Remap the Roland Fr1xB with Kontakt to use it as a Steirische Harmonika

[fogman25]

I enjoy playing the diatonic accordions and recently started learning the Steirische Harmonika.

I wanted to use the Fr1xb keyboard with midi capabilities to allow me to practise steirische techniques. I would use three rows of buttons which are similar in size and quantity to a three row steirische. A hashed button top would be placed in middle of center row to represent Gleichton.

I used Ableton Live with three instances of Kontakt and Tubesynth.
Each instance of kontakt would use a Best Service Accordion. One for each of Chords , Treble PUSH and Treble PULL and Tubesynth VST to provide Bass.

The Output of Fr1xb midi channel 1 is input to both Treble PUSH and Treble PULL ableton tracks ; Channel 2 goes to Tubesynth and channel 3 goes to Chords.

All notes of Treble PUSH channel must be remapped to match notes that are required when you push in the bellows of a steirische harmonika.
Similarly; a remap is required for Treble PULL channel to match steirische on pull.

Fortunately Kontakt has a builtin remapping capability in it's KSP script programmer which is very easy and quick to program. Just push the button on accordion and note shows up. Type in the note you want and test immediately.

The only other issue is that you need a switch to allow you to choose which of the Treble PUSH or PULL tracks is to be muted. Ableton has a feature where you can map a midi CC from external switch to activate or deactivate a track and you can program it to activate one track and deactivate the other one with one CC (Control Change) I used a midi foot switch (using midi Expression interface from Audiofront)

The switch from one track to other works very quickly and smoothly by just tapping with your foot.

The big advantage to using it to simulate the Steirische is that the Steirische Harmonika is a heavy instrument and the music written for it tends to have long runs on the push and/or pull.
You also avoid the problem of running out of air. You could simulate a push or pull that lasts as long as you want.
I usually use griffschrift tab to play and it usually uses double notes for harmony. Lots of tab is available for free. The alternate bass technique as used on steirische is easy to do with stradella basses. The tubesynth vst simulates helicon tuba.

I have also tried to do it for the club accordion but the music I wanted to play on the on the club tended to require more push and pull changes which made this system less appealing.

This remapping technique also works great if you wanted to try the janko keyboard but would only provide two octaves on Fr1XB. This is similar to number of keys on FR1X (piano keys 26).

 

[Tom]

Cool project!

 

[Airy]

Great news! Looks like you are quite happy with your solution.

A few days ago I startet a thread about using the computer as sound source.

MIDI accordion sound expansions BUT on the computer

Many times we had questions / discussion here about sound expansions, sound (UPG) editing and external sound expanders (which BTW may come as part of arranger or sequencer hardware). But I didn't find many messages talking about the computer as a sound (expanding) source. In a recent thread...

www.accordionists.info

I think your project shows nicely how flexible it can be using a computer as a MIDI processing device. Well, if you can live with the shortcomings and / or sometimes needed workarounds.
Do you use your system even for live performances, or is it more ”experimental” to facilitate learning the Steirische with your given equipment?

It is a pitty that the FR1x doesn”t send a controller when you change bellows direction. Maybe worth to think about it as a DIY project?
Have you thought about monitoring the bellows pressure with a Kontakt KSP script and “switch direction” whenever the bellows pressure drops to zero?

BTW, I remember that there is / has been a diatonic version of the FR1. Don”t know if this means that it did behave like a Steirische.

 

[Airy]

.The only other issue is that you need a switch to allow you to choose which of the Treble PUSH or PULL tracks is to be muted. Ableton has a feature where you can map a midi CC from external switch to activate or deactivate a track and you can program it to activate one track and deactivate the other one with one CC (Control Change) I

I think this also can be done solely within Kontakt KSP. Then you are not tied to a certain host software. Let me know if you need assistance.

 

[fogman25]

It is a pitty that the FR1x doesn”t send a controller when you change bellows direction. Maybe worth to think about it as a DIY project?
Have you thought about monitoring the bellows pressure with a Kontakt KSP script and “switch direction” whenever the bellows pressure drops to zero?

BTW, I remember that there is / has been a diatonic version of the FR1. Don”t know if this means that it did behave like a Steirische.

I only use this setup for learning to play steirische tunes. You can play as slow as you want and never worry about running out of air. You can practise a push or pull phrase over and over while actually operating fr1xB bellows in both directions or bellows set for little movement. It would be great if there was a way to determine bellows direction by monitoring the pressure. If you assume the that you change direction every time pressure drops to zero ; you may be out of sync since there is no way to know if it is positive or negative pressure but it might be worth a try. The Roland FR18 (diatonic) already does this and would work fine as a steirische but it does not have stradella bass system.

 

[fogman25]

I think this also can be done solely within Kontakt KSP. Then you are not tied to a certain host software. Let me know if you need assistance.

