Bugari non-converter vs converter sound

[debra]

Sure? I thought that the M series was comparable with the Artiste D series, and at least the Artiste VID has a 5-reed bass. I also think that I've seen a separate slider for engaging/disengaging the fifth reed on M series models. Possibly an M VI, but I am not sure.

The Artiste series is not equivalent to the Morino series. For starters many Artiste models do not have a cassotto whereas all Morinos from the M series onwards have cassotto. WIth the Artiste I believe only the IX, X and XI models have a cassotto. (I have seen and worked on a prototype Artiste VI S with cassotto but the production version did not have cassotto. Hohner made a different accordion with cassotto: the "Romandie".
So it's no surprise that the bass side may also different. I am 100% certain about the Morino M bass side as I worked on them. I have not worked on the Artiste D series.
I know for a fact that the Morino VI N and my own Artiste X S have all bass octaves start with E and end with D#. The highest D and D# play in the standard bass but not in the melody bass.

 

[dak]

Ok, need to extract my foot slowly from the mouth and then

The Artiste series is not equivalent to the Morino series. For starters many Artiste models do not have a cassotto whereas all Morinos from the M series onwards have cassotto. WIth the Artiste I believe only the IX, X and XI models have a cassotto. (I have seen and worked on a prototype Artiste VI S with cassotto but the production version did not have cassotto. Hohner made a different accordion with cassotto: the "Romandie".

Never heard of that one. Where in the price/quality range was it placed?

So it's no surprise that the bass side may also different. I am 100% certain about the Morino M bass side as I worked on them. I have not worked on the Artiste D series.

Ok, that's definitive.

I know for a fact that the Morino VI N and my own Artiste X S have all bass octaves start with E and end with D#. The highest D and D# play in the standard bass but not in the melody bass.

I think Morino did not believe in overlapping bass notes. The Artiste VID I have has octaves starting at E1, E2, E3, E4, E5. When the octave breaks, it breaks.

 

[debra]

Ok, need to extract my foot slowly from the mouth and then

Never heard of that one. Where in the price/quality range was it placed?

Ok, that's definitive.

I think Morino did not believe in overlapping bass notes. The Artiste VID I have has octaves starting at E1, E2, E3, E4, E5. When the octave breaks, it breaks.

The Hohner Romandie: see for instance https://www.musiker-board.de/threads/hohner-romandie.675394/ or https://www.ricardo.ch/de/a/akkordeon-hohner-romandie-1231515930/
The Romandie is what the Artiste accordions should have been but aren't: a CBA Morino with cassotto. Price for a used Romandie is similar to the price of a used PA Morino. (Higher than a similar Artiste because it has cassotto.)

The bass having the octave jump in the same spot in all octaves is not specifically a Morino thing. It occurs in many other Hohner accordions as well. Hiding the octave jump by having it in different positions in the different reed banks is a (poor) attempt at achieving Shepard tone (look that up on Wikipedia if you don't know what it is). It only really works in the master register. As you disable reed banks by selecting other registers the octave jump becomes more obvious on all accordions.
The only reasoning I can come up with for not hiding the octave jump is that as you go lower the sound of the notes may become weaker in this class of accordions. Weakening the lower notes as you approach the octave jump is part of the process of achieving Shepard tone.

 

[dak]

The Hohner Romandie: see for instance https://www.musiker-board.de/threads/hohner-romandie.675394/ or https://www.ricardo.ch/de/a/akkordeon-hohner-romandie-1231515930/
The Romandie is what the Artiste accordions should have been but aren't: a CBA Morino with cassotto. Price for a used Romandie is similar to the price of a used PA Morino. (Higher than a similar Artiste because it has cassotto.)

You have to be fair to Morino: the déclassement does a pretty good job of distinguishing L and M reeds (the large note range means that you can more often use them as alternatives than on a piano accordion). The problem is that Morino designed the Artiste D series, and when production was moved off after his death to (if I remember correctly) Excelsior for the N series and later to Pigini for the S series, they abandoned the déclassement, meaning that the 4-reed versions of the Artistes did not get cassotto-like registers and got inconsistent sound quality across the button rows. Not to mention gaining serious weight.

It seems like the Romandie was "invented" by Excelsior, possibly as a replacement for the ruined 4-reed Artistes. Maybe they did not have the expertise for building déclassement instruments in-house.

 

[debra]

You have to be fair to Morino: the déclassement does a pretty good job of distinguishing L and M reeds (the large note range means that you can more often use them as alternatives than on a piano accordion). The problem is that Morino designed the Artiste D series, and when production was moved off after his death to (if I remember correctly) Excelsior for the N series and later to Pigini for the S series, they abandoned the déclassement, meaning that the 4-reed versions of the Artistes did not get cassotto-like registers and inconsistent sound quality across the button rows. Not to mention gaining serious weight.

It seems like the Romandie was "invented" by Excelsior, possibly as a replacement for the ruined 4-reed Artistes. Maybe they did not have the expertise for building déclassement instruments in-house.

Not entirely correct I'm afraid. True, the déclassement was a nice invention but alas it didn't last long... And it left the M reeds not sounding great as it only applied to the L reeds. The production moved to Excelsior for the N series and they could have used a cassotto for the Artiste series but didn't, whereas they did use a cassotto for the PA Morinos.. Excelsior also produced the S series (and Pigini only took over much later). They made an Artiste VI S with cassotto, but for some strange reason the production Artiste S did not get that cassotto and the Romandie was created instead. It looks just like a Morino / Artiste, but it is what the Artiste should have been in the first place...
Pigini took over Excelsior and the first Morino to show signs of that takeover were the black register switches and the non-Morino sound, which may have caused the demise of the Morino at that time. (People just didn't want an accordion that sounded like a Pigini but was labeled "Hohner Morino". The rest is history... (the Mattie was created and made by a different company and later the Morino was revived, no longer made by Pigini either...)

