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Re: roland fr18 - can NOT put in your own sounds

Oh...I see...hmmmmmm!

Bit like Sony and their hardware...copyrights and patents 'n all that stuff.

Guess the importance of that restriction is yet to be realised....I mean, hard gigging and time will sort out the need for special inputs and FX.
I suspect that once you have " your " sound ..and the one in the video clip sounds great to me....you'd probably just stick with it.

Guess Roland have been a bit ' naughty' with their promo blurb, but what ya gonna do?

Re: roland fr18 - can NOT put in your own sounds

apparently

i was thinking you could sample your own accordion sounds in

they acted like that was true


it would require a special program from roland most likely

b/c only they know their internal formats and specs

probably highly dependent on the actual hardware and programming on the unit

so naturally you can;t have that


wle

Re: roland fr18 - can NOT put in your own sounds

Darryl
Oh...I see...hmmmmmm!... copyrights and patents 'n all that stuff .... Guess Roland have been a bit ' naughty' with their promo blurb, but what ya gonna do?
2-things: wait for the FR18XL or FR21 model to come out, and as usual your FR18 is not popular any more, and worth zilch if you want to upgrade, or wait for the competition to come out with some competing weapon.

PS As long time MIDI user and teacher i tended to avoid Roland's hardware a little in favor of other brands like Ensoniq, Akai, Korg etc. Roland has always been playing their own ballgame with their own game rules, and in their own backyard sort of. This as far as sampling routines, naming of operation functionalities, and internal software construction matters go. Roland's electronic stuff was always good sounding though; either you love and live with it, or you don't. - Nout

Re: roland fr18 - can NOT put in your own sounds

Interesting.

I thought the doc was incredibly vague on that topic.

I suppose another option would be to make your samples, and store them in a midi- keyboard or sound module, and then use the FR-18 as a midi controller.

It is more junk to haul around and connect, but it is a workable alternative.

-David

Re: roland fr18 - can NOT put in your own sounds

yes

precisely the problem
a lot more junk

then you have to ask 'are there other button accordion midi controllers out there?'

and 'how good am i going to be able to get my own samples to sound, recording all notes at dozens of volume steps, processing it all...?'


wle

Re: roland fr18 - can NOT put in your own sounds

My impression is that the Roland diatonic is unique as far as diatonic accordion midi controllers is concerned.

I think there may have some been some other attempts at such an instrument, but they were impractical, experimental or not commercially viable.

The technical challenge for a diatonic reedless accordion is in the bellows movement sensing technology. The Roland does a pretty good job, I think. You can be very expressive and dynamic with it - just like an acoustic accordion. There are some settings you can use to change the way it responds, both mechanically and electronically. I adjusted the mechanical aspect to be as wide open as possible, but I have not tried the other settings yet.

Re: roland fr18 - can NOT put in your own sounds

I experimented with the electronic bellows adjustment and went back to the factory default at #3. You are right in that it plays just like a reeded triple note as far as bellows goes. Roland did some job. And there are enough different sounds in there that I don't think you would need to add different sounds. You can go dry, wet and different degrees of each with diferent reed configurations to sound Hohner, Gabb, Baffetti etc. I am very happy with it and plan to play it out at the Micheal Arnone's NJ Crawfish Fest on June 5 through the big dance stage festival sound system.

Re: roland fr18 - can NOT put in your own sounds

Man this stuff sounds real complicated... everything about this digital accordion sounds complicated. If only they made an accordion that was "user friendly". You know something like.... an accordion that played acoustically without batteries..... and and... had one row of buttons...... and.... didn't have any effects.... but you could still change the way it sounded by playing it differently and using the stops...... . I have a dream, and in that dream future accordion players will have access to such an instrument as I described above. God Bless us.

Re: roland fr18 - can NOT put in your own sounds

lol Yeppers - Thats the dream for me also. Simple.

wouldn;t mind complication if it did what i wanted

simple but just having all the keys takes a truckload of accordions and money

not to mention having a flock of triple rows and a flock of special effects and

well

i still don;t like it but for other reasons

i wouldn;t mind complication if it did what i wanted


wle

Re: wouldn;t mind complication if it did what i wanted

Other than it not being able to be a 5 row chromatic (physically impossible of course), what does it not do that you would want? User created sounds? It seems to be the case that that is not possible, but how important is that anyway? The workaround exists of using your own sounds in a sampler/midi sound module.

What else? Just curious.

Re: wouldn;t mind complication if it did what i wanted

I have never been impressed really with sample based imitation of a lot of natural instruments. I have a Yamaha VL-1m which is quite an expressive virtual modeling synthesis weapon and quite capable of imitating especially saxes, violins, acoustic bass, and also harmonica type sounds and even heavy metal guitar. But to program the sounds yourself is quite a job in getting it right. - Nout

Do you think it matters in a live situation?

Do you think the difference in sound between a sampled instrument and the real thing matters in a live situation? Would it even be noticeable? I have doubts.

One thing that I don't doubt is that a lot of people are fooling themselves with unrealistic expectations about the sound fidelity that is possible on a typical stage, using typical PA systems and so on.

