Paolo Soprani register keys

[squeezeboy]

Hi all,

A friend of mine has that nice, almost unused 50-year old Soprani she wants to let go, she sent me pics and I am a bit puzzled by the register keys.

It seems like a 3-voice on the treble side, but the key symbols dont make much sense to me (see attached image). The first and second key from the left show the same symbols as the last two on the right.



Can anyone please explain?

Thanks.

 

[Soulsaver]

Two lows are repeats, for sure. The two middles are probably repeats, as usually they position different middles dots to the left & right of the switch, you'll only tell by listening.

 

[JIM D.]

It's a 3 reed L M M accordion that only needed a 5 shift machine. They just used a 7 shift machine with repeats. :roll:

 

[debra]

On 3 reed accordions there are often repeated registers. By repeating the first two as the last two the hand needs to travel less to use them, thus making it easier to change register while playing without interruption.
On larger (LMMH or LMMMH) instruments with 4 or 5 reeds you already need so many switches that there is no room for repetition.
Sometimes it is just done for looks. My tiny 40 bass old Crucianelli is 2 reeds and has 3 switches: M, MM and M again. It looks better with 3 switches than with 2. The distance is too small to make the ease of changing register while playing a valid argument there.

 

[dak]

On 3 reed accordions there are often repeated registers. By repeating the first two as the last two the hand needs to travel less to use them, thus making it easier to change register while playing without interruption.
On larger (LMMH or LMMMH) instruments with 4 or 5 reeds you already need so many switches that there is no room for repetition.

I think Ive seen several 4-reeds (double-octave tuning) that have 13 switches, with 2 of them being far-distance repeats. Scandalli maybe?

On the other end of spectrum there is the Hohner Imperator VS which has 29 registers without repeats. I wonder how people deal with that. 5 reeds without tremolo, lets call them S, L, M, H, Q, or in feet 32, 16, 8, 4, 2⅔. Interesting concept, didnt catch on. I think part of the problem was that they had to sort this instrument in the price category below their high end Gola and Morino line-up, and so actually did not recover production costs.

 

[squeezeboy]

Thanks to all for the replies. Makes sense.