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Łukasz Martynowicz's Achievements
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MIDI concertina feature wishlist
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Łukasz Martynowicz's topic in Instrument Construction & Repair
For me, the main problem with polyphonic aftertouch on concertina/bandoneon is not "is it musically useful", because it obviously is once you stop thinking about MIDI concertina as a simply "silent practice" imitation of "the real thing" and start thinking about it as a versatile MIDI controler with bellows driven expression. The problem is the cumulation of functions assigned to the same finger force vector. IIRC Striso utilises lateral button movement for additional expression. Simple "just press harder for aftertouch" also changes bellows pressure and with just 3mm of typical concertina button travel even velocity sensitivity conflicts with my acoustic concertina playstyle. It is different with accordions, where buttons act in perpendicular direction, so you can utilise "just push harder" even on an acoustic box. See blues accordions with note bending feature. -
MIDI concertina feature wishlist
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Łukasz Martynowicz's topic in Instrument Construction & Repair
There are two "flavours" of the aftertouch. One is monophonic "per channel" and one is polyphonic "per note". Monophonic is very straightforward to implement in MIDI concertinas - either map the pressure readout to aftertouch message for instrument patches where having bellows driven volume sounds out of place or add a simple thumb joystick and map it's position. But the polyphonic aftertouch is way, way more demanding, since you have to use analogue readout for each button. -
Not sounding or late sounding notes probably have badly voiced reeds. That is they have the gap between the tongue and the frame either too big or too small. You can adjust it yourself - you will need a reed hook for push reeds, since reeds on Elise are waxed to permanently mounted reedblocks, but the process is relatively easy. As to the bellows „workout” - instead of air button press all the buttons with your palms and work it out this way. Less resistance, less strain on your arms, so more and faster extensions possible. If there is significant spring back from the fully closed position, you can also try to press the bellows better, but this requires disassembly and some tinkering with woodworking clamps.
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MIDI concertina feature wishlist
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Łukasz Martynowicz's topic in Instrument Construction & Repair
Pianoteq, Organteq or VCVrack, all rely on manual MIDI mapping. There are some basic presets for those Moddart apps, but nothing hardcoded. In VCV you have to wire everything anyway. I'll map preset based on official MIDI documentation though. -
MIDI concertina feature wishlist
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Łukasz Martynowicz's topic in Instrument Construction & Repair
Ah, you mean a sort of a „modifer keys”? Press a natural note and a modifier to make it sharp/flat, so a fully chromatic octave only needs 8 keys instead of 12? You answered yourself - this is a melody only solution. And „joystick” method actually needs more than 88 inputs, since you would have 3 inputs per note. However, this can be solved mechanically with rocker switches and the physical layout could indeed be reduced to just 7 keys per octave (which operate on 21 switches). So good news here - since what I intend will support button repeats, this will be supported, but it’s up to the user to come up with suitable physical instrument. -
MIDI concertina feature wishlist
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Łukasz Martynowicz's topic in Instrument Construction & Repair
I only work with software MIDI via USB/BT, so I just use custom mappings. At this point I don’t intend to include classic MIDI connectivity due to limited pins on Arduino, but I may add it later if I decide to switch to Mega/Teensy. Regardless, if I manage to add display and encoder, then all switches/controls will be customizable onboard. Rewriting code for different boards is not really a problem once the fundamental version is done. It pretty much boils down only to changing pin numbers and rewriting MIDI calls for different library (although the one I use currently seems to be available on all platforms). The important core of the code is pretty much platform agnostic, since all those platforms use C/C++ syntax. -
MIDI concertina feature wishlist
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Łukasz Martynowicz's topic in Instrument Construction & Repair
You mean a single octave up/down transposition shortcut, or a switch to make each button simultaneously playing two notes an octave (or another interval) apart? -
MIDI concertina feature wishlist
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Łukasz Martynowicz's topic in Instrument Construction & Repair
I don’t understand this. Could you please elaborate? -
Recently I started exploring keyboard layouts beyond concertinas to build virtual organs around. I tried classic piano (I still hate it), then converted one to Janko (much better, but octave span is still a problem), then bought 70 years old CBA (and fell in love with the B-system layout)... and down the rabbit hole I got fed up, that there are no viable MIDI options for basically anything other than classic piano. They are either flawed, non-existent, no longer in production or simply stupidly expensive. This includes of course MIDI concertinas of any flavour. So I decided to dust my old MIDI project. Right out of the gate I was very happy to discover, that some current iterations of Arduino support USB MIDI out of the box, and that one of them is physically compatible with my old circuitry. Software however needs a rewrite, since the old version relied on a software driver and there are off-the shelf libraries available now. So, a question to the concertina hive mind: What features would you personally want in a MIDI box? What controls beyond buttons and pressure sensor would you find use for? To clarify, this project is only for MIDI controller, not a standalone digital concertina. No onboard synthesizer, no speakers, USB (and perhaps BL) MIDI only (no MIDI connectors), and my question is not about physical instrument this will go into. The main goal is to provide a flexible, open platform built around off-the-shelf circuitry and components (so no custom PCBs), that can be used to build MIDI free reed instruments, either from scratch or as conversions. Some things that are currently implemented: Hardware: - basic keyboard with 64 buttons using multiplexers - 2x pressure sensor - four bi-stable utility switches - one potentiometer Software - basic MIDI communication for the hardware above - button mapping customisable on the fly (and persistent), without the need of hardcoding it. Currently this procedure requires another MIDI keyboard as an