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The Clover anglo


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Accordion reed valves are glued to 1/3rd it's length and it means that the air is hitting the upper 2/3rds of the reed. Does it mean it too, is channeled?

 

No. Channeling happens underneath the reed. With an accordion reed there is only the thickness of the frame. In a concertina, there is a channel of 6-8mm long through the reedpan. Depending on air flow direction, the air in the chamber has to either enter or escape through this channel. This is the actual airflow that activates the reed. The valve has nothing to do with this. It is either blown away if the reed is activated, or it closes off the air flow to the opposite reed.

 

I get the idea of round hole been in the upper third of concertina reed. Same was with early accordons, where reeds were mounted flat. Same is with my one row little "Schweizer Orgele". From my personal observations, those early accordions and my little one row don't sound round and have lots of harmonics, not even a hint of roundness.

 

That is not the same. There is no round hole in a concertina reed or top of the slot. What you're talking about is a completely different subject.

The round tone example I gave was in a concertina construction, where the reed determines most of the harmonic profile.

The high harmonic count and specific profile in accordion type construction has nothing to do with voicing. The only way to alter the harmonic profile in this type of construction is by reflection and filtering (e.g. amplifonic reed position in cassotto, etc.).

 

I think part of the problem is that you don’t realize how different concertina and accordion reeds are. It is not just the construction and performance, the whole principle is different. You can install accordion reeds in a concertina, but that does not make it sound, perform or react like a traditional concertina. You cannot make an accordion reed sound like a concertina reed or vice versa. It goes way to far to explain the differences, but they are as different as an electric versus gasoline engine. For the record, I am not saying that one sounds better than the other. Classification of sound quality at this level is very personal.

 

 

Wim Wakker

Concertina Connecton Inc.

Wakker Concertinas

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Hi Wim

 

COOL!!!

 

Any information on the Peacock yet? Size? Number of buttons? Range? Will it be offered as a kit also? Would there be a PDF version of the assembly manual to look at before deciding? Etc.???????????

 

Thanks

Leo

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Wim - you already know I'm a fan, but congratulations with your latest offering. The kit option is particularly exciting. Good luck. IMHO you deserve nothing but success for your excellent efforts.

 

W

Edited by Woody
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Wim, I'm somewhat surprised to hear myself saying this, because I've never built an instrument from a kit before - always from scratch - but I'm excited by the prospect of a Hayden duet kit. This could be a very practical and economical way to make my wife a concertina that she would be very happy with. I look forward to hearing more about this.

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The names peacock and clover have no special meaning. Because the instruments are sold worldwide, we had to come up with simple names that have no negative or strange meaning in another language or is offending in certain cultures. In hindsight, Rose for the english version might have been better…

The Peacock can be the treble, and the Rose could be baritone!

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We have decided to also offer this instrument as a kit. The last years I’ve received almost weekly inquiries from people wanting to build their own concertina. Given the relative simplicity of a hybrid concertina, I think the kit version should be fairly easy to complete for the average player. A positive side effect of the kit is that it enables us to offer a quality instrument at a low price.

As soon as our production is under control, both the Clover and Clover kit will also be available through our dealers.

 

See our site: concertinaconnection.com for details.

 

Wim Wakker

Concertina Connection Inc.

Wakker Concertinas

I just finished reading the Clover Kit wep page. That kit i so cool! IF I were an Anglo player, my order would be getting typed right now instead of this posting. I would love to assemble that kit.

 

I hope the Hayden will also be in kit form when its time comes. Will it be the standard 46 keys, or more, or fewer?

 

Thanks for all you've done for the concertina world -- Mike K.

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We hope to be able to add the Peacock english sometime after July 2010 and a Wicki or Hayden model in 2011. I would like to offer both models as finished and kit instruments.

 

Making a kit version turned out to be a lot more complicated than we initially thought. The challenge was to make it so that it would be difficult to make mistakes. The problem is that when you glue something wrong, you cannot undo it unless you used hide glue. We used every trick we could come up with to prevent assembly mistakes, such as non symmetrical guide pins, simple alignment of parts, double checks for every step, etc..

We’re curious to see if it is as easy as we think. It takes me about 2-1/2 hour to complete the kit...

Because both the english and duet will be slightly more complicated (action), we first want to have some feedback from the clover before going ahead with the other models.

 

Wim Wakker

Concertina Connection Inc.

Wakker Concertinas.

 

P.S. We have changed our trade in policy with regard to the kit. We will accept a Jackie/jack/Rochelle/elise as a trade in for the kit, but we cannot automatically accept the kit as a trade in for a higher class instrument, due to the ‘variable’ quality. When the time comes we’ll have to decide the trade-in value of a kit clover on an individual basis.

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Good to hear that a Hayden model might be out next year. I'm with Mike wondering how many keys are tentatively planned, or if it's too soon even to be thinking about that yet? I'm interested in the 60+ sizes, and tend to prefer the accordion reeded sound to concertina reeds. This could be what I've been waiting for, for so very long.

 

Joy

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  • 4 weeks later...

