Concertina Nova (English+) Crowd Funding Project Idea

[Bruce Thomson]

If you're interested in a possible crowdfunding project for a 'Concertina Nova' - a new design of concertina for beautiful tone but under $US 1,000, please join me in the Google+ community at the Concertina Design and Repair Community at https://plus.google.com/communities/104174908489357489215

 

It's just an idea, but the aim is to see if we can use very new ideas, and today's technologies and materials, to rethink and create a better concertina by about 2015. English concertina, but possibly ideas directly applicable to any concertina.

 

Crowdfunding means people agree on the expected total cost of the project (e.g. $50,000) and conditionally commit a contribution towards it (say, $1,000 each, to a trusted escrow) on the understanding if the project doesn't raise the project total cost, all money is refunded. Crowdfunding has been extremely successful in many projects like the Oculus Rift video glasses project. Often the project cost is surpassed many times over, leading to greater investment and results.

 

Lately I've had minor success by making my Stagi tenor's thumb strap swivel-anchored (for flexible reach to the buttons), by moving the anchor point higher (easier reach), and this week by affixing cords from the concertina to my feet so that it is firmly set on my knees for stability. But the Stagi is pretty poor - e.g. the valve lifters have about 2mm of sloppy play, and the button sleeves are ridiculously conical (for easy assembly, but making them wobbly during playing). And I want a nicer tone - it's a bit tinny instead of sweet, mellow like a top Wheatstone. Let's find out how it might be achieved.

 

I'll listen to all ideas, regardless of how eccentric they may be. After 30 months of playing I can 'feel' the ergonomic weakness of the instrument (I have three, Lachenal, Stagi, Hohner).

 

Today, don't laugh, we have 3-D printing that might help with some of the parts.

 

The main aims are: Beautiful traditional sound like a top Wheatstone, much easier playing than any existing concertina (so that the concertina becomes much more popular in schools, as guitars are, robust strength and easy, cheap repairability, cost under US$1,000, visual beauty.

 

The strategy is: Gather stakeholders, mostly aspiring to own the Nova, but also one or more experts in concertina repair and design who, after conferring with us all, would be contracted to build the new instrument to meet the requirements specification and its performance indicators. I'm not in it for money, I personally want an excellent instrument (for me and everyone else) without having to pay $10,000 for it. I'm no expert myself and would need help in this endeavour.

 

Feel free to comment here, but the working discussion of the Nova will be in Google+ and you can contact me directly as shown below.

 

Bruce (Tomo) Thomson

20 Lyndhurst St. Chelwood Village,

Palmerston North

06 357 7773

021 176 9711

palmytomo@gmail.com

 

[Paul_Hardy]

If you want to keep the cost down, and really take advantage of modern technology, then why not try doing a good quality and realistic feel Midi instrument - avoids the use of reeds and all the precision machining involved there. I had a wreck of an old Lachenal which I'd physically restored but the reeds were shot (mix of brass and steel, old pitch, out of tune, rusty, ...). I had it converted to Midi by Roy Whiteley. (http://www.pghardy.net/concertina/lachenal_30566_midi/lachenal_30566_midi.html), and I'm very pleased with it. Midi used to be hard because you needed specialist synthesizer hardware from Roland or Yamaha, but these days an iPad or iPhone is capable of running a good cheap software sampling synthesizer. You could even embed a small generic computer (Raspberry Pi or similar) in the instrument!

 

There have been tries at building midi concertinas from scratch - I tried the S-wave (http://www.s-wave.co.uk/controller.html) but didn't like the non-bellows action and felt that it was unnecessarily big - why not just 48 keys and use software transposing to get to higher or lower ranges?

 

Anyway - worth thinking about?

 

Regards

[MatthewVanitas]

I'm into concertinas, and into crowdsourcing, so I'm certainly interested. English isn't my format, but if this does lead to more affordable Englishes it won't be long until more affordable Haydens follow after!

 

I think there have been a few posts on the forum about these things, so I'd suggest you also ping the folks who've taken an interest before, but might not be following threads closely these days:

• One day I'll 3D print a whole Concertina! Started by Andy Holder, May 31 2012 07:02 AM
• 3D printing Started by SteveS, Nov 25 2010 05:23 AM
• Advancing technologies and their effect on concertina building Started by Jake of Hertford, Oct 29 2011 06:24 AM

 

Among the various points to ponder:

• Folks have derided 3D printing for a couple of reasons, but I think we're really forgetting the reductive options like home 3D milling. Sure, if you "cast" a reed shoe you're limited to whatever kinds of plastics go into your printer and the composition that comes out, but on a 3D mill you could chuck in the material of your choice (brass reed shoes, for example) and have them produced.
• I have no clever ideas on how to mass-produce bellows
• There have been a few threads about computer-assisted cutting of fretwork, which a number of makers do (and some others specifically state that they do not do). Here's an interesting thread about Hamish Bayne, a Scottish former maker who used (probably now "antiquated") computer assisted machining to reduce time/costs on his concertinas. I'd imagine you'd positively have to have machine-cut fretwork to have anything remotely near a $1000 pricetag.
• The hugest question for your project: are these to be instruments with "hybrid" accordion reeds, or trad concertina reeds? I'd imagine the former since cost is a priority. It may be there is some way to use computer-assisted tools to make the basic components of concertina reeds, but as I understand several folks with large amounts of concertina experience have tried and not gotten it right yet. Given the huge amount of skilled hand-labor that goes into concertina reeds, reducing that would probably be a game-changer. The difference between roughly comparable hybrid and trad Anglos is like $3000 vs $6000, so huge amounts of effort on just the reeds, when instead you can buy factory-made accordion reeds and then just to the fine tuning.

Edited January 17, 2014 by MatthewVanitas

[sqzbxr]

OP hasn't been on site since Nov. 5th.

[JimLucas]

If you want to keep the cost down, and really take advantage of modern technology, then why not try doing a good quality and realistic feel Midi instrument - avoids the use of reeds and all the precision machining involved there. I had a wreck of an old Lachenal which I'd physically restored but the reeds were shot (mix of brass and steel, old pitch, out of tune, rusty, ...). I had it converted to Midi by Roy Whiteley. (http://www.pghardy.net/concertina/lachenal_30566_midi/lachenal_30566_midi.html), and I'm very pleased with it. Midi used to be hard because you needed specialist synthesizer hardware from Roland or Yamaha, but these days an iPad or iPhone is capable of running a good cheap software sampling synthesizer. You could even embed a small generic computer (Raspberry Pi or similar) in the instrument!

 

Aye. If I can get my priorities straightened out, that's what I've been thinking of doing with a New Model Crane that I have, where the former owner tried to rearrange the note layout by mucking about with reeds and reed pans. The onboard synthesizer option is long overdue, as it's been technically feasible for at least a decade.

 

The English is still my main squeeze, and I may eventually find an appropriate English to do that with, too, but I already have the Crane and have pretty well concluded that it's not worth trying to restore the traditional pans and reeds. Besides, if the buttons can be made arbitrarily programmable (through an external UBS connection?), then I could experiment with other potential layouts, e.g.:

• Reproduce the Wheatstone "double", but set the two outer columns of buttons to be identical (with a 1-button shift), as a nod toward the sort of "uniformity" that some folks are so fond of.
• Or if I could program separate notes for the press and draw, then I could experiment with potentially interesting anglo layouts: each row 5 buttons wide, but 5 rows in the left hand and 6 in the right.

Ah, but that's a digression/distraction. Not really what The Project is about, I think. If I'm going to expand on that fantasy, I should really revive one of the old discussions about midi concertinas.