Amplifying to get a musette sound

[mtj]

I am wondering it I can use the output of the microphones on my accordion to run it through some kind of sound box that will add a musette sound. That appears to what the guy here is doing: I'm pretty sure this is a concert tuned accordion and there is a cable coming off the accordion. I'd appreciate if anyone can explain how this is done.

 

[JeffJetton]

I don't know... seems to me like his accordion has a musette/violin register and he simply switches it on with his finger at about 36 seconds in. No audio trickery needed.

That said, it's still an interesting question as to whether you could do something like that with effects. You could get close with any bog-standard chorus pedal, I suppose. To be more authentic, you'd want some kind of pitch-shifter that could detune by a small amount. And of course, your accordion would need to have separate outputs for the right and left sides, otherwise the effect would wind up getting applied to the bass too.

A cheap way to test it out would be to record your right hand and import into a DAW like Garageband. Apply effects willy-nilly and see what happens. If you get a sound you like, then go out and buy the gear to recreate it in real life.

 

[dan]

I’m hearing heavy reverb that would have been added with an effects unit or software but I agree with Jeff, it looks like he switches registers.

 

[Ventura]

the issue with using FX on acoustic accordion is simply that very few
players know how to send MOST of their sound through the Microphones

with normal squeezing and typical amp boosted volume, your FX have to "fight"
with the normal unamplified soundwaves to be heard by the audience,
so your results are lukewarm at best and have hot spot and subtraction sqings

Reverb is about the only thing that truly works seemingly "normally"
as it disperses through the room mixed with your overall sound

having said that, if you control your squeeze and learn how to really
play to your Mic's then you can feed your audio through any/many
types of FX from simple stomp box style Chorus pedals (which give
a decently pleasant variety of wave depth and speeds) to more extensive
pedals like the Leslie/Hammond Simulators which can give stronger
and wider waveforms digitally and even play with combined phasing and
time to achieve actual Vibrato-like results..

it can be fun, but is also helpful if you live near a Music-go-round
type used music equipment store.. around here we have Atomic Music,
who guarantee 80% trade in returns on items bought there.. so
musicians can try lots of various pedals and stuff looking for the
sound they want without going broke and ending up stuck with a
ton of leftover equipment..

have fun

 

[JerryPH]

There is no musette trickery here, he has reverb and maybe some minor EQing happening, that's it. The cable coming off his accordion are just his mics. The musette sounds you are hearing are coming from his accordion and not faked anywhere in electronics.

 

[debra]

I am wondering it I can use the output of the microphones on my accordion to run it through some kind of sound box that will add a musette sound. That appears to what the guy here is doing: I'm pretty sure this is a concert tuned accordion and there is a cable coming off the accordion. I'd appreciate if anyone can explain how this is done.

I believe it was jozz who posted a while ago how he used a device to add tremolo (musette) to a dry sound source. I was pleasantly surprised at how realistic it sounded. Maybe he can post this again...

 

[jozz]

I am wondering it I can use the output of the microphones on my accordion to run it through some kind of sound box that will add a musette sound. That appears to what the guy here is doing: I'm pretty sure this is a concert tuned accordion and there is a cable coming off the accordion. I'd appreciate if anyone can explain how this is done.

it appears the guy is just playing his musette register

but what you are implying is 'somewhat' possible with a detuner pedal
with the right pedal you can make the effect believable

take a look here:



Thread:

Guessing game: what do you hear?

I play the A note 3 times. Each time something is different. Describe what you hear and/or what is different. Source:

www.accordionists.info

Disclaimer: this is not true musette. In this way you will get a 2+2" voice sound instead of the 3 voices of a real musette

 

[debra]

but what you are implying is 'somewhat' possible with a detuner pedal
with the right pedal you can make the effect believable

Thanks. That is the video/post I remember. It sounds very believable. I'd even be tempted to use this and just have an accordion dry-tuned, but... this can only turn M into an MM with tremolo (of varying intensity) but still cannot give you LMM, MMH or LMMH with tremolo, and I'm unsure what will happen when you get a nice MM sound out of this device on A4 (as in the video) and then play A3, A5 and A6...
Still, it's a really nice addition and also, as it is in fact implemented as a pedal (which can be foot-operated) you can switch between M and MM sound without removing your fingers from the keyboard.

 

[Ventura]

which is where the newer Digital pedals can come in

currently our common Tech level is we DO have devices that can
sample, convert to digital, process, then spit back out our audio signal
faster than we can think

consider live pitch correction for vocalists from TC-Electronics, and how easily
this is done with a slew of available devices.. or consider my Roland Vocalizer
keyboard, where i lay right hand chords and sing through the input and
you hear a full vocal ensemble at the audio output in real time

if you have two pitch shifting pedals,
one tweaked for (M-)
one tweaked for (M+)
then blended with the original signal
all in line on a pedalboard within reach of your fingers
for fine volume or spread adjustments

it should be possible to simulate 3 reed meusette

while i do not personally use these for any meusette FX sims, i DO
have an octaver, a Whammy pedal, and two controllable Boss pitch shifter pedals that i
use when i run a Guitar patch from my keys.. one shifter goes ,down a half step
and one up, which gives me the ability to simulate fretboard string finger bends
in either direction with my foot as i play..
the Digitech whammy pedal sims the whammy bar of course

if you know "Jessica" from the Allman Brothers, then you know why
i put that together as soon as i realized the capability was available
and affordable.. the Octaver was added because of layla

these digital pedals are so fast you really cannot tell

it was easy for me to always play with this edge of tech
because aside from accordions and MIDIVox i also have
an AX-1 Keytar and an Axis Keytar/Synth, and have always
craved to be able to play stuff that is generally impossible for an
accordionist who never got to be a Rock God to do

on background, i can admit that the first really great and useable Synth
patch i ever crafted was on my DW-8000 and was modeled after
Wes Montgomery's sound.. the second patch i crafted was a sim
of Carlos Santana..

