Electronic Sonic Experiments with Accordions

[Zvon]

As I mentioned previously, this year I became very interested in the accordion as a source of sonic textures and great sounds for my sound design. I will post in this thread various examples. More specifically, examples of manipulating accordion samples that have been imported in a synth or sampler.

Here’s a first one: a sample from a vintage Excelsior accordion in Humbletune Tardigrain granular synth to create a deep drone sound. This sampler is available on the iPad and is mainly played and controlled via the touchscreen.

The stripes (keys) at the bottom of the screen are the playing surface. The lighter grey ones are those that are held. The synth responds to the movement of the fingers on each key. This movement is shown by the black thin crosshairs.



https://youtube.com/shorts/BSj7BfyaZwA

 

[Tom]

Way out of my league but very interesting what you can do with these sounds. Thanks!

 

[Zvon]

Way out of my league but very interesting what you can do with these sounds. Thanks!

Thanks for your comment, glad you found it interesting!
In this example, the result is still close to the original sound. I will post wilder transformations in upcoming posts.

 

[Zvon]

Spectral Audio Editing - An Example

The spectral view showing the frequencies is the orange background and the standard amplitude view is the blue foreground. Lower frequencies are at bottom of the window and zones where specific frequencies have more amplitude are in brighter orange.

With traditional audio editing, when a time region is selected, any edit is applied to all frequencies. With spectral editing, specific frequencies can be edited, for instance cut or boosted, without affecting the other ones that are at the same time. But of course the overall level of the processed region will change accordingly.

Here, I am using iZotope RX Advanced audio editor but there are others too that have spectral editing capabilities.

The sample is an Excelsior accordion from my Patreon Reward sample pack #38.

 

[Zvon]

In this video, I am using the Samplr app but there are quite a few other samplers and audio editors that can slice audio on various platforms. A particularity of Samplr (iOS) is that it is played via the iPad touchscreen. It has different play modes and I am briefly demoing its slicer, looper, bow and tape modes with a sample from my Excelsior Digisyzer accordion.

0:00 Original sound
0:18 Slicer mode
0:36 Looper mode
1:07 Bow mode
1:45 Tape mode

 

[Caps]

I watched and listened to the YouTube videos and thought them very interesting but I am confused as to the purpose of this
research. I guess I'm too ignorant at this point to understand really what is going on. But it does generate some cool sounds....

 

[Zvon]

I watched and listened to the YouTube videos and thought them very interesting but I am confused as to the purpose of this
research. I guess I'm too ignorant at this point to understand really what is going on. But it does generate some cool sounds....

Thanks for watching the videos and taking the time to post your comment. I am glad you found them interesting and enjoyed the sounds!
The purpose is first to have fun. As a sound designer, I like everything (well almost) that makes a sound and I also like to process those sounds.

I love the accordion, it can sound massive or very delicate. I think it's a very good source of sounds to import in apps like the 3 I've showcased above. When I first experiment I tend to exaggerate but this allows me refine techniques that I will later use more subtly later.

One of my goals is to create soundscapes or sonic backgrounds for use with other sounds or in sample packs. Of course the unprocessed accordion is great at that by itself, and so far I spend more time playing it than processing it.

 

[Caps]

Ok, I get it now. i was trying to figure out what purpose it all served. i went to your website and spent about an hour or so reading and listening to various of your sound packs and demo sounds. Some interesting stuff there. i never even thought about the existence of sample sound packs or the technology surrounding the generation of the sounds. Good stuff! Thanks.

 

[Zvon]

Ok, I get it now. i was trying to figure out what purpose it all served. i went to your website and spent about an hour or so reading and listening to various of your sound packs and demo sounds. Some interesting stuff there. i never even thought about the existence of sample sound packs or the technology surrounding the generation of the sounds. Good stuff! Thanks.

You’re welcome and thanks for visiting my website and your kind words!