Jump to content

Why Use Accordian Reeds?


Recommended Posts

Then perhabs it IS alignment, that must be up to the level of the parts' quality. But my Castagnari did buzz at times, as does my bayan. The bayan been old, but the Castagnari was brand new. Perhabs concertina makers are more reliable bunch.

The one thing is sure - hand made reeds are less forgiving.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 44
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I'm not too sure I understand what you mean by 'forgiving'. Surely anyone would want reeds to be as responsive as possible.

 

No, not everyone.

With free reed instrument main issue is the right pressure 'at all times'. A lesser quality instrument will not let discrepances in pressure to affect the sound. High quality instrument will 'waver'.

Another issue is the loudness. Better reeds are "louder" ,they speak at lower pressure and go up to very high volumes. So one has to be in fuller control of the bellows, not to jerk them uncontrollably with breathing, for example.

Most of players of high quality concertinas I heard, play at constant high volume, too loud and too even, esp. with push/pull Anglos.

If you don't practice enough, you don't want listeners to detect it. And high quality instrument will sell you out immediately.

I don't believe you always have to grow into your instrument. Realistically very few amateurs will do, and with better instrument they sentence themselves to more years of poorer sound.

I don't advocate Chinese plywood, but one has to have solid reasons to upgrade from Club Overture-III to Club Gola. Or from Morse to Dipper ( I have never tried Dipper and don't really know if the difference is so great).

May be you are right in the sence that high end concertinas are not made up to a level of high end accordions, so the above mentioned Dipper is on par with middle level Excelsior, but if this is not true, then I'd be cautious of ordering the high end and not making sure I practice more than 2 hours a day correctly.

 

P.S.

Middle range good qulaity Pigini CBA runs at what, $5000? High end Pigini CBA sells at $30 000, and with hand made reeds there is no limit. They have sold at $60 000, but this has been covered in other topics.

Edited by m3838
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When hot, they may buzz
I've had buzzing occur in cold weather on my Chemnitzers. I always assumed it had to do with different coefficients of thermal expansion for the (Steel) tongues and (Aluminum) plates. In an instrument with brass reeds and brass shoes, this would not happen as the reed & shoe would expand & contract at the same rate.
After having made 160 instruments, and owning a Dipper for 20 years, I've never had the experience of having reeds buzz because of the temperature being hot.
Have yours all been brass tongues in brass shoes?

 

I just checked, and the linear CTE for aluminum is nearly twice that of steel: 23 x 10^-6 / K vs. 12 x 10^-6 / K.

Edited by Theodore Kloba
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i remeber reading here earlier that juergen suttner has outsourced his reed production. actually i think it's just the brass reed shoes he outsources, and he still makes the tongues himself. does anyone know the story on this?

I heard this same rumor recently from a certain well-known dealer who heard it from a certain well-known player of Suttner concertinas (all parties will remain nameless). This player seemed to believe that the quality has suffered. No one has any information on this? Just curious because I have one on order as do many others who expect a very high level of quality from Juergen.

 

 

I can´t agree with You. I´ve got an A2 Suttner from 1997 and one of the same Model since February this Year. Though the older one is a very good Instrument, the new Concertina matches it in every point! The

sound is clear and bright and the response is immidiate. Really a clear improvement. The Suttner instruments got certainly better since the change!

 

A good New Year to everybody out there! :)

 

Your´s

 

Claus

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I heard this same rumor recently from a certain well-known dealer who heard it from a certain well-known player of Suttner concertinas (all parties will remain nameless). This player seemed to believe that the quality has suffered. No one has any information on this? Just curious because I have one on order as do many others who expect a very high level of quality from Juergen.

 

 

I can´t agree with You. I´ve got an A2 Suttner from 1997 and one of the same Model since February this Year. Though the older one is a very good Instrument, the new Concertina matches it in every point! The

sound is clear and bright and the response is immidiate. Really a clear improvement. The Suttner instruments got certainly better since the change!

 

A good New Year to everybody out there! :)

 

Your´s

 

Claus

Yes, I've never played a Suttner I didn't love, either. I'm happy to quash this as a baseless rumor. He may very well have others make the reed frames these days, but I definitely have seen no firsthand evidence, based off of a half-dozen Suttners I've played, that anything is amiss.

Edited by dpmccabe
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, I've never played a Suttner I didn't love, either. I'm happy to quash this as a baseless rumor. He may very well have others make the reed frames these days, but I definitely have seen no firsthand evidence, based off of a half-dozen Suttners I've played, that anything is amiss.

 

i've been playing suttner #298 since spring 2006, when it was made, and while it's still too early to tell, it seems to be at least as good as #128, which was made in summer 2000. but it's a difficult comparison since i no longer have the old instrument to compare with the new one. mine is also the standard a-2 model.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Couple of interesting points made recently:

 

Good quality reeds are loud! setting aside resonant chambers, I think that the reed tongue hardness has a lot to do with this volume issue, my Rock Chidley with nickel silver reeds has a very high quality reed set and soft and mellow to play.

 

Thermal changes cause buzzing! given that most reeds are less than 40 mm long, and tongues are less than say 4mm wide the relative differences in expansion over say a 20 deg C max temperature could well be measured in microns. The issue is far more likely to be accompanying changes in humidity causing wood work to move and apply, or release, pressure to some reed assemblies, as Frank has already said.

 

Dave E

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...