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Who's got a great midi, digital or electronic setup?

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Matt Butcher

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There's so much that can be done with midi/digital/electronic setups + accordion. I had this idea that a little library of different setups might be interesting/educational, I'll see if anyone agrees.

I wondered if anyone who has set things up in a way that they are really happy with, that they feel makes great music of the kind they want to make, or just done something they think is interesting, would be willing to share sounds/videos and any comments on what they do. I know many have already done so, if so apologies / if you feel like posting a link to a previous post then great.

I hope no one will mind me saying, I was not intending this thread to be a discussion of whether midi/electronics/digital was a good thing. For the record my personal preference is for acoustic, amplified if necessary, but that doesn't mean I can't love the electronics as well.

Also I hope the thread would not be a debate about the relative merits of Rolands and other systems. For the record I think Rolands are great and have great potential, but that's not what I was hoping to debate here.

If the thread doesn't go anywhere, then that's fine of course, I'm just talking.
 
Great idea. I am quite a purist, and very wary of Midi and all that jazz, so it will be nice to hear what people can do with it, and maybe sway me towards the electronics. I still need a lot of persuasion to use a mic., so it'll perhaps do me good to hear a little more adventurous techy stuff. Looking forward to hearing people! {} {} :b

Although sometimes it is just depressing - it makes me realise what I still have left to do. :hb
 
How about a learning tool? Im a rank beginner, so it is helpful to me to plug my FR-1XB into PianoBooster on my PC. The right hand works fine. The left hand, not so much.
 
Hi Pat.
As a midi setup yours sounds simple. What exactly are you trying to achieve?
 
It is just an entertaining way to learn to read music, and to learn some tunes from midi files.
 
Ok I'll get the ball going. I have a 3x and run it through a line six floor pod into a roland 550 amp. Oh I use a wireless when I perform can't stand still and steping on the cord can be bad! Any way I use mosty the accordion 3x sounds. I will use a dry box sound through the pod with an lseley FX. Makes it play like an organ. Also use the wet accordion sounds too with sum over drive sum times.

When I get the doe gona get a wireless midi system to go into a soltan.

Its nice and simple best thing about the midi box is no feed back!! When you play in loud bands and small stages an acoustic can be a pain. 2nd to be able to have different tunnings that you would have to chang and bring different boxes to the gig.

Ok that's a start.
 
After about a week of working with my new (to me) Roland RA-95, I have discovered a setup I really enjoy. I set my RA-95 to play digital sounds from the keyboard, then ran a midi cable from the midi through into my Roland RA-90 module. The midi through sends the identical midi signals through the first arranger into the second. On the second module, I turned off the upper voice and program the bass and chord buttons to play separate sounds. This setup allows the RA-95 module to accompany me with styles that are triggered with my bass and chord buttons, while the RA-90 module allows for additional chord and bass midi tones that I can't get through the RA-95 module. I also use the F-7 foot controller for the fills, variations, intros, and endings. When used with my built-in accordion microphones I can sound like a whole band. For instance, the RA-95 arranger auto accompaniment may have a drum set, string section, bass, and guitar. Then I can program the keyboard to play a clarinet sound, the chords as a brass section, and the bass buttons as a tuba. I am very pleased with the use of these two arrangers together, which give me some great options, including the ability to load additional accompaniment styles into the RA-95. I purchased a set of 9400 styles for the arranger on ebay. I am able to vary the selection of auto arrangements available for my sets of music, so that my audience won't have to listen to the same accompaniment styles for all my polkas and waltzes. I am happy that I was able to get all the equipment I needed for this setup for under $500 US on ebay, as well.
While I love the sound of acoustic accordion and currently have the luxury of army musicians as band mates for many performances, I find that the midi modules are convenient for solo performance situations when we can't field a whole band. I also never have to worry about my drummer playing too fast!
 
Really interesting. Sam and MIAB, obviously a lot of thought, work and listening gone into your setups. You may not be into recording yourselves, fine if you're not, but I for one would find a short sound clip very interesting if you had any time to post one. I've spoken to two guys in the UK, Reg Rawlings and John Romero, about what they do with midi and it's anything but plug in and play, it's very creative, the same clearly goes for you guys.

