Where to find accordion serial nuimber?

[Alan Sharkis]

I just took delivery of an Armoniosa accordion and, believe it or not,
I can't find a serial number on it. The accordion is made by
Cooperfisa, if that gives anyone a clue.

I traded in my Ciao reedless and two other boxes towards the purchase
price of this instrument and all of them had easily visible serial
numbers. Somehow, my dealer is not responding to phone calls (maybe
he's away?) and I just emailed him.

I can't insure this accordion without a serial number.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Alan Sharkis

[Excelsior960]

Alan, is this some kind of early April Fool joke you are playing on us?

well the co-operativa was short lived under that badge it
seems to me... Lord knows which factory fulfilled what
orders, or even fully which factories provided what
resources at any given time...

never heard of armoniosa as a label - but then i'd never heard
of sartori either, and within a few months saw another one
exactly like the one i'd stumbled across

and geez this must be one whale of an Accordion
for you to swap out $5 grand or so of your
collection plus some money no doubt... you really
let your beloved Ciao go?

next thing you'll be telling me you made the
deal sight unseen

naah - you gotta be pullin' my leg

ciao

Ventura

[Ike Milligan]

"Alan Sharkis" <cartilagi...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:3seme89pp272jifcc...@4ax.com...

The insurance company needs the number to uniquely identify the item if it
is stolen and recovered. It can be marked by you in various ways.
Replacement value has to be determined by other means. As a collectible or
as a musical instrument, either would not necessarily have a serial number.
Just because a lot of accordions have a serial number, does not mean that
they have to have one. Call your insurer for more information. Whoever at
the insurance company may have told you it has to have a serial number is
probably in error, and since this is the U.S.A. there are many insurance
comanies to choose from if one of them happens to be too stupid to handle
your account.

[Alan Sharkis]

Hello Ventura,

Nope, I'm not pulling your leg.

Cooperfisa (or some other ownership with that name) is alive and well
in Vercelli, of all places, and producing these babies. The dealer
with whom I worked is a professional accordionist who has trained with
some very famous technicians on repair and on midi and pickup
installation. He does restorations, too. He's now selling Armoniosa
as an exclusive in the US, and yes, he's also selling Scandalli, Dino
Baffetti (alhough he sticks to their line of diatonics) and, more
recently, Settimio Soprani. He's also selling the Music Tech reedless
and the Scandalli/Paolo Soprani EWA reedless, as well as used
instruments.

However, he didn't install the midi and pickups on my Armoniosa.
Instead, he had the Cooperfisa factory send it to Master Productions
in Castelfidardo to install the midi and mikes. When they finished,
they actually shipped it back, as I understand it, to Cooperfisa to be
checked out before sending it here. Maybe that's where any paper
documentation that contained the serial number got lost, because the
dealer never received it.

I almost simultaneously realized that having five accordions in the
house and rarely playing most of them was nuts and discovered that
there were some strange things that the Ciao was doing. For example,
on accordion sounds only, holding a bass button down for more than a
fraction of a second produced a very strange sound, indeed. It was
like all the reeds associated with that bass button sounded initially,
and then all but one would cut out. Upon furrther investigation, I
learned that this technician/accordionist would take trade-ins. I
also found out that the body of the Ciao was made in Korea and that
the funky sounds in the bass were the result of bad original samples
(go fix that!) So, one accordion, really shot and in bad shape went
to my teacher, who wants to experiment with it, and the other four,
the Ciao, a Pancordion Video, a Titano Standard and a twelve-bass I
was saving for my granddaughter were traded in for the Armoniosa.

By the way, my granddaughter is very happy in the fourth grade,
singing in a chorus and taking clarinet lessons.

So discovering where the serial number of the Armoniosa might be on
the instrument itself is my next task. It isn't on the back of the
instrument. I removed the backpad but not the cover of the master bar
linkage. It wasn't there. I lifted the treble grille. It wasn't
inside there. So, I could open the bass side (it's held by screws
through the feet) and I could remove the cover of the master bar
linkage. but I dont have a tool that will let me pull the bellows
pins without scratching the instrument. Maybe my teacher does. I'd
also hate to go back to the dealer for further disassembly (he's more
than an hour away, but that's my final option.)

Now, about the midi that was installed -- it has built-in sounds with
a list almost identical to that of the Ciao, but of much better
quality. It can also run an external expander or arranger module, as
can most of them. It has input for the accordion, but also for a
volume pedal which is included, and for a sustain pedal and a glide
pedal, whatever that is, and the usual midi out, earphones, and left
and right audio. It also has what looks like a midi connector and is
labeled "EXT OUT" which is supposed to be for some future function,
but the dealer couldn't remember just what that was.

It just seems unusual to me that the factory wouldn't have put a
serial number on a paper document that followed the accordion wherever
it went.