Do you think you can use a stand alone Kontakt with KSP scripts that could do remapping and also facilitate switching between the two mappings and also determine the input channels treble bass and chords and route as required within Kontakt ? I have used the midi out of kontakt to route to other VSts or external modules but I have did it within Ableton.

 

[Airy]

Do you think you can use a stand alone Kontakt with KSP scripts

Yes.
I’ll send you a PM with further questions.

 

[Tom]

Yes.
I’ll send you a PM with further questions.

I could not get either the Kontakt VST in Reaper or the standalone to work with the fr4x. I'm obviously missing something. Is there a trick? Do you have to up the gain or dynamics somewhere or ??????

 

[Glenn]

Tom, it won’t be anything to do with gain (an analogue setting) but most likely that your Reaper is not listening to the midi from your accordion. If you use the standalone Kontak you will have to set these midi channel there. The advantage of using Reaper is the midi setting in Reaper control the VST so you don’t have to set each standalone VST instrument individually.

 

[Airy]

I could not get either the Kontakt VST in Reaper or the standalone to work with the fr4x. I'm obviously missing something. Is there a trick? Do you have to up the gain or dynamics somewhere or ??????

@Tom As I suggested in the other thread where you were asking, activate the „MDI Monitor“ within Kontakt and tell us what events are coming in (copy-paste it here or make a screenshot). Put the monitor to „verbose“ mode to see the whole history of incoming MIDI data. Then it should be easy to diagnose.

 

[Tom]

@Tom As I suggested in the other thread where you were asking, activate the „MDI Monitor“ within Kontakt and tell us what events are coming in (copy-paste it here or make a screenshot). Put the monitor to „verbose“ mode to see the whole history of incoming MIDI data. Then it should be easy to diagnose.

Thanks Airy! Ok, I'll give this a try later today....

 

[fogman25]

I made a youtube video to show my progress in simulating the diatonic accordion with the Roland FR1XB.
This has been a fun project which required learning how to program the Bome Translator and the Arduino microcontroller.

 

[knobby]

@fogman25 your video isn’t working. It says “Playback on other websites has been disabled by the video owner “

 

[PhiliGol]

Yes it also says "Video unavailable" on my machine.
"Watch on YouTube" option works.

 

[fogman25]

Yes it also says "Video unavailable" on my machine.
"Watch on YouTube" option works.

Thanks for info . It should work now.

 

[Airy]

I made a youtube video to show my progress in simulating the diatonic accordion with the Roland FR1XB.
This has been a fun project which required learning how to program the Bome Translator and the Arduino microcontroller.

@fogman25, congrats for finding a solution !!!

As it seems you don‘t retrigger the note when changing bellows direction. Do you feel that retriggering (send a new „note on“ message) is not necessary?

 

[fogman25]

@Airy , Thanks Airy .

Every time a button is pressed down both the respective push note (CH1)and pull note (CH4) are triggered by a NOTE ON.
When I change bellows direction from push to pull without releasing button; There is no need to trigger a NOTE OFF to channel 1 and NOTE ON to channel 4 because channel 1 will be muted and channel 4 will be unmuted and still playing the proper note.
In other words; for the Push B/Pull A button; both notes A and B will be playing all the time while button is pressed. A NOTE OFF signal will be sent to both when button released. What note you actually hear is determined by the bellows direction and muting logic.

 

[Airy]

There is no need to trigger a NOTE OFF to channel 1 and NOTE ON to channel 4 because channel 1 will be muted and channel 4 will be unmuted and still playing the proper note.

Yes, I understand that there is no need for sending note off/on to have a sound. But I was curious if the bellows direction switch produces a (more or less) “realistic” sound or note transition in your simulation.

In the acoustic diatonic the direction change starts new reeds vibrating (which is defined as the “attack” phase) while the former vibrating reeds may even swing out for a fraction of a second (“release” phase). And these phases normally have typical characteristics - they differ in pitch and color compared to the sustaining note (actually “differ over time”).

To be clear: I don’t expect the attack or release portion of accordion sounds to be as important as in piano, mallets, or plugged strings. But maybe there is some attack and release modulation in acoustic squeeze boxes as well. On the other hand I don’t even know if the sound library you use (I think it is Tarilontes Accoudion 2) has the attack and release portion even covered within the samples. I somewhat recall that the library has button press and button release noises at note on / off but they are optional (additional) and you wouldn’t want these to be triggered by change in bellows direction anyhow.

 

[fogman25]

But I was curious if the bellows direction switch produces a (more or less) “realistic” sound or note transition in your simulation.

Yes . That is a good point. I was just comparing to a diatonic accordion and find that if you hold the button down and reverse direction with sensor; You can not achieve the same initial volume rise (or oomph !) as a diatonic. However if you release and press button as you change direction; you can achieve it. It reminds me that my diatonic accordion teacher had always said that the button should be released and pressed again on every bellows direction change so that is a habit of mine.