interestingly, that whole PILE of keyboards and gear cost less than one Digital Accordion

 

[jozz]

Thanks. That is the video/post I remember. It sounds very believable. I'd even be tempted to use this and just have an accordion dry-tuned, but... this can only turn M into an MM with tremolo (of varying intensity) but still cannot give you LMM, MMH or LMMH with tremolo, and I'm unsure what will happen when you get a nice MM sound out of this device on A4 (as in the video) and then play A3, A5 and A6...
Still, it's a really nice addition and also, as it is in fact implemented as a pedal (which can be foot-operated) you can switch between M and MM sound without removing your fingers from the keyboard.

Theoretically, you could run the dry signal into two detuners and an octaver (or two) to get L and H as well. However, I have yet to find an octaver that doesn't make the accordion sound like a synth. I use a Nano POG to slightly augment my bass side, and it is one of the best polyphonic octavers on the market. Still, this effect may only be 'felt' and not heard. Otherwise the accordion sounds like crap.

But it can octave up and down, giving you (a not so believable) L and H.

 

[mtj]

Thanks all. I appreciate the quick responses. Okay that's reverb I'm hearing. I guess I just didn't realize how the musette would sound with reverb. Thanks for explaining.

 

[Alan Polivka]

I suggest also trying something simpler than processing that actually creates extra, detuned signals and adds them in. Even though chorusing theoretically does what you want, it typically only gives a very small amount of detuning (equivalent to a very light musette), unless you can find a device that allows you to adjust the amount of detuning and set it greater than typical chorusing. So, I suggest trying a simple tremelo effect, like that found on older style amplifiers.

The traditional tremelo effect imparts amplitude modulation (AM) on the sound, typically using a sinusoidal modulation signal having adjustable rate (frequency). If you do a Fournier analysis of that, you'll find that this creates additional frequency components (tones) at:
original signal frequency + AM sinusoidal frequency, and
original signal frequency - AM sinusoidal frequency,

An easy, free way to experiment with all of the different effects (FX) concepts suggested (to see which one you like best) is to record your right hand playing something on the accordion (e.g., to a .wav or .mp3 file) and then apply the various FX options available in Audacity (one at a time).

Audacity is a very powerful, widely used, multi-track recording app for PC or Apple computers that has a ton of different FX available. And it's freeware from the Sound Forge web site.

 

[Ben-jammin]

In my mind the real application for this “technique” would be recording a clean clarinet into a DAW and then duplicating it twice and be able to playback while adjusting the pitch shift of the duplicates to find the desired musette tunings.

 

[Ventura]

ahh.. but i thought we tune Musette reeds by first tuning the
M reed to perfection, then tuning the M+ reed note per note
against it's matching M reed so that each note has the same
"speed" of beat

and the same for M- (tune it to/against the M reed)
because (Debra, please make sure i don't blow this)
if you tune strictly to a pitch shift without comparison, the
beating will get faster and faster as you go up the scale

does that make any cents ?

 

[Ventura]

i will say this for Chorus.. an easy way for anyone to warm up
their accordion sound is to play through a Jazz Chorus type amp..
the effect is nice and natural and you could get addicted to it
depending on the kind of music you play

 

[JerryPH]

i will say this for Chorus.. an easy way for anyone to warm up
their accordion sound is to play through a Jazz Chorus type amp..
the effect is nice and natural and you could get addicted to it
depending on the kind of music you play

I actually own a Roland Jazz Chorus 160 amp, and I liked the sound, but what I didn't like is that phase cancellation effect that actually lowers overal volume. For me, the accordion actually sounds better without the effect.

 

[niels]

reviving this one, thanks for the question mtj. I was also looking into 'digital' musette. Imo Jozz' solution sounds quite convincing. Googling around, I found another pedal that might do the job, even with three voices. It is the Boss Harmonizer PS6. One of the things it can do is 'detune'. If I understand correctly it is possible to detune higher and lower simultaneously for MMM effect. Has anyone tried this? Curious if this would sound acceptable. The picture shows the detune settings. It can be set to just one voice or two, in various cent steps.

 

[debra]

The latest Harmonik 5001 FX microphones provide possibility to add tremolo, and the demo I heard was impressive. The effect was very much like the tremolo box that Jozz showed long time ago, and it does so for just the treble side, even when you have just mono output that mixes treble and bass side. Sadly Harmonik microphones are very expensive.

 

[niels]

thanks Debra, I was not aware of that.

 

[Zevy]

The latest Harmonik 5001 FX microphones provide possibility to add tremolo, and the demo I heard was impressive. The effect was very much like the tremolo box that Jozz showed long time ago, and it does so for just the treble side, even when you have just mono output that mixes treble and bass side. Sadly Harmonik microphones are very expensive.

I’m waiting to get me one of those. If you find me in jail because I robbed the bank, you’ll know why.