Key Shape & Height

[stella24]

I play a lachanel with bone buttons and the hook action. very difficult to get to high speed on embellishments and fast repeated notes. a time ago, i had the fortune to inspect a metal buttoned jeffries for a short moment. (I felt as if i were floating) The buttons seems smaller and less height, they were rounded also. So, is it the riveted action, shape, height, size, or just the effeciency of the player that contributes to the speed? is the jeffries style button easier to slip off of? maybe it's a stronger or more even spring pressure... listen to the recent release of buille. naill plays a jeffries.

[Frank Edgley]

Ther are several reasons that Lachenals, generally, do not play quickly. One is, as you mention, the action itself. Without going into detail, the Lachenal action was made to be more quickly installed, but had design flaws. In order to minimise the significant noise between mechanism & fulcrum, a single hefty spring was used. This usually makes Lachenals a bit slower because we have to use a bit more finger pressure to activate the buttons. Try using a more standard weight spring to replace a broken Lachenal spring, and my experience is that they often do not do the job adequately. You only have to look at them, in comparison with most other makers, to see the difference. Perhaps a bigger issue is the reed sensitivity of most Lachenal anglos. In my experience, they vary from fairly good to awful, depending on the era, model, and whether they are steel, or brass reeded.

Edited February 4, 2007 by Frank Edgley

[Pete Dickey]

Ther are several reasons that Lachenals, generally, do not play quickly. One is, as you mention, the action itself. Without going into detail, the Lachenal action was made to be more quickly installed, but had design flaws. In order to minimise the significant noise between mechanism & fulcrum, a single hefty spring was used. This usually makes Lachenals a bit slower because we have to use a bit more finger pressure to activate the buttons. Try using a more standard weight spring to replace a broken Lachenal spring, and my experience is that they often do not do the job adequately. You only have to look at them, in comparison with most other makers, to see the difference. Perhaps a bigger issue is the reed sensitivity of most Lachenal anglos. In my experience, they vary from fairly good to awful, depending on the era, model, and whether they are steel, or brass reeded.

 

 

I don't agree 100% Frank. As you say the reeds do vary depending on age and construction, from awful but at the other end some Lachenal steel reeds from say the 120000 to 140000 era can be absolutely superb, particularly in something like a Murdoch Peerless where there are signs that they may have been "cherry-picked" from the stock. Some of these reeds would hardly be out of place in a Jeffries and I suspect that there is many a Jeffries out there with a fistful of Lachenal reeds installed and no-one is any the wiser.

 

Pete

[wes williams]

I play a lachanel with bone buttons and the hook action. very difficult to get to high speed on embellishments and fast repeated notes. a time ago, i had the fortune to inspect a metal buttoned jeffries for a short moment. (I felt as if i were floating) The buttons seems smaller and less height, they were rounded also. So, is it the riveted action, shape, height, size, or just the effeciency of the player that contributes to the speed? is the jeffries style button easier to slip off of? maybe it's a stronger or more even spring pressure... listen to the recent release of buille. naill plays a jeffries.

Hi Stella,

I won't get into the comments above from Frank and Pete, as both are technically right in their own way!

 

I have both a bone button metal end Lachenal (C/G), and a metal button metal end Jeffries (Bb/F). Both are super instruments to play, and I honestly couldn't choose a favourite between the two, although they are definitely different to play, and each needs its own technique. Jeffries made instruments with various types of buttons, some almost the same diameter as the Lachenal, and some smaller. Mine is a smaller button one, with flat'ish ends, and I haven't found any problems, although other people have told me they do. My fingers are small, so maybe thats why. As for Lachenals being slow, I don't agree, but then mine was serviced by Colin Dipper (20 years ago), and came back as a totally different instrument, full of life and very responsive - and it still is. It may be that yours needs a similar service to brighten it up. Kitty Hayes - and Lizzy Crotty before her- make wonderful music on a Lachenal, although not maybe at quite the speed that Niall does - he's very fast by anybodys standard on some tunes. But I'm listening to Buille now, and I don't think that there is too much I couldn't do on the Lachenal with a bit of work, especially the ornamentation on some of the less jazzy tunes, although I could never be as good as Niall. But again, so much about playing is to develop your own individual style - cloning a particular players style doesn't really come from within you. Learn from them and apply it, but don't be a slave to it - take a tune and make it your own. For me, that was wonderfull advice from the great Tony Crehan around 20 years ago.

