most of the problem is mic placement

i found what works is to point the
mic directly at the treble reeds,
but get it as far away from them as possible.
and in the center of the bellows.

this is not what the builders do.

they will stick them in pointing sideways,
down, over in the corner, you name it.

what you have to do is build a holder from
coathanger wire, so that it ends up
about 3" from the nearest treble
reed block.

you have to make sure the bass reeds don;t
hit it.

then the eq will not need much.

though i do use an LR Baggs parametric di
to cut lows a little, boost mids a little,
and cut treble a little.

you can get by without that if you have to.

also, you have to have just the mic
element, you can;t have the long
body sticking out in the back..

otherwise you can;t get far enough
away from the
treble reeds.

wle.

What kind mic you meen.

i use an audio technica that i remove the capsule from

model is discontinued, it was called "brand x".

it sounds good. wasn;t expensive.

larry miller uses those shure whatever they ares,
that the builders seem to like.. shure r-65 i think

i have never liked their sound though.

i even put one in the right place, where it should
sound good, in a friend;s accordion, it still
didn;t sound right

wle.

I use the capsule from the Audio-Technica DR-VX2
It has a much better frequency response than the Shure R65. And it's cheaper to buy (on sale $30-40)

(But if you want it to sound like an r65, you can just EQ it.)

I like it because it has the mic and transformer all in one small shock mounted package.

Hey Jean-Pierre,
I'm probably "shedding" some credit here, but I think I can give you some what of an answer to your delima . first , I use the same mic cartridge ( Shure R-65 ) that every one else uses, so it's not a matter of different components. the main thing that I see right off, is you're comparing the E/Q mix of a "C" to that of a "D" and that just won't work. The "D" has a lott more mids and highs than the "C". I suspect that you're finding that you have to cut the lows a lot more on the "C" than the "D". this is a common problem that most of us don't think of at first. There are several was to solve this problem, but the key is, you will have to set the E/Q different for each different key accordion that you use in your performance. I know that Chris Miller uses a seperate mixer for his accordions ( he uses 3 or 4 different ones during a normal performance) and sends the final mix signal from that mixer to a single channel on the main PA. I use a Boss G7 E/Q on my accordion. This gives me the "on stage" controle of my E/Q. Once you've used this method a few times, you pretty much know where to adjust the different freq. to get the sound you want, between the "C" and "D" . Hope this helps.
Jude

Thanks Jude, I kind of suspected frequency vars between C and D having something to do with it. Both accordions go thru extensive individual pre-gig eq'ing but yours needs minimal adjustement compared to Larry's C.
Thanks all for you input.
JP

the difference between larry;s and jude;s
may also be mic placement.

where is the mic, in each one?
where does it point, how close to the reeds?

wle.