he made to the system was the idea of extra rows that were arranged an octave lower than the counterbass and fundamental rows. As early as 1946, he was playing a 160 bass accordion that was made for him by the Excelsior company. This had the four rows of Stradella chords and four rows of single notes. This arrangement added some weight to the instrument, and it made the reach to the outer rows of the bass section a bit of a stretch, but he (and Bill Hughes, who also played this type of accordion) had long enough fingers that they could handle the reaches. He found the convenience of playing two-octave scales without having to use the bass shifts quite convenient and very intuitive. The Quint system was natural for him.
He and Bill Hughes played these Excelsior 160 bass accordions on the Concert Trio album. Sometime in the middle 1950s, they switched over to Titano, and each of them had a 160 bass Titano, which was replaced later by a pair of 120 bass Titano accordions. These came from the Traficantes.
There have been other converter systems. In 1933, Ernst Hohner patented a system that may be the basis for all of the Hohner converter instruments. Ive seen the patent papers, but Id really need to see an actual accordion to get a handle on how it worked.
Free bass systems have also been around for a very long time. Pietro Frosini used one which looked like this:
<ATTACHMENT filename=800px-PietroFrosiniAccordionBassSystem.png index=0>
It had 102 basses. Frosini played a chromatic accordion which was disguised to look like a piano accordion. The diagram came from a Finnish source, so remember that H is actually what we call B.
The manuals for the Roland V accordions have a number of diagrams of the various free bass systems that can be accessed on these instruments. You can download the manual for the FR-3x at http://www.rolandus.com/products/details/1072/support Im sure Roland Europe has a similar web site.
As a side note, Dad always marked the C bass buttons (in the C row) the B buttons (in the B row) and the Db buttons (in the Db row) instead of the normal C, E and Ab.
I hope this information clears up some of the confusion.
