Don Taylor Posted June 5, 2014 Share Posted June 5, 2014 Both the low-end 34B Elise and the better 42B Peacock were designed and sold by Wim Wakker, but the Elise has a high A on the LHS that is omitted on the Peacock. The Peacock adds 8 buttons over the Elise but removes a LH button that I would have thought was important. I doubt very much that Wim did this by accident - he must have thought that trading off the A for an additional accidental was worthwhile. Since the Peacock is, for me, the obvious upgrade from an Elise I wonder if this missing A is a real problem? Any Peacock owners care to comment on this issue? More generally any general comments on the Peacock (cf. an Elise especially) would be very welcome - limitations, playability, sound, maintainability, etc... Don. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven r. arntson Posted June 5, 2014 Share Posted June 5, 2014 Hi Don, I'm playing a Peacock for the past five months. I'm switching to the duet style from the anglo, and am in the middle of that transition. For me, the Peacock has been a great instrument. I play mostly in a "classical" style, in lots of different keys, so the main advantage for me in the Peacock over the Elise is that it has some G#s! I was a little perplexed that there isn't a single one on the Elise. No E-major chords, no playing in A harmonic minor ... I have missed that lefthand A on occasion. It's a note that's also available on the righthand side of the instrument, though. Coming as I am from the Anglo, I'm fairly accustomed to situations where something (even a chord) crosses from one side of the instrument to the other (though I suppose not as accustomed as an English player would be). I notice that if we trade up the final level to a Wakker, we get that A back again... One other sidenote--in my Anglo days, I was a frequent user of the air button as a way to prepare for necessary bellows-direction changes. And there are times even on the duet I'd like to do this, but it's difficult because the air button on the Peacock is played by the RH pinkey. Again, it appears that the Wakker model returns this key to its more typical thumb-operated position. Best! Steven Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Łukasz Martynowicz Posted June 5, 2014 Share Posted June 5, 2014 When I was choosing a layout for my DIY Hayden (just planning it then and weighting different options), I have done a full research on available (and proposed) layouts: different Wakker/CC, proposed Morse optimal and minimal, Tedrow, Bastari etc.. All of them were widely discussed all around the concertina oriented web and they all had a common 46 button core. When Peacock showed up I was very, very dissapointed by it's 42 buttons (it was the drop that spilled the cup and pushed me into DIY path). I use this LH side A very often, both in accordion-style accompaniment and counter-melody. For a potential upgrader from Elise, this single button makes it necessary (for me) to rework almost entire repertoire as it occurs in any playable key on Elise (and you learn to use entire keyboard of this small instrument) - a very non-logical feature of a "logical" upgrade... A little sidenote: I wonder, if the shift from slanted to Wicki layout in both Peacock and Beaumont will result in an updated, 2.0 Elise (or is it 3.0 now?) without a slant. Having two instruments with different designs (an Elise as a campfire beater) must be quite challenging (maybe Matthew could comment on this?) [PS. blessed be the Auto Save function of this forum ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceemonster Posted June 5, 2014 Share Posted June 5, 2014 well, you get that "a" on the morse beaumont, but the beaumont costs a great deal more than the peacock. and the peacock gives you TAM reeds (or did last i checked), which are available on the beaumont but as an "extra.". so it's a tradeoff... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MatthewVanitas Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 A little sidenote: I wonder, if the shift from slanted to Wicki layout in both Peacock and Beaumont will result in an updated, 2.0 Elise (or is it 3.0 now?) without a slant. Having two instruments with different designs (an Elise as a campfire beater) must be quite challenging (maybe Matthew could comment on this?) I don't find going from slanted to straight at all problematic. It takes me a few seconds of flexing my fingers and running them down the keys to adjust, but I don't find it a huge problem at all. I think before there'd been some vague talk of having Haydens with adjustable angle of the handrest itself (leaving the keys in the same place); I think that came up re the proposed 64b MIDI a few of us are pondering. And the peacock gives you TAM reeds (or did last i checked), which are available on the beaumont but as an "extra.". so it's a tradeoff... I considered getting the TAMs on my Beaumont thinking they'd be "more deluxe", but folks explained to me that they aren't necessarily "better" per se, just "different". And since TAMS have a "brighter" sound, I stuck with the regular reeds since I prefer a darker/dronier/organ-like sound. Though in fairness on both of the above, I'm a bit off the normal Duet demographic since I have little interest in classical, not huge interest in complex key changes, etc. I upgraded almost entirely to get better quality/handling rather than the huge increase in buttons, though I do find the increased number of buttons helpful for playing along with non-folky friends who play a wider variety of keys. And due to the magic of the Hayden layout, playing in Amaj is just as easy as playing in Cmaj, and so on for most keys excepting the very few keys on the far edge of the board (F#maj is a little annoying since some of its notes are on the opposite end of the board). I never noticed the missing A on the Elise, and probably wouldn't have noticed it on the Peacock had I gotten that. I'm dimly aware that serious Duet player get a lot of use of the overlap between hands, but for whatever reason my playing style makes little use of those, and I would've rather just had extra low bass notes instead of much/any overlap... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Hersh Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 (edited) My first duet was an Elise, but I decided to switch systems after that and moved to a 48-key Crane which like the Peacock does not have a high A on the left hand. I do miss that A (and plan to eventually move to a 55-key Crane, where the left hand goes all the way up to C!) but I've found ways to adjust, mainly using a high F# on a two-note D chord rather than the A. Edited June 6, 2014 by Daniel Hersh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Scannell Posted June 6, 2014 Share Posted June 6, 2014 (edited) An upgrade to a Beaumont allowed me to keep the LHS high-A, and keep the Elise which I still use almost daily. I moved the Elise handrest to eliminate the slant. Edited June 6, 2014 by Patrick Scannell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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