Novelty Buttons -- Whistles, Birdcalls, Baby Cries, Etc.

[CrP]

Thanks, seanc, Interesting how tastes change.

[seanc]

12 minutes ago, CrP said:

Thanks, seanc, Interesting how tastes change.

This is pure conjecture on my part. But, honestly, it’s the only thing that makes any sense to me.

 

 Nobody HAD to have a Floyd Rose trem on their guitar until EVH “Eruption” then everybody had to have one..

 

I would assume the novelty buttons were a similar offering.

 

i would also assume that at the time. There were a ton of techs available and for short money, swapping a cuckoo back to a high F was probably an easy quick fix.

 

[alex_holden]

3 hours ago, seanc said:

There were a ton of techs available and for short money, swapping a cuckoo back to a high F was probably an easy quick fix.

 

Not necessarily; the novelty sound gadgets I've seen tend to be squeezed into a tiny chamber in the middle of the pan, too small to easily fit a pair of concertina reeds. I suspect manufacturers sometimes included them as a cheap gimmick that let them claim to have two more buttons. The whistle is very simple with no moving parts, and although the squawk/cry is a bit more complicated (it's a pair of small metal tubes with reeds in them), they could probably buy them in for pennies.

[Devils' Dream]

Kimric Smyth has recently perfected a duck call that he has installed in melodeons...

[Devils' Dream]

 

[Luke Hillman]

5 hours ago, Devils' Dream said:

Kimric Smyth has recently perfected a duck call that he has installed in melodeons...

 

Well, I was just about to post about this, but you've beat me to it! I should record a more thematically appropriate example with my now-much-improved facial hair.

 

This actually came out of a conversation I had with Kimric in which I bitterly complained about the lack of zany novelty buttons on modern concertinas. It's a smash hit with my Morris team. Guaranteed to break the ice at parties...

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

It's interesting the fact that many traditional church organs often also employed effects in their already huge compass... Such as bells,and pipes imitating the human voice. To be heard on period performances often.