Parker135

Oh, interesting. Thank you. Whichever way he's doing it, he seems quite happy with the result.

He uses real concertina reeds set in brass plates, two per plate.

Alex, could you please elaborate on tapered vent relief? Are you referring to a tapered opening in the frame to accommodate the tapered reed tongue?

How does this work having the two reeds on the same brass plate? Is there a valve on one side of each reed? I'd love to seesome photos.

Thanks for posting this, Matthew! My wife and I had the pleasure of meeting Frank in Detroit when he facilitated me purchasing one of his Heritage models from an estate. He mentioned you then. What a great friendship. Interesting that he's playing one of his New Model concertinas. Still innovating, when it would be so easy to continue with existing models. I feel very fortunate to have one of his instruments.

This seems to be a regular thing. I really wish McNeela would do a better job of quality control on their beginner level instruments. Yes, they probably don't make a lot at this price point and need to move them out the door, but they're doing a terrible disservice to folks just starting out.

Haha! I don't know about the marshmallow, but it certainly is fun to play. I haven't had a chance to play one of his hybrid models, but I'm sure they're a very nice instrument as well.

I have Heritage #409. Great concertina. Frank arranged the purchase for me, as the concertina came from an estate. It was a real pleasure getting to meet him in person and to hear him play it as well. Good luck with your sale.

Their website describes the Clovers as "designed and built at Concertina Connection." Also, Wim sent me photos of the actual pieces of tonewood he had available at the time for me to choose from. I didn't personally witness it being built, but I think I'm safe in concluding they build the instruments on site.

99.99% sure they're made right there at Concertina Connection.

The Clover Custom is a great hybrid concertina. I selected woods from the walnut family with the intention of trying to have a slightly more mellow tone (as described by Wim). It was perfect at home and in our little camper. Playing it out with other instruments, sometimes I wished I had picked something like cherry to give it a little more presence. And since I play almost exclusively Irish music, I definitely would have asked for a Jeffries layout. Having two C# buttons, one pushing, one pulling, is really helpful. My Clover had a Wheatstone layout, which sometimes required a work-around to get to the single C#. If I had it to do all over again, I would still go with the Clover, but with the two changes I described. My Edgley Heritage is in a different league altogether. Besides having traditional concertina reeds, it's louder, faster, smoother, more comfortable to play, and a bit heavier. I've had the opportunity to play a Wakker and a couple of Carrolls, and while I feel like I would really enjoy a Carroll at some point in the future, I'm really grateful that I was able to move up to the Edgley when I did.

The fact that Edgley is in Ontario shouldn't be an issue. I bought one of his Heritage instruments used. It was part of an estate sale, previously owned by an American, but in Canada with Frank at the time, so he brought the instrument over to Detroit for me to avoid confusion at the border. Point is, he's not that far away and very used to selling into the US. It's a fantastic concertina, by the way.

I finally got to try my Engage 2 earplugs in our session. The attenuation was pretty much spot-on for me. I was playing my mandolin rather than concertina, so I had to lean into it a little to hear it clearly, but that was fine. It got better as I got more accustomed to the earplugs. As Michael says, the Experience ones have too much attenuation for acoustic sessions, but it appears that these Engage 2 ones are going to do the trick.

A little report on my Loop Experience 2 earplugs from our session last night. They're probably the most comfortable earplugs I've used, and they work great at home for practice, but I found them to have too much attenuation for the session. I can't really speak to how clearly I could hear the others as they brought everything down to such a low volume that I had to remove them to continue playing. I might try changing the tips to smaller ones to let a little more ambient sound "leak in" next time. I'm going to look again to see if they have a model with less attenuation. All that said, if I were back in the small room with a dozen or so concertinas in the workshop in MN, they may have been perfect!

My Loops arrived this afternoon. I haven't tried them in a session yet, but I can at least say they're very comfortable. I've tried them here at home and like what I hear. Looking forward to trying them in our session next week.