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robotmay

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  1. I think he's on Five Men in a Boat too: https://www.discogs.com/Five-Men-In-A-Boat-Five-Men-In-A-Boat/release/8371443 Great album if you haven't heard it before
  2. Whereabouts in Somerset is this viewable? I could potentially be interested
  3. It has been quite a while since I last got a recording of the Maccann, but I've finally managed a pretty clean version of the lovely tune Dundas, by Rob Harbron. This fits on the Bb Maccann really nicely, though my success rate of hitting the descending base runs is not exactly 100%, so I fudged them most of the time https://soundcloud.com/robotmay/dundas I've been playing this tune for ages but it was a pig to get a recording without some interesting cock-ups. While I seem to be in the zone I'm going to try to do a few other recordings this week of fun new tunes I've picked up on this instrument
  4. Ah yes, I was also in the competition and their jig was one of my favourites! One of my favourite Playford tunes, and it made for a very nice jig
  5. The left-hand side of my Maccann definitely overpowers the treble, but it does depend on the volume you're playing at, and as others have said above; your style of accompaniment Doing full 3 note chords in the bass can certainly cause difficulties if you're playing up high on the treble side, but I've gotten better at allowing for this over the past year. The balance evens out a bit more at higher volumes, I usually play with the bass-end pointed away from other people, and doing different accompaniments such as harmony lines or arpeggios certainly helps.
  6. I do find myself doing that with the maccann. With heavier instruments I think it's the easiest way of getting a pulse into the bellows, whereas with an anglo I found I could do that more with my wrists.
  7. Haven't been around these parts much recently, but I thought I'd swing by to let you know about this great video I found last night. Rob Harbron did a great talk and bits of performance at Westminister, and they've uploaded it to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1cuieGmcy8 Well worth the watch; there's some lovely solo playing in there as well as some great tips on being a musician
  8. Charlie Marshall is a good source for replacement accordion-reed valves. http://cgmmusical.co.uk/CGM_Musical_Services/Reed_Valves.html#4. He sells leather as well as plastic and faus-leather valves, but looks like yours are leather. If the valves are mostly curled on one end, then the instrument might have been stored vertically in its case, which would cause the valves to fall away. They're pretty easily replaced though! Some non-solvent contact cement works well.
  9. I'll try to do a demo recording of it this week so you can see what I mean. I do believe my pads need replacing at some point, so they may be a bit more percussive than they should be. I mount one to the bass end of my melodeons by using cable-ties to tie it to the lower feet, which works really well, and the treble one either on the grille or on top of the keyboard, using the T-bone violin clip. That works surprisingly well, unless I mount it on the keyboard on the Hohner Erika, where it then picks up a lot of percussion from the fingerboard (which is quite thin on that box). The same place works fine on my Castagnari though, which I suspect is due to the button design and the thicker materials. Aye, I'm a little worried about the non-replaceable, flimsy cables, but they're so much cheaper than the alternatives that I figured they'd be worth a shot! Nice setup! Unfortunately my Maccann doesn't have strap screws in useful places (they're on the bottom of the hand-rest instead), but I might experiment with attaching a bracket in a similar way. And aye, I'm not worried about eliminating noise entirely, just enough so that it's not overwhelming
  10. Recently picked up a couple of small gooseneck microphones, a couple of reasonably-priced Thomann T-bone CC100s. I've figured out how to attach them to my melodeons properly, but it's proving a bit of a nightmare with the maccann. How on earth do you stop the things picking up rumbles non-stop? Seems to be mostly from my key presses, from what I can tell. I've been trying out different positions by using some large elastic bands to strap the mics to the concertina (no handy bits of leather to poke them through on the maccann), with some foam to insulate them from the body (as I thought that was causing it). Even if I position them more over the back of my hand, rather than over the keyboard, they still pick up a lot of percussion. I guess positioning them further away from the ends would help, but I think I'll need to build something to do that. I haven't spent much time with mixing yet, so I'm not sure if this is something easily rectified on a mixer, but I assume it would be better to solve it with the microphones themselves if possible. Anyone got any tips?
  11. Thanks! Aye, it's a bit of an oddity! It's very at home in Bb/F/C, and Eb/G aren't too bad now I've got the hang of them. D is a bit of a pig though, and I haven't even tried A yet It has a nice benefit of going down to a B on the treble-side when playing in G, without being too massive an instrument, which is handy!
  12. Thanks guys! Aye I've been fairly occupied with a new job recently Defra, hence the lack of recordings Got a few other lovely tunes I've been playing quite regularly that I'll try to record soon. I've almost got the hang of moving my hands in opposite directions on it now, though that makes my head hurt
  13. I've been learning the Maccann like a maniac for the past few months and I can't believe I've not recorded any of the tunes I've been learning. I've got a few others I should definitely put up as I've found a few tunes that are really lovely to play on the Maccann, which I haven't seen other people having a go at (although to be fair, I rarely see much Maccann stuff anyway ). I think this tune is Irish, but I'm not sure. I heard it from a couple of French friends, so having now Anglicised their version, I expect this is pretty far from the way it's played originally: https://soundcloud.com/robotmay/her-long-dark-hair-flowing-down-her-back Nice to have finally got the hang of G on the Bb Maccann. D is still a bit tricky (the C# is in a horrific location) but I'm slowly getting there. I'm almost session friendly on it now
  14. Tony Hall, the melodeon player, has always been interesting in this regard for me. He adds in multiple melodies/harmonies on the treble side of his box that in the past have convinced people that he was mixing multiple recordings. Usually it involves playing a harmony line with his little finger in the upper octave. He also manages to get some percussion going just by his choice of playing clacky old Hohner boxes!
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