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well, yes, any synthesizer can produce almost any sound, given preprovisioned sound fonts. The remaining question, however, is: How to switch between sounds? I also use an RPi (running fluidsynth with the same font that Steve uses) as the synthesizer on my MIDI crane, and it would be max an hour's work to add, say, a dozen other sound fonts to choose from. Yet the interesting question is how to select the font. One would have to come up with some kind of "Midi control surface" (thx Paul) to switch between fonts - eg on my Crane I have a few buttons without a sound mapped to it, so it would be an obvious choice to use those - for example one short press concertina, two violin and so on. Or use any combination of three buttons after a "mode select" button to select one of eight instruments. Or anything else. Then program that scheme into your button processor (in my case an Arduino) to generate the midi select instrument commands from it. So theoretically almost everything can be done, but it needs to be implemented. For my project, I won't bother because I use it for practicing, not music making, so one font (that as a bonus even sounds like a concertina) will be doing perfectly ok.

That surprises me. I would think that Hayden duets are much easier to come by than Maccanns.

Doesn't seem right...

Well Gregor, please be aware that a Waltz is a dance tune, and dancers forgive a lot - except an unstable rhythm. I suggest that you try playing with a metronome or (more advanced) try to play along with a recording (possibly slowed down if the original is too fast for the time being). It is rather frustrating at first but very satisfying once you managed to lock into the rhythm. I myself do not claim any degree of musical perfection for myself, in fact can not hold a candle to anyone who may call Him/herself a musician - yet the chance to play for "real" (in the context of dances in my case) has issued a number of eye opening reality checks and brought me miles farther down the musical road. Keep on squeezing!

@David Hanssen: What exactly is the correct spelling of your last name? Hansen, Hanssen oder Hannsen (or even differently 😉)? Aside from that - sounds good, chapeau. The only thing I wonder about is that you claim not to have found "useful material on EC chord playing." A quick search on this forum alone has led to numerous hits some of which have been referenced here (entire thread): May I ask what aspects of chord playing was missing here? Just out of curiosity.

Oh no, how terrible. I will remember him as always helpful, very open to out-of-the-box ideas, friendly and enthusiastic. I hope that his transition was not accompanied by too much pain and suffering.

2025: John Roberts - Country Dance & Song Society This looks like a very tasteful and appropriate summary and honoring of his accomplishments.

I pondered that as well. Basically doable, but tricky design given the curved shapes of the rows. Also, it would add to the thickness of the button assemblies.

yep, they would certainly be an improvement, but for my Crane, I would need 11mm vertical distance to be fully compatible. 2mm does not sound that much, but with 5 rows, it would add up to 1 cm overall. @david fabre: I do not have any publishable details yet, it is all in my head. KiCAD is in the critical path; I have not found a way yet to create the custom pads I would need with their design tools. The idea basically is to have a 6mm hole in the pcb with the two blank pads surrounding the hole on the underside of the pcb. The mechanical part of the switch would consist of a conductive bottom that in rest would short the two pads (so this would be an opening switch, not closing) and a stem that goes through the hole. A conical spring on the top side of the pcb would in rest position keep the pads shorted until the button is pressed. Of course, debouncing would in this setup be much more of an issue. I am not currently pursuing this issue, I spent too much time on the project already and have a workable solution for now. The good thing, however, is that whenever I resurrect the project, I can reuse almost everything I have, just redesign the pcb and end plates, and if something there does not work, I can always revert to what I have now. btw, I have now integrated the synthesizer (a Raspberry Pi 5 running fluidsynth) into the assembly, so all that is needed to practice is a power cable and a head set. At some tike I will prepare a second video.

Concerning the switches: I like the idea, but it sounds like an awful lot of design work because you have to design every button shape frame individually. Also, in my case (a Crane) there are 5 rows on the right hand side, so the outermost rows must have comparatively long stems, which in turn implies fairly distinct lever forces that I believe tend to potentially bend the buttons. So it would at least require a bearing board to keep the buttons as vertical as possible. My envisioned solution to the issue was to abandon prefabricated encapsulated buttons altogether and design something where the switches are part of the pcb. Btw, there are small form factor switches available that are not quite concertina form factor, but much closer than cherries: Kailh Mini Choc Switch . Travel is significantly less, though.

there are little wooden triangles that support the plates in the casing. If one of those should have come loose, you can tighten the screws as much as you want without it making a difference.

I do not think that this issue is specific to concertinas, just aggrevated by the fact that concertinas are generally hard to find.

fori, I believe. 😉 Point taken (at least on my side), thx and apologies

Of course you are right here, Wes, apologies. There is also Michael Eskin, Open source and other fine examples (I myself contribute to OS projects every once in a while). I sort of implied "free software by commercial companies," where the "free" is part of a business model. Ironically, for many of those "bad sheep products," there is also a good sibling, for example Signal instead of WhatsApp, so the consumer does have a choice to remain clothed. Just like in the case of c.net, however, voluntary payment is of great help to keep that choice open.