 

So don't give up on the Lachenal yet. Stateside folks like Frank above, or Rich Evans, will quickly give you a good idea of what might be done to improve your Lachenal. It might just need re-valving. A little bit spent on the Lachenal (in the hundreds) might be better than the thousands you'd have to spend to get a Jeffries. Besides, who told you that this was going to easy? Concertina playing is practice, practice, pratice - and then you'll need to practice as well. Thirty plus years on, I can still learn something every time I pick an instrument up.

 

Good luck ... wes

 

PS - Thanks! So far, I've only been able to listen to the Buille CD in the car. Today I've been able to sit back and enjoy it properly while writing this missive.

[stella24]

Thank you for the expert input, i'm actually quite happy and feel very fortunate to have this old instrument. of course, i get attached to any box i have.... i'll just keep practicing. some lessons someday would be the most help. i do have a cd rom tutor. btw, raising the handle height helped the most with ergonomics, the old lach must be made for small hands. wes.

[Frank Edgley]

Hi, Pete. I can't say that I have ever experienced a "Peerless", and I don't doubt they are as good as you say. Perhaps it was due to the rigours of central heating, but while it was a rare thing to come across a badly warped reed pan in a Wheatstone, or Jeffries, the opposite was true with Lachenals. In my 20+ years of repairing concertinas, before beginning to make them, I never came across a Lachenal anglo that was anywhere near a Jeffries, or Wheatstone linota, in response. Maybe I was just unlucky, or as I said, the extreme conditions of Northern summers & winters. Some Lachenals are OK, and play fairly well, but some (especially the mahogany-ended, brass-reeded ones) are just terrible. Noel Hill told me he likes the sound of Lachenals, but he doesn't usually play one. I heard him play a Lachenal at a concert, in Detroit, years ago, but it was only one tune, and it was to demonstrate the sound. I have to agree with Noel, in one regard---Lachenals have a lovely sound! I know of very few top Irish players, however, who choose to play a Lachenal, at least among the younger crowd.

At the All Ireland competition a few years back, the judge at the 12 - 15 and 15 - 18 categories commented that while some of the players played very well, they needed to get hold of better instruments than the Lachenals they were playing (most competitors at those age levels had Lachenals). No one at the senior level was playing one. While there may be some exceptions, most Lachenal anglos are just not fast enough for the style of fast, embellished & ornamented music being played by the younger Irish players of today. They may be very appropriate and even desirable for some types of music, but I think that Stella 24 was talking about "high speed embellishments and fast repeated notes." Yes, it is possible that work done on Stella 24's instrument may improve the situation a bit, but it will probably never play as fast as some other instruments. IMHO, to imply that it may might lead this person to believe that the frustration with performing these "high speed embellishments and fast repeated notes" may be Stella 24's lack of prowess, and that could be very discouraging.

However, Kitty Hayes has proven that very good music, even Irish music, can be played on a Lachenal anglo. How it is done is the issue. It is not necessary to play the highly-ornamented style of Noel and Niall. A simpler, less-ornamented style can be great, and even preferred by some.

[Jim Besser]

years of repairing concertinas, before beginning to make them, I never came across a Lachenal anglo that was anywhere near a Jeffries, or Wheatstone linota, in response. Maybe I was just unlucky, or as I said, the extreme conditions of Northern summers & winters. Some Lachenals are OK, and play fairly well, but some (especially the mahogany-ended, brass-reeded ones) are just terrible. Noel Hill told me he likes the sound of Lachenals, but he doesn't usually play one. I heard him play a Lachenal at a concert, in Detroit, years ago, but it was only one tune, and it was to demonstrate the sound. I have to agree with Noel, in one regard---Lachenals have a lovely sound!

 

A good advertisement for my Groff-Dipper Lachenal -- good Lach reeds and box, but a Dipper mechanism.

[richard]

Hello

 

Not to open up a whole new bag of worms,(that probably has been opened and consumed before)...

 

Frank,

 

What would make the difference between the best Lachenal reeds and good and great Jeffrie's, Wheatstone's, Dipper's reeds..etc. that would have the Lachenal reeds lag behind, in response ?

