my bad----

gotta learn to type someday

the question is do these bass notes get used in live sessions? The honkin is extreme, and I do not hear it in studio stuff.

I really like to use the bass/chords on the triple. Sometimes the chord button sounds better. Try using the bass/chord buttons more sparingly, until it becomes brainless to use them with good effect. I think you will not need to use them steady, back and forth, like cajun style, except through some phrasings. Keep listening and trying different things and listen for the good groove thang. Does that make any sense?

Kirk

of course you don;t hear them
on cajun or zydeco, because no one
uses that kind of accordion with the
helikon basses.

you might hear them if you listen
to a lot of polka, or scandinavian
music. oom-pah, oom-pah.

wle

The easy answer might be to disable the lowest bass read for each note. That is what is causing the massive bass.

You can test if this solves your issue by opening up the accordion and slipping a little peice of paper in the reed so that it will not sound.

See if you like it that way.
If so, I more permanent solution can be found.

DP

hey thanks dp---

from what i can see, if I could REMOVE those hellza honkers the accordian would probably weigh 1/2 what it does now... but those bass chords are way sweet!

I will try the paper disabling trick & see what it is like.


Also--- do you know what a shure 57 element should look like and how it wires when it is out of its casing? I am trying to put one in this box.

Mine slipped right out of the case, but the wires don't even go to the element... they go to a little tiny board that is at the other end of a threaded rod coming out of the element.

Complete wiring diagrams used to be available on the Shure website. I havent looked for some time, I don't know if they are still there.

Try this. It shows the wiring for the R75 element.
http://www.shure.com/stellent/groups/public/@gms_gmi_web_us/documents/web_resource/us_pro_r57_r59_ug.pdf

DP

many thanks, DP!

I don't have the trial and error experience with internal mics for accordions that either David or Larry have, but I do know that there are many condenser microphones out there that are designed for high pressure levels.

The Shure Beta98 for example is designed for horns and drums and can handle 150-160 dB maximum sound pressure level. The Audio-Technica pro 35AX is rated at 145 dB max. I couldn't find a max SPL for a Shure SM57, but a common high-quality dynamic kick drum mic, the Shure Beta 52A, is rated at 174 dB: pretty high, but not a huge jump from the 150-160 range.

The difficulties with internal condenser mics probably stem from their ability to pick up more sound at the high and low extremes of the audible frequency range. Therefore, they pick up rumbles at the low end and clacks and squeeks at the high end. And when you start introducing some robust low frequencies into your sound system, you need to have the power amp headroom and speakers that can handle it without introducing distortion.

I imagine that there are less expensive condenser mics that are more fragile than the legendary "you can use it to hammer nails" SM57, but I don't think low sound pressure handling is by any means inherent in condenser mics.

Just defending the poor little condenser mics for no good reason than procrastination from my day job...

S'b'B

I am not any kind of sound/audio engineer, so I rely on things I read and that I find out from people who know more than I do.

One of those things has to do with internal condensor mics, and it came from DP Mandell, right off this board. Above and beyond the concern with the sound pressure handling of condensor mics, there is a separate issue, which has more to do with air pressure. When the bellows gets squeezed, it creates higher pressure inside the accordion, and apparently that leads to bad things happening to the mic. Maybe DP could chime in and state it more accurately than I can.

-David

Hey David. Well, that's a horse of a different color. I could see how the old push and pull could not be healthy for a delicately mounted diaphragm.

I'm no expert on how microphones are built or what physical conditions they will withstand: I just use the ones I have available to me and spend too much time reading specs online about ones I'm not going to be able to afford anyway!
S'b'B

david is exactly right
the pressure added by pulling and pushing is
way higher than the sound the reeds make in the box
and it;s not even sound, it;s so low, it;s almost
like DC the air
the mics don;t like it
if the mics pass it, the amps won;t like it
if the amps pass it, the speakers won;t like it

dynamic mics [at least cardioid ones] can
handle this because their elements are ported
on both sides of the diaphragm, and these
DC pressures can equalize on both sides, causing
no net movement and no current from the DC

you might find a cardioid condenser mic that
works like that but why? the dynamic mics sound
good

although, condenser mics are usually smaller
which is good in a cramped 3 row

i managed to find some fairly small dynamic elements
you could try
i have a ton of them, like 40
they are about 3/4" deep

wle.

Larry explained it exactly right.

The first time I tried to put a condensor inside an accordion, it sounded awful and distorted, at first I thought it was the sound pressure levels, but it happened when playing soft too.

So I enlisted the help of one of the senior audio design engineers at Dolby Laboratoies, (that just happened to be my brother :)

We put the signal on a scope to see what was the issue. Every time the accordion was pushed or pulled without even playing a note it created a massive DC offset in the signal. This was because the mic diafragms were not vented.

Amps hate this. And speakers hate it even more.
It's a good way to actually blow some amps as well as speakers that do not have input protection.

DP