How to get the bass buttons of a Roland FR-1x to sound multiple octaves at the same time?

[davyc158]

Hi all

I ended up buying a Roland FR-1x after I noticed that the cheap Weltmeister I got had loud bellows that made a lot of unwanted noise in recordings.

But now I noticed that the basses on the Roland only have the span of one octave. On the acoustic accordion, the bass buttons sounds multiple octaves at the same time and when you get to the end of the octave and start at the beginning again, you get the impression that you are going outside of the octave into the next octave, while not actually doing so.

I heard it is possible to set the registration of the Stradella side so that the bass reeds sound an octave apart and "break" in different places in the scale, to get that type of endless ascension. But I searched high and low and went through the manual multiple times but I just can't seem to find how to do it.

Anyone here who knows how to do it?

Thanks a lot!

 

[StargazerTony]

Hi

Sorry, but don't know the answer to your question about your FR-1x but about those Weltmeisters. I assume you're referring to the Pearl or Rubin or perhaps the Juwel, Kristall or Achat. I've listened to a bunch of them both on YouTube and live, and have not heard the loud bellows you mentioned. Do you mean the bellows itself is somehow making loud noises or do you mean that the bass sound itself is overpowering the treble?

I've listened to lots if YouTube accordion tunes that unfortunately have loud, booming bass, overpowering the treble. I find that quite annoying. Did some experimenting with my own accordion and found that if I turned the accordion so that the microphone was in the middle, my bass overpowers the treble, however if I turn it so that the treble side is closer to the microphone, I get a more forceful treble and more subtle bass. That makes more sense to my ears but everyone is different.

 

[davyc158]

Hi Tony

Thanks for your answer. No, it's neither of those models, it's a very old DDR-made 1970 Stella that I bought on eBay for $200. If you dig around on the forum a bit, you'll find my thread where I posted some pictures of it asking the good folks on here if I bought something good.

When it arrived, it turned out that, much like the people on here already told me prior to it arriving, it needed some work. But it actually plays pretty nice other than some bass buttons sticking and one key in a certain register not sounding. But because of its very old age, the bellows are quite noisy. That isn't much of a problem when just playing it but when recording, the noise tends to get picked up. One day, I will bring the accordion into a shop to restore it to its former glory though. The accordion looks very nice and shiny for its age so it would be a waste to get rid of it.

 

[davyc158]

Hi all. The topic can be locked as I have found the answer. I installed the Dallape soundset and used the Roland Set Editor to get one of the Dallape accordions to sound all of the reeds when playing the left hand and now I get the same effect as on an acoustic accordion in that you can no longer tell where the octave ends (always seems to ascend or descend infinitely instead of going up from E to D# and then back down to E again which could jar listeners)