 

Is it machining and the precise fit and smallest gap between the reed and the reed shoe? The metal quality? Air tightness?..........? Can it be quantified.

 

Is there a way from looking to tell the best Lachenal reeds from the medium/poor ones?

 

Are there other qualities in a Lachenal that tell you, that one can assume they might have the best Lachenal could supply, beyound a concertina being a high end model? For example the end design and material, other custome details..?

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

Richard

Edited February 10, 2007 by richard

[Dana Johnson]

What would make the difference between the best Lachenal reeds and good and great Jeffrie's, Wheatstone's, Dipper's reeds..etc. that would have the Lachenal reeds lag behind, in response ?

 

Is it machining and the precise fit and smallest gap between the reed and the reed shoe? The metal quality? Air tightness?..........? Can it be quantified.

 

Is there a way from looking to tell the best Lachenal reeds from the medium/poor ones?

 

Richard

 

First, there are many people who have seen lots more Lachenal reeds than I have, and heard more nice Lachenals played, but from a fair amount of reed making experience and knowing that the constuction in some of the other kinds of concertinas you mentioned differs very little from similar keyed Lachenals, My impression is that the biggest difference i notice is in reed fit. Often I am astounded that what I see was actually acceptable to someone! Jeffries reeds that I've seen run from a medium gap to slightly tighter than that. Good Wheatsones, are usually a little tighter fit, and Dippers are pretty uniformly the tightest and cleanestt fit of the three. (of the limited number of each that I've seen ). A really gappy fit will dramatically decrease the reeds response, but many responsive Jeffries reeds aren't particularly tight, so what is going on?

 

Well, Given the same reed pan support, a reed with a wider gap can be made more responsive by decreasing it's overall stiffness. A tighter reed can be made stronger and still be responsive. After a certain percentage of gap though no amount of reed lightening will help. This isn't the whole story though. When reed fit gets tighter, ( and again given the same reed pan ) The reed sounds crisper or harsher. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how the rest of the concertina modifies the sound. A wider gap will be mellower and smoother with smaller amounts of high overtones.

 

I think that the generally wider gap of the medium quality Lachenals helps to give them their tone, and if they are appropriatly profiled for that gap, can still be moderatly responsive but not likely so loud. If they are too stiff though, they will be a bear to play and slow. The good Lachenal reeds I have seen are good because they were made to the same standards as other good reeds and were well profiled.

 

If like in the Wheatstone factory, the reeds used uniform template copied profiles, They would all be desighed to some particular stiffness and would only work well at the right fit, The terrible workmanship I've seen on many of them then gets the results you'd expect.

 

There are many ways to make good reeds and anybody who does it will have their own style. The combination of fit, stiffness profile and the box they go into, all work together for a particular sound. Profile by itself needs to match the fit, and vis versa to call either optimal. For a particular sound, both of those factors need to match the reed pan and box they go into. A harsher wooded reed pan needs slightly mellower / more limber reeds.

 

As far as a way to tell the good reeds from the bad? Play the thing. Well designed reeds will be fairly uniform in timbre volume and in response over most of the instruments range.

Dana

[richard]

Dana

 

When you say "gap" are you referring to the space between the reed and the shoe on all 3 sides (the tip, and the two side lengths) where air passes?

 

Richard

[Dana Johnson]

Dana

 

When you say "gap" are you referring to the space between the reed and the shoe on all 3 sides (the tip, and the two side lengths) where air passes?

 

Richard

That is what I am refferring to. The part of that gap just at the tip seems to have it's own importance, though I haven't been able yet to sort it out from the rest of the things that are going on at the same time, but the gap at the sides is a strong influence as well. The "set" gap when viewing the reed end on, effects response, but is adjustable to the ideal for that reed. That is a set up issue rather than a manufacturing one. The reed window geometry also figures into this whole mess and a badly formed reed shoe can hurt an otherwise good reed.

Dana

[d.elliott]

I have often wondered at the effect of the draught angle in the vent or slot, of the reed shoe.

 

A significant feature in the concertina reed assembly is that the walls of the reed shoe's inner vent are actually tapered so that they form their narrowest appeture at the surface where the reed tongue is mounted. Whilst the vent draught is partially a manufacturing press tooling draught, I think its' angle could impact on responsiveness and sound charateristics, a more acute angle could possibly make the responsiveness quicker, anyone ever done any work on this?