Nice to know you can put together a good setup at sensible prices as well.
 
Well its all a work in progress. Yes I have sum tunes from an orignal band my prob is getting them in my brokin phone to send them. The only internet I have is my phone. Will work on that. Not verry good with computers.

I like MIAB's set up so much can be done. I have used the soltan that way the accordion is the best one man band controler that I have seen. Can give you real time abuilty impervise makes for a verry live feel.

Me I need to have a bunch of good players around me to make me sound good!

That's two there's got to be more?
 
Matt, my setup is not very sophisticated, but it works for me! I bought a Sennheiser 172 wireless system (about $500 U.S.) which plugs into the Left(Mono) jack of my FR3-X. I also got a second battery holder, and 20 NiMH rechargeables, so am never without power.

This allows me to be totally wire-free when on stage. The Sennheiser is quiet and just terrific; very sophisticated and I'm still learning its capabilities over a year later. The one improvement I would make is to velcro the wireless pack to the accordion so that I don't have to remember to unclip the pack from my belt when I put down the accordion and start to walk away :)

I created a custom setting that is piano on the left, musette accordion on the right, suitable for self-accompaniment for Scottish dances and the like. I'm still tweaking the sounds however and might break down and buy the sound sets that someone in California is selling. There's also a British vendor of a MIDI module that has superb accordion sounds. Of course ideally you would have all the sounds on-board rather than have to go out through a midi module, but ya do what ya have to do!
 
Roland and a wireless is a great set up all by its self.

I have Richards sets. They are well worth it. Well thought out and most of all have a good ballance between sounds.

BlisterP what do you use for an amp?
 
acordiansam said:
Roland and a wireless is a great set up all by its self.

I have Richards sets. They are well worth it. Well thought out and most of all have a good ballance between sounds.

BlisterP what do you use for an amp?

Well, I play in a lot of different stage situations, so theres no one amp. Typically, its a powered mixer (Peavey, Behringer).

I also have a Roland KB300 amp that accepts 4 line level inputs. The FR3-X sounds great through this amp, and when practicing at home I typically hook up to the amp. The on-board speakers on my FR3-X are simply not up to snuff, though better than nothing.

I also picked up a cheap Behringer AT108 guitar amp, hoping this would be a light portable solution, but the sound quality is disappointing so I tend to only use it as a supplemental stage monitor. Im still looking for a really good, compact powered speaker. Roland makes the Cube, and there are a couple others out there, but each has its limitations.
 
I also have a 3X great box! I use at times KB 550, behringer key board amp. My new toy is a makie thump 12. Olny prob is only 1 input but it does have a punch! Not to big. Its my simple grab and go.
 
acordiansam said:
I also have a 3X great box! I use at times KB 550, behringer key board amp. My new toy is a makie thump 12. Olny prob is only 1 input but it does have a punch! Not to big. Its my simple grab and go.

Nice! Im in the market for powered speakers and this Thump product looks pretty good, 29 lbs and $300. Ive been considering the QSC K-12 which is also 1000 watts (slightly more sophisticated electronics, however) for over twice the price and weighing 40 lbs.

I guess you solve the 1-input problem with a mini-mixer.
 
Hey B.P. you know that 1000 watt thing is just a scam. Its all in how it sounds. You can get the same SPL's from a 350w set up. I have not heard the QSC you speak of. You just have to weigh the differance in sound, weight and $. The makie is hard to beat for the $. I did get the little makie 4 channel mixer.

Mr. Stoke I'm not a good recording guy. Still behind the times. I have my phone and an old lap top that runs a windows program that will not sink to my olny internet my phone. The only thing I could do is make a CD and snail mail it to you. sorry.
 