 

[dak]

Not entirely correct I'm afraid. True, the déclassement was a nice invention but alas it didn't last long... And it left the M reeds not sounding great as it only applied to the L reeds.

Sorry, but I consider it misplaced to consider "cassotto" as synonymous with "great". It is creating a flute-like sound with a strong fundamental. That definitely provides variety compared to overtone-rich accordion sounds, but the variety goes out the window if everything is getting covered. Some accordion models put L and H into cassotto. That also makes for a more even blend for MM and MMM tremolo variants. In fact, on my main instrument I tend to use M more often than L even when either would be possible because the non-cassotto sound has more harmonic content and thus "richer" harmonies and chords. And sometimes I revert to the melody bass even in accordion orchestra use because it goes another step in the "brassy" direction on my instrument. One doesn't usually build an organ just from flute registers.

In an orchestra setting, cassotto is good for a lead voice. It's not as great for low countervoices, and it doesn't make for a compelling rhythm section. In my opinion, there is a soundscape reason recorder ensembles (complete with bass recorders) have a more limited appeal than string ensembles.

I've not yet decided on the register I'd use for the Badinerie: of course "flute-like" has some appeal because of the original instrumentation.

 

[debra]

Sorry, but I consider it misplaced to consider "cassotto" as synonymous with "great". It is creating a flute-like sound with a strong fundamental. That definitely provides variety compared to overtone-rich accordion sounds, but the variety goes out the window if everything is getting covered. Some accordion models put L and H into cassotto. That also makes for a more even blend for MM and MMM tremolo variants. In fact, on my main instrument I tend to use M more often than L even when either would be possible because the non-cassotto sound has more harmonic content and thus "richer" harmonies and chords. And sometimes I revert to the melody bass even in accordion orchestra use because it goes another step in the "brassy" direction on my instrument. One doesn't usually build an organ just from flute registers.

In an orchestra setting, cassotto is good for a lead voice. It's not as great for low countervoices, and it doesn't make for a compelling rhythm section. In my opinion, there is a soundscape reason recorder ensembles (complete with bass recorders) have a more limited appeal than string ensembles.

I've not yet decided on the register I'd use for the Badinerie: of course "flute-like" has some appeal because of the original instrumentation.

Incidentally I spent the better part of the past two weeks repairing and tuning an old 5-voice Paolo Soprani with L and H in cassotto and three M's outside of cassotto. It was surprising to rediscover how nice the MM and MMM tremolo variants blend when there is no M in cassotto. I got so used to always having one M in cassotto that I almost forgot how nice tremolo sounds without cassotto. (It is surprising because I do have a non-cassotto Crucianelli with MM and MMM... and that also blends very nicely.)
However, I'm not so fond of the H reeds in cassotto. They don't stand out enough to for instance make MH sound interesting and noticeable different from just M. Some accordions have just L in cassotto and all M's and H outside. I can see where that may work better. Alas, you cannot have everything in an acoustic accordion. (You could in an electronic accordion with very nice sampled sounds, but alas that doesn't seem to be available.)
I have two quintet ensembles where everyone (except the bass) has LMMH with LM in cassotto. One ensemble has dry-tuned instruments, the other ensemble has all instruments with tremolo (on MM). We use the difference in timbre between LM and MH a lot. I also appreciate the MM where one M is in cassotto and one is not and both are tuned the same. That gives an interesting sound, whereas a dry-tuned MM with both outside of cassotto is not so interesting. But all in all, all possibilities that accordions offer have their purpose and work best in certain types of music. To play all types of music on the best-suited accordion requires using different accordions... but that's not always practical...

 

[dak]

What I was getting at was "The Romandie is what the Artiste accordions should have been but aren't: a CBA Morino with cassotto.". That statement applies to the 4-reed instruments of the Artiste N and Artiste S series. The overall geometry requires putting the lowest reed block behind the keyboard, and not placing a déclassement there ruins the consistency of the sound across rows.

The original design made sense, so the "should have been" comment turns me defensive against the creator of some of my instruments. That the déclassement was discontinued likely had separate reasons: the whole point of moving fabrication to Excelsior was to employ their different in-house expertise except for the optics. That led to heavier instruments. They probably had no dëclassement specialists, and the dëclassement is problematic for servicing since it is assembled before its load-bearing part of the case is glued into the rest. Replacing pallet felts is close to impossible.

So there may well have been good reasons for Excelsior to say "I am sorry, Matthias, but I am afraid I can't do that". But that doesn't mean that the original Artiste D design was wrong or inconsistent. Just that it transferred worse to Excelsior than other elements.

There would have been a point in offering the Romandie instead of the Artiste VI N (the latter incidentally also has a smaller range than the Artiste VI D). But that might have made the outsourcing more obvious.

However, I'm not so fond of the H reeds in cassotto. They don't stand out enough to for instance make MH sound interesting and noticeable different from just M. Some accordions have just L in cassotto and all M's and H outside. I can see where that may work better.

That would have been my guess without having had actual experience: the point of an H reed set is to add overtones, and the point of a cassotto is to reduce overtones. It sounds like that would make for a comparatively subtle difference M/MH particularly if M is outside. But I find that one feature of multiple reeds is to make the sound more "pliable": I find that a double reed reacts considerably more lively to pressure differences, possibly because they tend to have different pressure responses. This difference may be mostly lost to listeners, particularly in an ensemble setting, but it does something for me as the player, and stuff that the player hears or feels makes them indulge and that rubs off on the audience.

So I could imagine that a H reed in cassotto might help with that. If it does, that could provide some justification for that arrangement. I really need to spend a lot more time with a lot more accordions...