 

Dave

[Greg Jowaisas]

Dave,

I've been asking similar questions concerning Crabb and Jeffries reeds.

I have a lovely 1890 John Crabb Bb/F (soon to be for sale). It is the image of a Jeffries from the same period. But its sound, while certainly robust and attractive, is nothing like the gurgling and chirps of a Jeffries.

 

I have put a few of the Crabb's reeds in a Jeffries and they retained their original sound. Nice, but not with a Jeffries nuance.

 

The Crabb shoes are just as thick as the Jeffries shoes. The only obvious difference i have been able to discern is that the Jeffries shoes have a markedly more radical vent on the front and back of the shoe as viewed from the bottom.

 

So I am wondering if this difference exists between all the old Crabbs and Jeffries? Or is my Crabb the exception? All the "Jeffries sounding" Jeffries I have examined have reed shoes with lots of vent between

the top and bottom of the shoe.

 

Comments and ideas appreciated.

 

Greg

[Dana Johnson]

I have often wondered at the effect of the draught angle in the vent or slot, of the reed shoe.

 

A significant feature in the concertina reed assembly is that the walls of the reed shoe's inner vent are actually tapered so that they form their narrowest appeture at the surface where the reed tongue is mounted. Whilst the vent draught is partially a manufacturing press tooling draught, I think its' angle could impact on responsiveness and sound charateristics, a more acute angle could possibly make the responsiveness quicker, anyone ever done any work on this?

 

Dave

I have done a fair amount with this. Steve Dickenson once told me that the angle was the (main) difference between high pressure reeds and low pressure ones. The idea being that the angle allowed the reeds to start their upward part of the cycle earlier at low volumes, the wind being taken out of the sails earlier so to speak. Following up on this, I did a number of experiments varying the vent angle since I was having difficulty in the higher register getting reeds that were as "Easy" to play as on the left side. I could get the volume I wanted, but it took more force to get it. the net result was an instrument that felt harder to play on the right than the left. ( actually you could start to notice a difference all the way down to the middle left hand E ) What I found was that for a given reed and clearance at the opening, increasing the angle allowed more air through, creating the sense of ease in playing that helped match the sides. The angle I decided should vary from the lower pitches to the high by some proportion ( not necessarily linear ) to help keep the feel the same.

 

Up to a certain point, volume also increased somewhat with a given reed up to a point where it went over the hill and the reed grew weaker very quickly. The angle needs to match the stiffness of the reed though and one maker with one reed making style may be able to have less angle than someone with a stiffer reed style.

 

Later I found that bell mouthing the vent instead of having a straight angle gave me a substantial increase in volume, though the amount and depth the belled area enters the vent needs to be adjusted to the pitch of the reed. ( the lowest reeds having no belling, the mid range a little and the higher range progressively more. ) What this seems to do is to adjust the vent angle to reed amplitude, with the vent angle being very slight at really low starting amplitudes and increasing as the reed swings wider and pressure and air volume is going up. The more air you want to shove through the hole, the less obstruction you want or the pressures have to go way up ( the flow rate isn't linear with pressure ).

 

The other result of the belling is to change the attack / pressure curve. Notes with more belling tend to jump up to a higher volume more quickly with pressure increase even if the maximum volume is the same as reeds with a straight angle.

 

As a result of this exploration, I managed to get a good balance between right and left sides in volume without the feeling on an increase in effort required to play the notes as they went up the scale. I have a very nice Bb/F Jeffries that has belled reed shoes ( filed not pressed ) that tipped me off to this and it plays Low to high with no discernable difference in effort. This may not be the only way to accomplish this, but seems to work well if you want a reed that has both a large dynamic range and is free playing.

 

One caviat though, ( from an accordion reed maker) increasing the vent angle uses more air. For a concertina playing one reed per note I don't find this any problem at all, but for an accordion with two or three reeds playing per note, it can be an important factor.

Dana

[Chris Ghent]

Dana

 

When you say "gap" are you referring to the space between the reed and the shoe on all 3 sides (the tip, and the two side lengths) where air passes?

 

Richard

That is what I am refferring to. The part of that gap just at the tip seems to have it's own importance, though I haven't been able yet to sort it out from the rest of the things that are going on at the same time, but the gap at the sides is a strong influence as well. The "set" gap when viewing the reed end on, effects response, but is adjustable to the ideal for that reed. That is a set up issue rather than a manufacturing one. The reed window geometry also figures into this whole mess and a badly formed reed shoe can hurt an otherwise good reed.

