Brand Preferences and Why

[dak]

Your first accordion will determine your brand preferences. Generally your second purchase will follow with the same brand. It happened to me and many others.

Now that isn't at all what I can undersign. More like the opposite: when I bought another accordion, then because what I already had was not what I wanted. Or at least not for a particular purpose: my first purchase was kind of for vaudeville purposes, then I got to "vaudeville but better", then CBA, then a progression of "better" that moved into classical while losing sight of vaudeville, and ultimately for rounding it off, an explicit small (but good) CBA for the explicit use as vaudeville. There is a bunch of leftovers seeing little use these days, but not much brand continuity.

One Hohner Morino, one that is more Morino than Hohner, an Excelsior with MIDI, a small Maugein, a Solton/Ketron arranger keyboard, a Roland FR-1b, a Hohner Morino Club N (I really need to sell that one), a few small useless boxes I got as "you'll know what to do with them" that might serve to start someone on accordion repairs. If there is any pattern, it is a nod to Venanzio Morino (the Club most likely wasn't made in Germany to original designs, but I didn't know that at the time of purchase).

 

[debra]

Your first accordion will determine your brand preferences. Generally your second purchase will follow with the same brand. It happened to me and many others.

That certainly isn't always true. My first accordion was a Crucianelli. My second one was also a Crucianelli (but bigger). Later I heard just one Crucianelli I would really have loved to own and play (but never did) and that was the Baton. It was LMMH with LM in cassotto (so it's not the same as a Pancordion Baton). Much much later I moved to Hohner, Bugari and even AKKO and haven't really looked back. (I still have two Crucianelli accordions: a 26/40 my older and my younger brother started out on, and the Super Video (LMMM, no cassotto) I inherited from my sister. They sit in their case and remain unplayed, mostly because 1) they are tuned too high and 2) they are PA and I now play CBA only.
I love the sound of the Hohner Morino line (M, N, S series) as well as the Gola (preferably older ones, like a Morino VI M I "inherited"), and of the Bugari cassotto instruments. For me sound is everything, which is why i have a Morino, Bugari Artist Cassotto and AKKO bayan. I like the sound of many other accordions in similar configuration, but some more than others. The differences are often not so noticeable if you don't hear them side by side. I can recognize the sound of a VIctoria (which I like, but not for hours on end) and of a Pigini (which I find just a bit too nasal for my taste). I could not distinguish modern accordions by say Mengascini, Serenellini, Scandalli, (Fabio) Ballone Burini and others. Many accordion sound more or less the same because they are all constructed in more or less the same way, using at least 95% the same components.

 

[JerryPH]

Hmmm, maybe. My first was a Titano (Titan), second was Scandalli and then Hohner. Again, in this case choice was based needs. Titano and Scandalli did not make an MIII free bass model, but Hohner did, that made the dream come true for me.

But I can say that if this is what happens to some and brand loyalty happens, that’s definitely not a bad thing.

 

[tcabot]

Scandalli did not make an MIII free bass model

They did for Johnny.

 

[JerryPH]

Awesome! It's too bad their Canafa and USA reps never responded like Hohner, it was also in none of their catalogs that we received from them and others at the time. I could have maybe been a Scandalli fan boy!