A friend has a couple of the Roland piano accordions and has had discussions with other Roland owners. He came to the conclusion that the Roland owners to some degree preferred the sound of their acoustic accordions, but agreed that it was a non-issue when playing live.

I don't know what the older Roland piano accordions sound like, but I think the sounds on the FR-18 are quite good. I like the variety of sounds too.

One thing I have been enjoying greatly is playing through the headphones late at night - very liberating!

The Roland has a nice light touch of reverb that I enjoy as well. It's easier to hear it through the headphones. I have never used effects, but this sounds good. You can tweak the reverb with various settings and there are other built in effects, but I have not messed around with them yet.

Re: Do you think it matters in a live situation?

well

not sure about 'how far away the mics were when the samples were recorded' matters

but the internal mic sound is way different from any external pickup

maybe it doesn;t matter

it;s probably only that way because someone thought it would cut feedback, originally

which it does

but it was probably also a plus, that internally micing the accordion, made yet one more differentiating factor between zydeco and cajun

i just like the internal mic sound

maybe it is worth that to get no feedback and a consistent good clean sound


and chromatic would be really good
but the thing only has 3 rows..

but you asked what would i really want it to do..



wle

Re: wouldn;t mind complication if it did what i wanted

yes - 5 row chromatic + diatonic

not so much 'my sounds' as 'internally miced 4 reed cajun accordion'

as far as i can tell it doesn;t really have 4 reed cajun accordion, or does it?

and that is acoustic version, right?

does it sound like it was recorded from a mic near the reeds, like guys commonly use [SM58 type dynamic element]..?

or from a big studio condenser mic that was 6-10 feet away from the instrument..?


i believe what nout said
it;s hard to do that yourself [get the samples right]

but i;d try, if it would work, and there was no other way to get a good internal mic sound

then maybe sell it to you guys :)


what else

effects that you can alter all parameters of
[like say the boss VF1 or any guitar type digital pedal]
chorus
flanger
reverb
amp modeling
delay
build your own

an EQ that is separate from the EFX

XLR jack on the accordion

wireless built in
receiver is remote
also with XLR jack

wle

Re: wouldn;t mind complication if it did what i wanted

This FR-18 is a 'ripper' by the sounds of it.I can't stop playing that Johnny Ace clip...

It's possible, I guess, that Roland will bring out a Mk11 version at some stage...

I just wonder if we're heading into another traditionalists vs. new age conflict of ideas and opinions?
And I wonder what the Baffetti , Gabbanelli etc. etc. folks are discussing behind closed doors at the moment?

Great feedback from Johhny, Larry and David..keep it coming...

I'm still awaiting a response from Roland about service and support back up capabilities they have for this instrument...
..digitals should be stable long term, but there will come a day when something burns out or short circuits or breaks..then what..and for how long would you be without your #1 instrument. Conversely, if a Cajun box or traditional 3 row busts..then for most folks a luthier of repairshop is reasonably near by.

If Roland can satisfy me of their support then I'm VERY interested.

Re: wouldn;t mind complication if it did what i wanted

I wrote to Roland about Just vs Tempered tuning of the reeds and whether there was any control for that.

Their response was to tell me about the different wetness settings. So, either they don't understand the question, or just the person responding doesn't understand the question. I'm thinking there is no control for that as it stand now. I should reply to them.

Re: wouldn;t mind complication if it did what i wanted

i heard you can set 'microtunings' with it

which would be what you want

if it;s really true

and easy to do

[the 'load your own sounds' really isn;t true, for instance]

wle

Re: wouldn;t mind complication if it did what i wanted

It is definitely true that you can adjust the degree of wetness. There are 15 different wetness settings, and they give them funny names that don't convey anything much to me. My guess is that the settings correspond to a certain number of cents, like 0 to 20 cents.

But I do not see any way to adjust the tuning between just and equal temperment.

Maybe it is not so much a function of having a setting to control that, but rather is dependent on the sampled sounds from the acoustic accordions that were used to create the instrument. I.e., if they sampled a just tuned Cajun accordion, then maybe if you use that sound it would be just tuned because that's what it came from in the first place. I don't know this - I am just speculating.

Re: wouldn;t mind complication if it did what i wanted

I took the bait and will be trying one of these soon. A guy walked into a bar where I was playing Cajun music, and not long after I found myself recruited into a roots rock band called The Lawnmowers. This digital box could be just the instrument, with its tone colors, organ patches, and effects. Our CD tracks are at link #1. Accordions (Baffetti F-Bb-Eb, Bon Tee Cajun C, and a Martin D) show up on songs 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, and 12. The tunes with the most Cajun-sounding passages are nos. 10 and 12. Roots music can appear in the most unexpected places.

I have been getting a lot of mileage out of the headphones

I have been getting a lot of mileage out of the practicing quietly at night using the headphones aspect of this thing. It has greatly increased the amount of playing time.

-David



Jamey Hall's most excellent Cajun Accordion Music Theory

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