Dana

 

As a another way of looking at reed gap, if you look at the reed in its closed position, sitting in the narrowest part of the reed slot, it will necessarily have a gap around it.

 

Lets imagine the gap is a uniform 2 thousands of an inch (.05mm), and the reed is for example 1 inch (25.4mm) long (I know that's a long reed but it helps with the arithmetic). This means you will have a gap at each side of the reed of 2 thousand square thousandths an inch , add the two sides together together and you have 4 thousand square thousandths of an inch, (plus a bit for the tip, I'll leave this out to make the numbers easier.)

 

In order to visualise this hole, the square root of 4000 is 63.25. This means 4x1000 can also be expressed as 63.25 x 63.25. Now imagine a hole 63thou square. This is close to 1/16th inch by 1/16 inch, and for the metric majority, around 1.6mm square.

 

This is effectively a hole in your bellows of the same size. Imagine what it would do to make your concertina feel soggy.

 

There is always going to be a gap, but the size of the gap is one measurement of efficiency in a reed. The 2thou gap I have mentioned is a good size for efficiency, the average Lachenal probably has 4 thou or more. With the same reed size the equivalent hole in the Lachenal bellows is now twice the size.

 

Reed gap has another place in the tool box apart from a feeling of efficiency. As the reed flies through the narrowest part of the slot; the smaller the gap the crisper and louder the sound. So a good Jeffries profits in two ways from a precise gap, but not all Jeffries do. Many of the Jeffries reeds I have examined do not have narrow gaps, and this can be heard in their sound. Still sweet, but not efficient and lacking the bite people expect from a Jeffries.

 

Reed gap is the least esoteric of the reed factors. Profile is tricky; many different shapes will end up in tune, but will have different qualities of flex. More arcane is the shape of the relief in the slot. No one shape will be perfect right up the scale; as an example of the reasons for this, force goes up by the square of the speed of wind, ie. not linear.

 

I hated science at school, concertinas have brought me to it...

 

Chris

Edited February 13, 2007 by Chris Ghent

[ttonon]

...No one shape will be perfect right up the scale; as an example of the reasons for this, force goes up by the square of the speed of wind, ie. not linear....

 

Chris

 

Hi Chris,

 

I agree that (pressure) force goes up as the square of air velocity, but not always. This model is true for steady-state motion, when air is forced through an opening, forming a jet, and I think it can be useful when discussing reeds with sufficiently low pitches. For the higher pitches, however, unsteady effects come into play, and the model breaks down.

 

A simple way to explain the underlying Physics is to imagine a spring situated vertically, with the bottom end attached to a table, and with a mass attached to the upper end. If you push down on the mass slowly enough, the force you feel is essentially the same as the force that the spring pushes against the mass. Now imagine your finger glued to the mass and oscillating up and down, remaining in contact with the mass. At low frequencies, your finger again feels essentially the spring force, but as you increase the vibration frequency, you begin to feel the inertia of the mass. You have now arrived into a regime of unsteady motion, where inertial forces (really, time derivatives) become important. At the highest frequencies, your finger will feel only the inertial force of the mass, because then, the spring force will be negligible. The last time I looked at this issue with regard to the free reed, and using rough calculations that incorporate typical geometries, I concluded that unsteady effects in the air motion will come into effect at frequencies above approximately a thousand Hertz. Of course there’s still a mean flow of air through the vent at these high frequencies, but “mean” flow is not then the same as “steady” flow, and I'm not prepared to speculate here on just how this mean flow at the high frequencies varies with pressure.

 

Such a point may seem like too much of a complication for some, but it really should be included for a thorough understanding of reed behavior. For instance, because of this transition from steady (really, quasi-steady) to unsteady regimes, my guess is that the effect of belling that Dana refers to above would be more pronounced for the higher pitched reeds - again, those with pitches higher than roughly a thousand Hertz. For these reeds, the vibrating air, because of it's own inertial forces, probably follows the bell contour more completely than a quasi-steady jet of air would.

 

Best regards,

Tom

www.bluesbox.biz

Edited February 13, 2007 by ttonon