Titano "Bass Musette"?

[KiwiSqueezer]

I'm the first to admit that I don't know much about accordions, but I thought I was getting to grips with the ideas behind musette tuning(s).

Some time ago, I asked the forum about what I termed 'pseudo-musette' tuning, with reeds not exactly an octave apart. I was thinking about an LMH reed set, with appropriately sharpened H reeds. The idea was greeted with some scepticism. Now, however, it seems that something like it made it into production.





This accordion must be rather unusual. It presumably has LMM reeds; it provides 'musette' voices by M1M2 ("fr. muset" - French musette?), LM1M2 ("accordion"), which seem conventional enough, but then there is what I take to be LM2 ("bass muset") - which seems to be the 'pseudo-musette' idea, and then M2 on its own ("melodeon"), which is, I believe, quite unusual.

Is this as unusual as I think? Any ideas or comments? What type of music would this have been aimed at?

 

[Big Squeezy Accordions]

As I replied previously, this was, in fact, a thing that PANcordion tried. I presume it was an attempt to achieve something like a musette whilst saving the expense and weight of a 4 reed accordion. It evidently never took off, and for good reason. I've never seen a Titano with this "feature", but I believe PANcordion and Titano were either made by the same people, or connected in some other way that someone more knowledgeable about the history can elucidate.

 

[Scuromondo]

I always find the register names used by the various manufacturers (in this case “bass musette”) to be inconsistent and confusing. My guess is that the so-called “bass musette” registration is simply a combination of the L reed set and the detuned M reed set.

My understanding of the “pseudo” musette setting is that it is generally the MMH setting, which would typically only be available on a wet-tuned LMMH instrument.

 

[Ben-jammin]

I agree the register identified as bass mussette appears to be L and M+ and I have had instruments with this combination and found it a register I avoided because to me it just sounds unpleasant and out of tune.

 

[Big Squeezy Accordions]

As others have said, this appears to be an LMM with every possible reed combination represented in the switches, instead of just the usual 5 most common ones. The PANcordion with what I dubbed "pseudo-musette" was an LMH with a switch mechanism designed to open the slides halfway in some registers to create an detuned effect.