microphone or pickup for accordion

[Shillaly Bro]

James, just picked up a guy for my band who's got an old Italian accordion, but we don't know the best way to amplify it, microphone or some kind of pickup? I kind of guess you are an expert on getting the best sound, I'll vouch for how well you sound live, but we haven't a clue how to make the accordion loud! I'll say thanks much in advance, hope you get around to answer this one, and if anyone else sees this thread feel free to chime in.
John

[JamesFearnley]

That's a hard one to answer. My pick ups - tiny little mikes under the grille and possibly a couple in the bass end - are, I think Sennheiser. But they were fitted by Emilio Allodi in Lewisham, London and he's the brains behind this way of miking up an accordion. I've not come across a comparable method of miking up an accordion. Perhaps you might get in touch with Emilio. I'm sure he has a website. That's the best I can do.

[philipchevron]

At the risk of stating the obvious, the only way to make a miked accordion sound loud is to turn it up in the mix. A hazard of this is everything - drums, bass, cittern, guitar, whistle, banjo - has a nasty tendency to feed into the accordion mics too for some reason. Perhaps it has an irresistible resonance or something. In any event, it requires delicate fader manipulation by long-suffering front of house sound genius Paul Scully, who is a stickler for "separation" and hates things going "whooosh" because they sound "gank" when they do.

[Eckhard]

A hazard of this is everything - drums, bass, cittern, guitar, whistle, banjo - has a nasty tendency to feed into the accordion mics too for some reason. Perhaps it has an irresistible resonance or something.

Sounds as if accordions were the musical equivalent to black holes

[Fionn MacCool]

Unless you're playing in fron of 4000 people, don't you find the accordion loud enough anyway I suppose the budget solution would be to squeeze harder

[daveynate]

I've personally tried 3 methods:

1) Dave at Dave's Accordion School added a pickup to my Hohner. So far, few complaints. It's cut out once during a show, and the sound guys at Molly Malone's took a few shows to get used to it. But it's the easiest way to go.

2) Microvox makes a microphone that attaches via velcro to the front of the grill (they also sell one that attaches to the bass side). You then plug the microphone in like you would a pickup. Problem is, it caused feedback with the vocal mics. I now only use it as a fallback should the pickup die again.

3) Playing into a vocal mic. Not the best for live shows, but that's how we recorded the accordion in the studio, sitting about a foot away from the mic.

Hope that helped.

[jpettijohn]

Some people have the misconception that accordions are really really loud. In fact they are a louder instrument than say, a guitar... but these things are NOT bag pipes.

Another thing, when you're playing a gig, you don't want to have to push and pull too hard, it will tire you out and at the same time take away your focus on your right and/or left hands. Maybe you want one bicep that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger? Good way to become lopsided

Phil is right, everything seems to feed into the accordion microphones under the grill.

I've found that double sided taping pieces of a 12 pack coke box underneath the grill seems to help isolate the mics better AND the sound comes through more in tact on through the PA

A vocal mic is a pain in the ass to use. Don't ever do that. If you use the whole keyboard you have to constantly aim that section of the accordion into the microphone, giving yourself a nice back attack.

[JamesFearnley]

I found out my gear's made by Digitech (I think I'm right in saying) from Castelfidardo (which name should make any accordion player shit in his pants) in Italy. It's probably the best set-up I've had, but miking an accordion is hard to do - or leastways, when you get to play with other people, hard to keep all the other stuff out of it.

[Jon]

Not really to do with recording, but can any of the accordionists out there let me know what the small buttons are for?
It's been puzzling me for 2 days.

[mushmouth]

The short answer is the small buttons on a piano accordion are for bass notes and chords.

[Jon]

Cheers Mush

I had a quick look on WikiPedia and found some more stuff out, mostly that accordian playing looks complicated

[IrishRover]

oit aoin't coimploicated foir Maestro
oi remember seeoin' addoitional toitle woith the name at Red Roises Foir Me..
froim me oiwn experoience, oi had at least 4 candoidates foir playoin' accoirdion..
oits not enough to just knoiw the choirds and play on any accoirdoion.. that can sound
so artoifoicoial and foirced, and not every accoirdion ois foir OIroish musoic;
outstandoin' players such as James make the OIroish tunes floiwoin', loike oit
pulls all the oither oinstruments

[Jon]

True, but most players from what I've seen (folk, not necessarily Irish) don't tend to use the buttons too much, just use the keys.

A second question has sprung to mind, does the chord / note change depending on if the bellows are being pushed or pulled? With a mouthorgan one hole makes 2 notes, is it the same with Accordians?

[daveynate]

The bellows have no influence on the chord changes. The only way they affect the sound is by volume...i.e., the harder you push/pull, the louder the sound.

[rockarocka]

Hey James any chance you could elaborate a little further on your set up?

I'm having major troubles miking my accordion. My band is quite loud (8 piece) and I am also poor (not too poor, I would actually be quite happy to pay quite a lot for a good set up that I can be sure will work).

Accordion techs are a scarce commodity around my parts, Melbourne, Australia, and the ones that I have managed to scratch up haven't been able to give me too much info. I'm currently using a SM57 duct taped to the front, which obviously doesn't give me the ability to play any bass. No real problems at the moment with that, but I would really like to throw some in to our songs in the near future. Soundies generally suck when it comes to accordions, we're looking to get a consistent mixer to mix all of our shows at the moment, but even past that point, it is a difficult instrument to mix. I am normally left almost passing out mid way through a set, because I have to squeeze so hard to get my sound up. That obviously leaves me concentrating way too hard on my left arm instead of the keys and makes me leave out a lot of the smaller things I'd normally play at rehearsals when playing live.

Any chance you (or anybody else) could elaborate on specific mics / setups that are good?