I dont know if it is great or anything, but it works for me. My electronic setup starts with an Elkavox series 83:

http://www.jerryph.com/files/Elkavox.jpg

The first rhythm/accompaniment comes from a Solton Programmer 24.

http://www.jerryph.com/files/TheRack.jpg

It all goes into a Ross 16chX2ch mixing board where I add a touch of reverb/echo to the individual tracks that I want to have this effect via an Alesis Midiverb. I get extra rhythms and sounds from a Ketron X4.

http://www.jerryph.com/files/KetronX4.jpg

Underneath the X4 is the tone generator for the accordion with its 4 outputs in to separate channels for best control of the sound. I then balance everything out and pan the individual channels in such a way as to create a true stereo image. From there if doing live performances, I have a 500 watt/ch WB amp that goes in to a pair of Bose 802E speakers. If at home, it goes out into a stereo amplifier with two 3-way studio monitors and at the same time if I want to save or record anything, I used to use a Yamaha MT440 multitrack recorder that was attached to a Yamaha RM602 6ch recording mixer, but if I was doing any recording now, it would likely all go though a multi-track setup via Adobe Audition CS6, where one could pretty much do anything once the file is in digital format, like keep adding track upon track, upon track and make a single person really sound like many. Back in the day about 25 years ago I dont think many people were doing this, but today I bet it is pretty much common place.

http://www.jerryph.com/files/Desktop.jpg

Above: The Yamaha multitrack recorder and mixer, and being a computer geek, my PC is way more than powerful enough for heavy duty studio work, including multiple monitors for the digital mixer environment, as shown.

By the way, I tried to include the photos in the post, but it did not work. Is there some kind of restriction to file size or anything? The pictures are small (biggest is well under 250kb). I ended up just posting the links, and when clicked on, work properly to show what I am talking about.

To give an idea of what it all sounds like, HERE IS ONE MP3 FILE with the KetronX4 recorded on the computer.

Twenty-five years ago I was very happy with this setup... now I am pulling it all out of the mothballs and going to see if I can even get a tune out of this stuff. :D
 
JerryPH -- awesome setup! And nice music. You should create a Soundcloud channel, if you dont already have one.

I broke down and purchased two great additions to my toybox:

A Roland Cube Street EX, $449 from Musicians Friend.

This puppy has 25+25 watts (stereo), four inputs, aux out, aux in, and weighs 16.5 lbs. It sounds as good or better than my suitcase-size, 100-watt, 39 lb Roland KB300, still a great workhorse 18 years later, but now I realize how much technology has advanced. The Cube can run on batteries, but like the Roland FR 3X, you have to take them out and stick them in a recharger. It also uses a wall wart rather than a straight AC cable. The light weight comes with a price, I suppose, but thats OK. I love it anyway. A nice bonus is the speaker mount on one side.

Mackie Mix 12FX mixer

Ive been needing an inexpensive but full featured mixer; I had a Samson 4-channel which Ive never been happy with; I can only get two of the channels to work for some reason, probably my ignorance (but come on, shouldnt be rocket science). For $112, this was an impulse purchase and has already come in very handy. Often, we bump into the channel ceiling on stage and we cant plug everything in that wed like, so have to forego the extra vocal mike or what have you. This Mackie neatly solves that problem and has a nice, clean sound. Mackies small mixers have always been rock solid and well engineered.

My next purchase is going to be the QSC-8 powered speakers; not sure exactly when that will happen because theyre not cheap, but if Ive learned one thing in this business, you tend to get what you pay for.
 
Hi there. A question about the Roland Cube. From the spec it is a guitar amp. Is this okay for a Roland V accordion? I ask this as the accordion has a potentially larger spectrum than a guitar.
 
Glenn said:
Hi there. A question about the Roland Cube. From the spec it is a guitar amp. Is this okay for a Roland V accordion? I ask this as the accordion has a potentially larger spectrum than a guitar.

The Cube is suitable for not just guitars, but vocals, keyboards, and other instruments. Its an all purpose amp, in other words. The reproduction seems pretty good to me. You may desire more bass, I dont know. It depends what kind of sound you are going for. It sounds great with my FR-3X.

I really intended the Cube to be a stage monitor, and to double as a handy mini-PA for small venues. With the V-Accordion, I find that I never have enough stage monitor, so this is my way to take control of the situation. I have a Behringer speaker amp which cost about $100, and its really pathetic by comparison; the frequency response seems much more limited than the Roland.

Ill be able to give more feedback in a few months, after Ive put it through its paces in the field.
 
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