Accordiola Super Casotto

[Ventura]

by listening AND playing

be as gentle as possible squeezing, in a very quiet environment,
play lightly, quickly a few passages

then do somethiing that lets you ramp it up to full throttle

if they are hand made reeds, well done, you will be able to tell,
because you will be amazed at how nicely they respond and sound
from a whisper to a roar, as i have said many times.

AND you won't want to put it down

you will ALWAYS be better trusting your feel and instincts over
bullshit guides and salesman designed web page embellishments

i admit those of us with the experience and an ear for it have an easier time..
when i pick up a strange box i can tell almost immediately if it has great
reeds, and you will see me smile almost as quickly.. i have gone to see
accordions for sale and made several large investments/purchases after
a few moments based on the reeds alone.

i feel the reeds are the heart, while the quality of the build allows
us to get the most out of the heart

i admit also that there are a (very) few techs who actually CAN tell a handmade
reed by sight, but that doesn't always mean it is also a great reed

considering how many people get ripped off over "handmade" reeds,
i feel that those of you who cannot confidently decide for yourselves,
simply stay with new reeds, as there are some excellent reeds being
produced again today and you are much safer and will get your
moneys worth buying and installing a new set in your beloved
accordion restoration.

once you have been cheated over reeds and an overpriced accordion, it is very
very hard to not perpetuate the line of shit you were convinced with, as that
is the natural human trait we all must overcome to a degree.. and it is
a bitter taste getting cheated.. so get your hands on some good
accordions from your friends and develop your ear and touch so that
you can confidantly tell when the real deal is in your hands

 

[tcabot]

Sound wise, from comparing dural vs tipo vs a-mano side by side, on a sample of one (I.e. one dural-equipped vs one tipo vs one a-mano box) I could see two differences:
1) Huge difference in loudness between dural and the other two.
2) Noticeable improvement in dynamics (and "singing" qualities of sound) with improved reed quality. I.e. decent quality, reasonably gapped durals are about just as responsive as others when playing pianissimo, but reach their "full steam" very quickly. By the time I was playing mp, the reed sound was flat and not very interesting. With tipos the really interesting dynamics lasted well into mf but then the reeds go flat. A-manos seem to carry this dynamic singing sound well into forte. If that makes any sense at all to you.

But I admit, it's a very small sample of instruments.

 

[Tom]

by listening AND playing

be as gentle as possible squeezing, in a very quiet environment,
play lightly, quickly a few passages

then do somethiing that lets you ramp it up to full throttle

if they are hand made reeds, well done, you will be able to tell,
because you will be amazed at how nicely they respond and sound
from a whisper to a roar, as i have said many times.

AND you won't want to put it down

you will ALWAYS be better trusting your feel and instincts over
bullshit guides and salesman designed web page embellishments

i admit those of us with the experience and an ear for it have an easier time..
when i pick up a strange box i can tell almost immediately if it has great
reeds, and you will see me smile almost as quickly.. i have gone to see
accordions for sale and made several large investments/purchases after
a few moments based on the reeds alone.

i feel the reeds are the heart, while the quality of the build allows
us to get the most out of the heart

i admit also that there are a (very) few techs who actually CAN tell a handmade
reed by sight, but that doesn't always mean it is also a great reed

considering how many people get ripped off over "handmade" reeds,
i feel that those of you who cannot confidently decide for yourselves,
simply stay with new reeds, as there are some excellent reeds being
produced again today and you are much safer and will get your
moneys worth buying and installing a new set in your beloved
accordion restoration.

once you have been cheated over reeds and an overpriced accordion, it is very
very hard to not perpetuate the line of shit you were convinced with, as that
is the natural human trait we all must overcome to a degree.. and it is
a bitter taste getting cheated.. so get your hands on some good
accordions from your friends and develop your ear and touch so that
you can confidantly tell when the real deal is in your hands

Thanks Ventura. Yeah, I can tell if, in my humble opinion, I like the reeds. Some of my accordions definitely have "better" sounding reeds, whether this is because of provenance, voicing, tuning, or whatever. It always pains me when a beautiful accordion has less than stellar reeds (this most usually occurs on "student" Scandalli that obviously were made to appeal more to the eye, probably to hook the students in hope of an upgrade). Can I tell whether they are mano, tipo, dural, or martian? No. Do I care? No. But it's so cool when I find the ones with that cute animal head stamped on them!

 

[tcabot]

if they are hand made reeds, well done, you will be able to tell,
because you will be amazed at how nicely they respond and sound
from a whisper to a roar, as i have said many times.

Well, ventura was a bit quicker on the draw, but his post echoes my limited experience.

My observation from very limited fannying about with reed making is as follows:
The reed's pitch is a function of its weight (distribution) and stiffness. If you look as reed size specs, you'll see that there's a huge variance in acceptable sizes & shapes for a given pitch, but the combination of shape & profile let you pick the pitch.
The "normal" profile starts off at full thickness at the base, and feathers out towards the tip.

An extremely interesting (for me) observation was that if you follow the general guidelines on shape & size, then once you profile the reed, you very easily get close to the desired pitch. However, there is a very wide range of reed stiffness, that lets you achieve that pitch. I.e. Once you've profiled the reed, if you start thinning it down, the stiffness goes down, but the pitch does not change much (you are removing stiffness and adjusting the weight roughly in the same proportion!). Therefore, there is this "invisible" variable of reed stiffness that you never think about unless you're actually making a reed.

Observation #2: The lower the quality of the reed, the bigger the gap and the lower the stiffness.

High stiffness + large gap gives you a reed that needs a lot of pressure to get swinging.
Low stiffness + large gap is responsive (you don't need much to get it going) but the dynamics are crap - the reed "maxes out" very quickly. as the reed needs to be stiff to give you more control over the dynamics nuances.
Low stiffness + small gap is not much better than low+large, as the reed maxes out quickly.
High stiffness + small gap is the holy grail, as the reed starts off at low pressures, but is capable of providing excellent dynamics.

The main issue here is that you profile & thickness the reed before you rivet it. Then rivet and fine-tune. If you can guarantee small gaps after riveting, you can make the reed stiffer (e.g. I had no problems matching the stiffness of equivalent a-mano Cagnoni reed tongues). But if you end up with a bigger gap, like me, then high stiffness + big gap give you a reed that's not responsive at low pressures. You can cheat, and reduce the stiffness, allowing yourself more room for error when fitting and riveting, but this gives you a less responsive reed.

So rather than chasing "mano" labels, what you really want is a hand made reed that's both stiff & extremely well fitted (loose but well fitted just doesn't cut it). This is implied by the "a mano" label, but it's not guaranteed, as the "mano" can cheat, make his life easier and make reeds that are not very stiff.
"Tipo", on the other hand, gives you a reed that's stiffer than dural and has smaller gaps to support that stiffness, but not as stiff as "good" a mano. But if you get a dud "a mano", its stiffness can be the same as "tipo" or even lower, in which case you are not getting any more dynamics for a much bigger amount of money.

The dynamics are not just about your ability to play quiet and loud - in the accordion, they seem to be key to "living, sweet, singing" tone quality. If the reed maxes out, it starts sounding more like a lifeless tone generator.


tldr version: Imho, from making a few reeds and poking in boxes with reeds of various qualities, the main variable determining sound quality is the stiffness. The smaller fitting gap is just there to facilitate a stiffer reed.