Roland FR-18 sounds and FR-1xb

[J. Eduardo]

First time posting to the forum. Thanks to all I learned from you so far. I am really into Latin American accordion genres, but, of course, the problem is that many of them using different layouts and tunings. Hence my interest in a Roland. Two questions:

1.) The original FR-18 was billed as having the sounds for playing vallenato, and it also had a different sound engine than the current FR-1xs. Can anyone tell me if the current FR-1x has a vallenato-like tuning on it? They cite Tex-Mex but nothing for vallenato or merengue tunings. I'm guessing one could eventually detune appropriately if not, but thought I would check.

2.) I know from various posts here that the 1xb is only capable of producing a diatonic button through some tricky programming through MIDI. Is it that the FR-18 did send out a bellows direction info and FR-1xs do not? And/Or was there a sensor in the FR-18 that gave info that the FR-1xs don't have?

Thanks for any insight!
Ed

 

[Airy]

Hi Ed, welcome to the forum!

Add 1)
I never had a FR18 in my hands but personally I doubt that the FR18 offers a sound that cannot be reproduced by the FR1x series. That’s because Roland”s V-Accordions seem to be all based on the same waverables. But it may well be that to get a certain sound like ”valentano” you’ll need some tweaking on the FR1x. That said I even think you will profit from tweaking ANY sound in the FR1x (and in the higher models as well) because the factory sounds are not that “realistic”.

Add 2)
Maybe you are referring to an idea / post of me saying that there should be a workaround to convert the FR1xb into a diatonic button accordion by cleverly manipulating the MIDI stream. I tried but I failed! Mostly because my programming skill are not as good as needed for this project. So, maybe it “can be done” but after having spent a lot of time on this concept (together with fellow forum member @fogman25 ) I still think it is an interesting programing challange but I meanwhile doubt the “conversion” could give a realistic diatonic feel.

In case you want / need to go that route you’d better stick to the method @fogman25 is using: use a footswitch and switch between two different external sound sources which have to be customized beforehand to represent either the push or pull note-mapping of the buttons.

There have been discussions in the forum which suggest that the newer V-Accordions (maybe post FR5/7 aera) all have a two-way pressure sensor. But so far I didn’t find any info if or how you could take advantage of this (besides the fact that you can now recalibrate the push/pull sensitivity).

Verdict:
I would suggest you either look for a used FR18 or the more futuristic looking “Soinu Txiki”, see

New low-cost diatonic MIDI accordion: Soinu Txiki IX10

Hello everyone! I am new to this forum and would like to introduce you the new low-cost diatonic MIDI accordion: Soinu Txiki IX10 It is based on a trikitixa which is a basque accordion with 23 bisonoric buttons on the right hand and 12 unisonoric buttons on the left hand (the most known...

www.accordionists.info

 

[dunlustin]

The FR18 was around for just a short time and did not seem to get any excitement from the diatonic community.
I have not heard of anyone converting a FR1X to a diatonic. That said, if you were happy to learn how to play it as intended, I'm pretty sure the sounds and the variations built in could suit - from wet to very wet, (Corona II to Gabannelli?) the options are there.
Otherwise, how about a Streb?

 

[J. Eduardo]

Thanks Airy and dunlustin for your replies! You confirmed that I can probably get the sounds I am looking for with a bit of work.

dunlustin, I've heard the comment about the FR18 not having excitement from the diatonic community - but I think this put more weight on the community than some of Roland's decisions. The lack of speaker (something available on all later models) would be a non-starter for some people playing in acoustic settings and liking the portability of a diatonic. Initial price point was probably too high at the time for Latin American accordionists. The expansion of YouTube tutorials over the last ten years has made learning the diatonic more accessible as well as giving people more information about what advantages the digital accordion might have. Probably just ahead of its time with no additional development and not seeing a market (which is what I suspect is going on now with Roland more generally)....

Airy, yes I had seen your post. I was just curious if a firmware hack might be possible (although dangerous, no doubt)! I had missed that fogman25 was using a pedal to indicate bellows change - makes sense. I had kind of arrived at a similar conclusion with looking for a used FR-18 (still out my budget). Thanks for confirming!

 

[fogman25]

l>>>>

Thanks Airy and dunlustin for your replies! You confirmed that I can probably get the sounds I am looking for with a bit of work.

dunlustin, I've heard the comment about the FR18 not having excitement from the diatonic community - but I think this put more weight on the community than some of Roland's decisions. The lack of speaker (something available on all later models) would be a non-starter for some people playing in acoustic settings and liking the portability of a diatonic. Initial price point was probably too high at the time for Latin American accordionists. The expansion of YouTube tutorials over the last ten years has made learning the diatonic more accessible as well as giving people more information about what advantages the digital accordion might have. Probably just ahead of its time with no additional development and not seeing a market (which is what I suspect is going on now with Roland more generally)....

Airy, yes I had seen your post. I was just curious if a firmware hack might be possible (although dangerous, no doubt)! I had missed that fogman25 was using a pedal to indicate bellows change - makes sense. I had kind of arrived at a similar conclusion with looking for a used FR-18 (still out my budget). Thanks for confirming!

I have continued to work on this project since Airy assisted me last year.

I have now made changes such that the diatonic accordion simulation will work with one instance of Kontakt with multiple channel instruments.

The FR1xb is connected to a midi translator (Bome) program which directs midi to Kontakt. All the special mapping features are programmed with the Bome translator. With this system the output of Bome Translator can also be connected to other sound modules such as the V3 sound module which allows separate input channels for bass , chords and 2 treble channels.

The channel push pull selection can be changed with a foot switch or another option which I have just implemented which is A FSR (force sensitive resistor) mounted where your palm is located on bass side.The FSR is cabled to an arduino micro which outputs midi signal to Bome and enables push pull selection.The midi expression is still derived from the FR1XB CC11 signal.