MMM design advice?

[dunlustin]

I hadn’t come across tuning given in Hz before which got me searching:
Geoff de L (above) gives a link to monaccordeon where tuning is listed in Hz.
So –
• Américain : Accordage ... un écart de 1.5 à 2.5 Hz (sur le la 3) ... flute juste.
• (= 1.5 to 2Hz on A440)
And
• Céleste : Accordage ... un écart de 2.5 à 3 Hz (sur le la 3) ... flute juste.
• (= 2.5 to 3Hz on A440)

(see https://www.mon-accordeon.com/lexique )
And for equivalence Cents / Hz, using;
http://www.deleze.name/~marcel//physique/musique/GammeTemperee.html
la3 (A = 440) to la#3 (A# = 466.2)
So for A440, 100cents = 26.2Hz giving
20 cents = about 5Hz and 10 cents = about 2.6Hz

As others have said this is true only at A440 (= la3) but you could work out the others if so inclined.
And my sums could be wrong!

 

[george garside]

a three voice mmm box ccan be tuned/retuned to any degree of so called wetness or dryness that the individual requires. I have a mmm no couplers casali that has a fairly Scottish musette sound which I like. I also have a 4 voice MMML hohner gaelic which is full on Scottish musette i.e. very 'wet' on the 3 mmm voices and has the luxury of a set of low reeds that an be taken out with a coupler - 3 couplers but really only 2 as 2 are repeats! To me the gaelic has a sound to 'kill for' but then it has been tuned by a revered Scottish reedman and so is absolutely spot on compared with factory spec.

So if going for a mmm box choose one you like anad then get it set up exactly to your taste by a good reedman ( or indeed a good reed woman if there are any¬!)

george

 

[losthobos]

http://www2.siba.fi/akustiikka/?id=38&la=en
Found this acoustic tone convertor...

 

[Matt Butcher]

Hey that's great Terry, so on that Fratelli Crosio retro box that I've been dreaming about but won't be having, it's tuned to 4.5 hz, so if it starts from a=440 then that gives 18 cents, wet but not really extreme.

What about if you have 3 middle reeds , is that the highest one would be 4.5 cents sharp of the lowest one?


And i just realised, in this wide ranging thread, the discussion about service stations on the M5 gives me the opportunity to say, "Frankley? My dear, I don't give a damn".

 

[losthobos]

I'd hazard to say if the plus reed was say +15% and the minus reed was -15% when MMM was played you'd hear A as 440Hz with a wide vibration...
I have a box 440 A and detuned 2nd reed at 444 (checked with tuner on my phone) played together tuner registers A as 442

 

[maugein96]

Dont worry about that (except that anyone searching later on wont find your information very easily); I think I got what I wanted from the thread and the rest is a bonus.

I nearly thought about making you an offer on that 3 voice Cavognolo, not that I have the money right now, till I read on and you told me how horrible it was!

Matt,

Trust me you wouldnt want to give this one house room. Where do I start?

I only had it a few years when the non-standard 4x2 bass rod control levers started playing up. I had several bass buttons stuck down. Sent it away for costly repair and it came back with another two buttons stuck down! Had to dismantle the whole bass side and re-bend the offending rods to a slightly different profile so that they never slipped again.Why the Scottish repairman couldnt work that out Ill never know.

A few years further down the line I wanted to trade it in, but the dealer wouldnt accept it as the palettes were sticky. Paid a fortune to get them re-done and it came back with very high treble action, which I hope to try and fix myself some day. Worse than that it appears the repairer had tried to pull a treble button off with pliers instead of unscrewing it, and the button eventually sheared off. Fortunately it was on the 5th row, so in a fit of pique I cut the whole 5th row out, as I was fed up with forking out hundreds on it every couple of years. Needless to say it wasnt until I got it home that I discovered the damaged button. I tried it out in the shop, but not being a 5th row man I never had any reason to play the button concerned. I had to cover the redundant treble button holes with a plastic strip which doesnt quite match the ivory colour of the box.

Then the bellows corners bent over where they touch your left knee, and eventually started leaking. I had to tape the damage up.

Its never been near a UK repairer since and it never will be, nor will any of my other boxes. They simply dont understand Renaults when they are used to working on Fords, if you get my drift.

The reeds in it are superb, and I once got an offer for them, as long as I supplied the buyer with a 10lb hammer to deal with the rest of the instrument!

My particular Cavagnolo has put me off the make for life. Ive played Crosio, Guerrini, Marinucci, Hohner, Piermaria, Ballone Burini, Crucianelli, and Maugein boxes you could use to hammer fence posts in with, but to my mind Cavagnolos are not all that well built in terms of durability. Maybe I just got a Friday afternoon one, but Ive seen others with treble buttons quite badly out of line, and when you try and bend them back into true you can feel that the metal quality isnt there. Perhaps their quality has improved of late, and Im talking about instruments they were selling in the 80s.

 

[Geoff de Limousin]

If the accordion's 'musette' is quoted as being 4.5 hz. then, as far as I understand, this means each off set Flute voice will be 4.5hz sharp or flat.

I measured the offsets on my accordeons:

the one with definately original tuning 3 voice Musette has the upper flute voice at + 4 hz. and the lower one is 6hz flat... this is the average over five octaves of A's. Another that has been tuned at some stage maintains a more accurate average at 5hz each side of the central flute. A third instrument has seperate registre switches allowing either the addition of a 5hz. flat or 3 hz. sharp flute, or both. This allows selection of three levels of vibrato.

 

[maugein96]

Hey thats great Terry, so on that Fratelli Crosio retro box that Ive been dreaming about but wont be having, its tuned to 4.5 hz, so if it starts from a=440 then that gives 18 cents, wet but not really extreme.

What about if you have 3 middle reeds , is that the highest one would be 4.5 cents sharp of the lowest one?


And i just realised, in this wide ranging thread, the discussion about service stations on the M5 gives me the opportunity to say, Frankley? My dear, I dont give a damn.

Dream on Matt



3000 Euro and its yours. Only problem you need to go to France and get it!

Frankley, Id consider it if I was a bit younger and still in employment (Im just about to retire). Dont fancy sleeping in the cellar so Ill let it go!