King of the hill?

[JerryPH]

I think it is pretty indisputable that currently the Roland FR-8X is the most sophisticated digital accordion out there, but it is a reedless design.

What is the most sophisticated digital accordion with reeds out there?

 

[JIM D.]

If you wish an acoustic & digital box that has the latest in technology ,1st find a top of the line currently made acoustic model that will suit your needs and then 2nd, have a Limex system installed.


http://www.johnsaccordionservice.com/

 

[fjsys]

Or you could just buy one of these and save someone professionally installing the box with Midi:

Concerto - The Premier Digital Acoustic Accordion
http://www.accordionfactory.com/Concerto.aspx

I am a little bias tho b/c these are local to me.

Additionally Jerry if you liked the elka, this is what has became of them after iorio, elka, and SEM collapsed. (no solid conformation on this statement, just from the look and play of the box)
Ben

 

[JerryPH]

Thanks gents, good info all.

Oh, I am really curious about something that happened this morning... I had someone call me about out of the blue earlier this morning (really strange how that happened too...), they're selling a Roland FR-8x Dallapè. It's the PA version, was bought new the first year they came out (when that is, I don't even know) and they were selling it and are open to offers. What would be a great deal price for such an instrument? What do they cost new today?

 

[JIM D.]

You can find an 8x used listed and low balled for under $5,000 USD. In most cases these Rolands were bought dirt cheap online with no dealer support, and now have software problems. A new 8x from a qualified Roland dealer that will give you an extended warranty and all updated software will bottom line ask for $ 5,800.00 USD.

 

[JerryPH]

You can find an 8x used listed and low balled for under $5,000 USD. In most cases these Rolands were bought dirt cheap online with no dealer support, and now have software problems. A new 8x from a qualified Roland dealer that will give you an extended warranty and all updated software will bottom line ask for $ 5,800.00 USD.

Thank-you for your input, Jim, knowing about the software issues is something new and I appreciate your help.

In these cases, will simply reinstalling the new latest firmware updates address those issues or is a complete O/S install required? In either case, I would not think that this is too hard to do (for someone like me that plays with computers all day and night long)... or is it a complex and more common issue with the 8xs than is realized by most?

BTW, I believe no deals there.

 

[Glenn]

If you hunt around the Roland site you can see how to update the OS. It's pretty simple so I don't see why an early adopter of an 8x will have c an issue with software unless there were hardware changes which have gone on without being made known to the public.

 

[JerryPH]

Well, as someone that has some experience with computers, I can tell you that you would be surprised at some of the things that can happen when you mix technology and someone a bit unsure, or sometimes it's not even the person's fault, but a bug in the code or perhaps the lunar phase of the moon... sometimes things just happen.

Though, I did not look around the Roland site, I did find out on YouTube how to do a basic firmware update (and that's a very easy 10-12 minute process, but I also read where someone did this, it failed, and they had to redo it, with a successful 2nd attempt, albeit a scary moment for the owner!), but I will be the first to admit that when it comes to computers and software, there is a million ways to botch things up (haha!). The more you can tweak, the more there is for someone to do something that will toss a wrench into the machine, and the 8x has a LOT of small things that can be tweaked/botched, so I completely understand where Jim is coming from!

That said, I am extremely comfortable with computers, having had this as my main profession for the last 35 years and just having hit my 20th year as a Microsoft Certified Trainer (one of the 15 IT industry certifications I currently hold), I would not consider myself your average accordion user from the technical side, I live and breathe this techno-stuff on a daily basis.

But I digress.

It seems that basically, a lot has changed in the last 25 years... and at the same time, a lot has not. From what I am told here, there are still just 2 general options out there if one wants "the best"... start off with a midi-reedless accordion (*cough*RolandV-Accordion*cough*), or get a quality acoustic accordion and install a proper midi kit in it.

Now MIDI kits have had some good amount of evolution in the last 25 years... adding touch sensitivity, key velocity, wireless capabilities, etc... over the basic "hit a note, send this data to the midi controller to play the note associated to that button/digital instrument, that's pretty much all of it.

One thing kind of stands out in my thinking a little... a good acoustic accordion will last 30, 40, 50 years and still have a fairly high residual value. Please correct me if I am wrong, but my impression is that a digital accordion would likely lose more of it's residual value in 20 years than perhaps a quality acoustic accordion with MIDI installed.

Is my thinking right or wrong?

 

[acordiansam]

Problem is most people want to buy an accordion that's an accordion. So they stay accordions. If people wanted more they could and would make it. The synth part of the accordion world is small.
So changes are slow. I think the accordion is a good live midi controler. Let alone when you connect to an arranger. Still a small market and slow progress.

 

[donn]

One thing kind of stands out in my thinking a little... a good acoustic accordion will last 30, 40, 50 years and still have a fairly high residual value. Please correct me if I am wrong, but my impression is that a digital accordion would likely lose more of its residual value in 20 years than perhaps a quality acoustic accordion with MIDI installed.

That makes sense to me, in principle. The way I understand it, taking that accordion just as a MIDI controller, they both depend on peripherals - both systems generate electric signals rather than audio output, so you at minimum need an amplifier. The digital-accordion is otherwise self contained - ironically, what we call a digital accordion generates an analogue signal that goes straight to the amplifier.

While the MIDI controller needs an intermediate peripheral to convert MIDI to analogue. As more stuff to deal with, that sounds like a problem, but it could be and often is just a laptop computer - and you can run any MIDI software you can afford on that laptop, and store as many sound samples as you have disk space for. MIDI is MIDI, its a standard interface, anything connects to anything, so you could also connect it to my old sampler made in the 80s. The big deal here, is that sounds with a realistic level of complexity tend to be huge samples. For practical purposes at this point Im talking about simulated acoustic instruments, like for example a convincing accordion sound, but in principle any sound of similar complexity. I dont believe they can be effectively synthesized, theyre just big data (and expensive to buy) - and the idea of keeping that stuff in a general purpose standard format on a general purpose laptop is attractive.

But thats the perspective of someone who personally has zero interest in either. What I suppose you have to look out for, is whether the adapted accordion is really a successful MIDI instrument, for your purposes, or maybe falls short in various ways that make it a useless gimmick. And the same for the digital-accordion of course. As for the lifespan of the acoustic accordion - it sounds like you know, accordions seem to have relatively short lifespans compared to other musical instruments, but as someone whos playing an accordion thats probably in the 50 year old range, I cant argue with your numbers.