input. - four selectable pressure response curves - unisonoric and bisonoric modes (this is old code and IIRC bisonoric mode had some issues; not yet tested with the current setup) - piano mode (pressure controls velocity instead of volume) - transposition knob - since there are two pressure sensor inputs (initially I could only source uni-directional sensors), the other one is used as a wind input for additional MIDI CC My current "to do" and "this might be an interesting idea" list: - expand basic keyboard capability to 2x64 notes with independent channel setting via I2C bus - drop multiplexers in favour of full matrix, so that links can be used freely (for expanding Hayden layout sideways into enharmonic duplicates and to accomodate CBA duplicate rows) - implement keyboard matrices in a way, that disconnects them from physical layout of switches (intermediary PCB) to allow any sort of physical layout - expand bi-stable switches pool to accommodate organ and accordion registration requirements (stops, combinations etc) for multiple manuals - add rotary encoder and display so that I can add an "onboard" button mapping procedure and allow for menu-driven settings and wider customizability of available controllers - add one or two thumb joysticks or other suitable controls for more MIDI CC inputs - add drums mode and perhaps sequencing/looping capability for finger-drumming backing track (this one only if I decide to upgrade to more powerful board later on) - add accordion standard basses modes - add expression/sustain pedal connectivity - add "strum" mode, where pressed notes are arpeggiated up/down/fast/slow depending on pressure direction and value [obviously, not everything on this list concerns MIDI concertinas :D] Currently I work around Arduino Leonardo, as this was a straightforward modernisation of my old circuitry, but it is a rather limited board, so an upgrade to Mega or even Teensy 4.1 at some point may happen... As a side goal, I'm also testing some ideas for 3d printed switch suitable for free reed MIDI, with a form factor that will fit Hayden spacing requirements and durable enough for musical instrument. If it'll work, conversions of any kind of concertinas will be possible without the need of lever action. But that may prove to be a quest for a holly Grail...
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Harder to pull bellows as they extend.
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Phil Hague's topic in General Concertina Discussion
I don't know, if he's a proffesional, but he is damn good at playinng English concertina with fan-like bellows technique. Additionally, I believe he uses a tape to bind the bottom edges together. Why? Because if you look closely, this way he can play with eight fingers instead of just six, or even only four in case of the Wheatsone intended technique. So, as you can see, this absolutely makes a ton of sense. But I agree, that this is a dumb idea for an Anglo player to do so. -
Harder to pull bellows as they extend.
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Phil Hague's topic in General Concertina Discussion
Jackie uses accordion style bellows, that is inherently springy. It will ease a bit with time, but some of the springiness will always be present. On an English you are not restricted by note availability on push/pull, so just use shorter bellows phrasing. If you look at some top players out there, many of them use very short, fan like bellows articulation. Pretty much any higher tier concertina you’ll upgrade to in the future will have proper concertina bellows, which has little springiness, and the top ones have pretty much linear response up to nearly full extension. -
Planning a first build- reed question
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Rayune's topic in Instrument Construction & Repair
About harmonikas.cz reeds. The lower the class of the reed, the less air efficient and responsive reeds are - in terms of concertina building, this translates the most to how long single bellows direction phrases you will be able to play. So if you go for mechanika reeds, make the bellows with more folds. They also have less rich sound due to softer tongue steel used and have lesser tuning stability. Mechanika class is perfectly fine for a first time build, as you won't have to worry about destroying a top quality reed worth a quarter of the full mechanika set However, given that Tipo A Mano are only 50 euro for the set, I would highly recommend going straight for this class, as you don't really need classic accordion reeds of higher quality in a concertina. DIX reeds are a different breed and you pay premium for the brass frame/shoe sound - way more like traditional concertinas (or bandoneon if you go for the zinc plate option). They are pricy, but worth every cent. -
Planning a first build- reed question
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Rayune's topic in Instrument Construction & Repair
Regarding reeds for an Anglo, it will border on a miracle to source exactly what is needed from anything other than an Anglo. You not only need specific pairs of notes, you also need coherently sounding set, so mix-matching from different boxes will most probably result in quite chaotic timbre, response and volume. The easiest option would be to cut accordion reeds from two dry tuned M voices of one accordion to singe tongue reeds and build with that. Be aware, that building your own instrument from scratch is vastly different than restoring an old one. There are two layers of free reed inatrument construction. First one you can easily see, understand, copy or design - the material/mechanical layer. It is not harder than any other wood-, metal- and leather- working in similar scale and with Anglos it is also relatively not very time consuming. But… You are pretty much guaranteed to build a poor sounding, unbalanced box the first time you do it, because understanding of the invisible aspect of free reed instruments - the acoustics, can only be learned by experience. My advice here is - build slightly oversized endboxes and bellows, and design the interior in a way that allows repeated rebuilding and refitting of the reedpan. Preferably also re-designing and refitting the fretwork. This will allow you to re-iterate your design and fix inevitable sound-impacting mistakes/bad choices without the need to build multiple whole instruments. -
Consistent volume, bellow tension
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Victor F's topic in Teaching and Learning
I suspected, that it'll be the answer. Rochelle uses accordion style bellows, which is a folded carboard that has innate springiness to it. It will get a bit less springy with time, but it will never be a linear, no bounce-back experience of traditional concertinna bellows. But, as I wrote earlier - your brain will adapt to this. -
Consistent volume, bellow tension
Łukasz Martynowicz replied to Victor F's topic in Teaching and Learning
What concertina do you have? Because that sounds like you have an accordion style bellows, which is seriously tight.