Good to hear that a Hayden model might be out next year. I'm with Mike wondering how many keys are tentatively planned, or if it's too soon even to be thinking about that yet? I'm interested in the 60+ sizes, and tend to prefer the accordion reeded sound to concertina reeds. This could be what I've been waiting for, for so very long.

 

Joy

 

Add me to the list of people that you've "hooked" with the Elise who are forming a market for a mid-priced hybrid Hayden box.

 

Personally, I'd be fine with 46 keys, which would hopefully keep the cost semi-moderate and simplify production. If I end up wanting a huge box at some point I'll just go Hayden Bandoneon. There are a couple makers of €3,000+ chromatic bandoneones who claim to be flexible on fingering options, so I imagine one could get them to build a Hayden version for a moderate premium. So huge Hayden boxes are at least theoretically available on the bandoneon side, but a nice compact 46-key is only available at the $5,000+ premium maker level.

 

I hope the Elise Hayden is selling briskly enough to push forward production on a mid-price hybrid Hayden (does it have to wait until after the English? :P ). There are lots of places folks can get a good ~$2K Anglo or English, but affordable Hayden options aside from Elise, Stagi, and a handful of Bastaris are awfully limited.

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  • 2 months later...
After 2+ years of trying to get the production organized, we’re finally able to include the Clover anglo in our hybrid concertina line.

Production has started, and we should be able to start delivery in a couple of weeks, provided the suppliers deliver on time.

 

I've just taken delivery of a Clover from Barleycorn Concertinas and I'm absolutely delighted with it. After many years of playing an English, I first started to play an Anglo 18 months ago, opting for a cheapish model (Hohner D60) in case it was a disaster. Perseverance paid off, until the point I realised I was struggling more with the mechanics/construction of the concertina (stiff bellows, unresponsive reeds, button layout, etc) than I was in actually playing music. So, cutting a long story short, I ended up purchasing a Clover. I'm astounded by how easy it is to play in comparison with the Hohner. More importantly, my playing instantaneously improved - no longer do the mechanics of the concertina get in the way of playing music (if that makes sense).

 

Note for Wim: I'd have preferred a Jeffreys layout to a Wheatstone one.

 

Regards, Chris

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Wim,

 

Do you have any concerns, given the "variable" nature of the end result of the kits, that some folks might try to pass off kits as regular clovers? Will you use some sort of alternate numbering system to differentiate?

 

-David

 

 

 

P.S. We have changed our trade in policy with regard to the kit. We will accept a Jackie/jack/Rochelle/elise as a trade in for the kit, but we cannot automatically accept the kit as a trade in for a higher class instrument, due to the ‘variable’ quality. When the time comes we’ll have to decide the trade-in value of a kit clover on an individual basis.

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Hello Wim,

Sorry to insist but I come back to my question about a Clover in other tunings than C/G. I understand that A G/D would require much larger reed chambers, but what about if it's a Bb/F ? If the buyer accepts the responsability of the result, would you consider selling a kit with a Bb/F set of reeds ?

I'm asking this because I'd love to build my own concertina as a kit but I have no real use of a second C/G.

David

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Hi David,

Regarding the Clover and Clover kit, we used to have a small ‘K’ in the kit fretwork, but discontinued this after the first few kits. All clovers are numbered and documented. If you want to know if a particular instrument started life as a kit, just give us call.

 

I understand your wish for a G/D or Bb/F, but at this moment we just don’t have the time to offer different tunings. We’re still working on improving the logistics and production of C/G model and keep our lead time as short as possible. We probably will first complete our hybrid model range (english and duet) before offering different tunings for the Clover.

Wim

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We probably will first complete our hybrid model range (english and duet) before offering different tunings for the Clover.

 

This is something I've asked for as well, as you know, so I welcome the suggestion that alterrnative tunings will come sometime. G/D may be the Johnny-come-lately of anglo tunings but it suits the instrument beautifully!

 

Chris

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  • 3 months later...

We hope to be able to add the Peacock english sometime after July 2010 and a Wicki or Hayden model in 2011. I would like to offer both models as finished and kit instruments.

[...]

Wim Wakker

Concertina Connection Inc.

Wakker Concertinas.

 

Wim, I understand that the new hybrid Hayden will be in the Wicki layout -- without the Hayden slant. Is that true, and if so are you planning to reconfigure the Elise without the slant?

Edited by Jim Albea
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We hope to be able to add the Peacock english sometime after July 2010 and a Wicki or Hayden model in 2011. I would like to offer both models as finished and kit instruments.

[...]

Wim Wakker

Concertina Connection Inc.

Wakker Concertinas.

 

Wim, I understand that the new hybrid Hayden be in the Wicki layout -- without the Hayden slant. Is that true, and if so are you planning to reconfigure the Elise without the slant?

 

We decided to go with the Kaspar Wicki keyboard because it seems to be more popular than the Hayden variation. The Elise will probably also be changed to the Wicki keyboard in the future, but that will have to wait a little. You have no idea how much work (and cost) a minor keyboard change like that generates...

 

Wim Wakker

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