Michael Ducky Raley

It's not the number of folds in his bellows that count, but the action of his buttons...

A video for the first tune on my new collection "How to treat a Duck" The Concertina appearing in this video is my red Chinese stunt concertina , not the Clover Anglo used in the recording.

Also there was a note on the door that a recording was being made.

Just a note that I saw Bertram Levy perform this past Saturday at Island Music Center on Bainbridge Island WA. it was billed as "Concertina and Bandoneon. Bellow visions from Appalachia to the Tangosphere" with Michael Townsend on Guitar and Russell Clark he played tunes from "Paddyrocker", "Turkey in the straw" to "Tiko Tiko" on his Dipper and Tango peices on the Bandoneon

just a followup to the "Halloween-2011-Setup" , the local newspaper folk were on hand and took a few pics and a mention about it http://www.northkitsapherald.com/news/133031393.html

Just in time for Haloween. I was staying at a hotel and spotted a Concertina breifly on Cable TV... somewhere in "From Dusk to Dawn III: the Hangman's daughter". It was a saloon band scene somewhere just before the vampires go into a frenzy

me thinks I would be wanting the most suitable concertina floatation device.

I do a run through both instruments back to back on the same recording session here

using the Clover Anglo here recorded on top of the washington state ferry M/V tacoma. http://duckylovestwowomen.bandcamp.com/track/the-pelican-and-the-piper

now just Replace the air button with a beer tap handle.

RTF (rich text) can contain embeded OLE objects such as wav files You can try to open the file in wordpad to see if there is an embedded wave file icon

Possibly it signifies the start of a demand curve for Concertinas from an as yet fully informed audience...

Oh Yeah! I heard about that...

Why yes. I had to ask myself "Oh thanks, how did you know". I also had a band from Seattle come out to play at the Portside pub. when they set up their drums , keyboards and bass stick thing I said "Oh, no I'm providing the instruments tonight...", which left me with just the Melodica.

First off, this has no relation to the Discworld series. Picked up a new Zoom audio recorder for my birthday and trying it out playing the Clover , with the audio reversed, then added some ambient noises http://duckylovestwowomen.bandcamp.com/track/the-goblins-picnic

[qoute] Michael, any chance you could post a more lengthy comparison after having your Clover for a bit now? BTW, I'm the guy from Boston who ran into you in Poulsbo recently and tried out your Clover on the street. My quick impression was that Irish ornaments spoke much better on the Clover - they sounded crisper than on the Morse. Would you agree? -jim That was very recent. only 4 beers ago or so. Thanks for stopping by. I agree that your statement follows with what I described as the crispness on the button action and the 'focus' of the reeds. As a side note, I had went to see a freind perform friday night, at Myrtle-edwards park in Seattle, at the very north end. This was during Hempfest, traffic was very tied up, so I walked about four miles back to the ferry dock playing morris like tunes along the way, to discover at the end my fingers had turned very black from rubbing against the finish.

apologies , technical difficulties with the recording setup. Another Morse player tried out my Clover , we both agreed the reeds on it sound more focused, less broad and mellow than the Morse The low end has a decent startup & with more growl

First Impressions Ebony Clover Serial #37 I got through the button box. Next to it Morse Ceili #672 with Cherry finish 1. Clover feels solid, but is a bit rough on the outside. The endbolts and thumb screws particularly. The Ceili is much more polished, though I understand there was a lot of complaints with the finish on the earlier models too... Leather on the Wrist Straps is about the same thickness , but fuzzy feel on the inside. Of course maybe I forgot how much I have worn the Ceili's down... There are more adjustment stops in the Wristap on the Clover so it can probally fit smaller hand sizes. On the Clover the 2cnd stop was set out of the box and I didn't need to change it. The metal jacket buttons on the clover feel skinny compared to the Ceili and you can see the difference . They are both slightly rounded, felt bushed, and the travel height is nearly the same, but more surface area from the Cieli acts on the skin on my finger tips , so the pressue I apply is perceived to be less even though it may be the same... So perhaps the feel on the Clover is crisper... Brass Riveted levers - The Clover's levers are flat depth wise , the Ceili's are round like thick wire and look more hand shaped. Not sure if that affects the sound except by possibly imparted resonance ... Weight- I cant really tell right now Fully closed The Clover is maybe a half cenitmeter shorter across the bellows. Fully open the Morse gives me almost an inch more stretch Negatives - The soft gig bag shipped with The standard Clover - basic black vinyl like, It's lined with a red velvet material, but also way too roomy. You don't want the bellows opening up in there and then being slammed. I suggest using one of those Bungee Cords with the plastic ball end to keep the Bellows locked tight while carrying this thing around, and also hang onto the bubble wrap that it shipped with. I'll do some reference recoding and run the samples through Zeloscope later...

I just learned of a thing affecting musicians called 'Focal Dystonia' which is a neurological condition resulting from repeated trained hand movements and results in uncontrolled muscle contractions.

I've got one coming in shortly as a backup instrument, will be able to do side by side with the Morse.

Sample for the Sonuus attached. I recorded this in Multitrack studio with one track for straight audio from the Concertina and two midi channel tracks with overlapping note ranges. I wound up discarding the second channel. The remaining MIDI channel is setup as a funky Organ. The channels played out to the monitor in real time. XONC.mp3

The Demos show a Sax player using a clip on Dynamic mic with a pre-amp feeding into the Mono 1/4 input. The device setup is done from a computer to setup zones on the fob for Wind/Voice , differnt gates, and breath detection Even though it appears to have fast tracking, it is not polyphonic, so Chords might cause some very ill effects, just as with an octave pedal, but if you mic it to one side of an anglo or duet , compress the tone then you can use preconfigured options like note transposition.

http://www.sonuus.com/products_i2m_mp.html

I've had two people in the street compliment my Xylophone playing .