On the other hand, this dealer is fluent in Italian, and when he
ordered the accordion he spoke Italian to the factory. My wife and I
were there. Maybe his relationship with the factory is similar to
that of Hasidim in the diamond district, who carry out every
transaction with a handshake?

I would like to get this baby insured and the serial number is the
only thing holding that up!

Take care.

Alan

[Excelsior960]

sounds cool

the Master website has their new MIDI with sound

http://mastermidi.weebly.com/midi-for-accordions.html

maybe that's the one they put in for you - looks
like their newest thing

for pulling the pins without scratches, i took
a thin metal piece, actually an aluminum slot
cover from a computer
(leftover when you put a card in a pci slot)
made a hole then put felt on one side - so i can
slip it over the bellows pin head and then get
the mini-pliers forcefully on the pin without
touching the finish of the body

the plier is like a mini wire cutter but shaped
with the edges faced like a big farriers shoeing tool.
channelock and others make 'em

i found one reference to the brand
http://www.emilioaccordions.com/armoniosaline.html
but there must be more models that this guy
had in his store

> Cooperfisa (or some other ownership with that name)
> is alive and well in Vercelli,

now you mention it, i seem to recall some years
ago the Scottish Gary got a new box from them and
really liked it... they were part of a teaching
facility at that time. the old CooperFisa I remember
was way back, similar to the federFisa arrangement... some
group effort trying to keep healthy during slow times...
you know those efforts come and go with the economy

> I also found out that the body of the Ciao was

> made in Korea.........

well i warned everyone about that factory a decade ago,
and that i saw Korean Bodies getting slipped in and
hidden under italian reeds and names... and those
horrible E. Soprani's - my God - and the "importer"
who pushed Ciao so hard here, he had to have known
after he worked on a few...

so now they have hidden themselves under even more
layers of resurrected old marquee names... almost
make people think Paolo and Silvio would be
happy now to be resurrected like century dead
Vampires in the same accordion factory

and of course the history gets re-written on
the internet to suit... but over there they
don't forget - there are still a lot of
"Partisans" as loyal as ever and you can get
the scoop if you stop and listen.

i mean Paolo burned down his brother Settimo's factory
in the dead of the night, and Silvio invited
him to bring his workers over to his factory
and run a shift overnight so he could fill
his orders and stay in business... out of
kindness and friendship or out of his desire
to stick it to Paolo?

but they wanna pretend like these 2 mortal enemies
would live in the same house today and not cut each
others throats? yeah right

anyhow, hope you enjoy your new box

ciao

Ventura

[Excelsior960]

http://www.cooperfisa.com/

http://www.cooperfisa.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=21

open in Google CHROME browser and you can
let it translate it for you

looks like they do have a delicate thread
back to the original co-operative

don't see your brand here though... maybe it's
a private label

geez they go bananas with the rhinestones!

well, more power to 'em for trying to
keep the craft alive

[Alan Sharkis]

On Tue, 8 Jan 2013 20:04:35 -0800 (PST), Excelsior960
<excels...@gmail.com> wrote:

>sounds cool
>
>the Master website has their new MIDI with sound
>
>http://mastermidi.weebly.com/midi-for-accordions.html
>
>maybe that's the one they put in for you - looks
>like their newest thing

It is the same. However, it's not all that new. I think it was
designed some years back.

What puzzles me is that there's an extra 5-pin DIN socket on mine,
labeled "Ext Out" which is NOT the midi out port that's used to
connect to an expander or arranger module. The dealer says that it's
for a future function, but he doesn't remember what that function
might be. I wrote to Master to find out what it's for, but haven't
received an answer.

The midi unit comes with a volume pedal and has jacks for sustain and
glide pedals. I know what a sustain pedal does, but I've checked all
kinds of references to a "glide" function in midi and there's a lot of
disagreement. Have you ever used one? If so, can you tell me if it's
for portamento, glissando or pitch bend? I've seen all three
references for "glide."

>for pulling the pins without scratches, i took
>a thin metal piece, actually an aluminum slot
>cover from a computer
>(leftover when you put a card in a pci slot)
>made a hole then put felt on one side - so i can
>slip it over the bellows pin head and then get
>the mini-pliers forcefully on the pin without
>touching the finish of the body
>
>the plier is like a mini wire cutter but shaped
>with the edges faced like a big farriers shoeing tool.
>channelock and others make 'em

I don't really have to pull the pins now that the insurance company
decided to cover the accordion without a serial number. Maybe sone
day ...

>i found one reference to the brand
>http://www.emilioaccordions.com/armoniosaline.html
>but there must be more models that this guy
>had in his store
>

As of now, Emilio, who's a professional accordionist as well as a
dealer and tech (trained by Aldo M., accordiong to my teacher) doesn't
really stock any of the new accordions he shows on his Web site,
except for a 48-bass Armoniosa. He custom orders everything. But he
has many used instruments and some antique instruments awaiting
restoration. He will sell a used accordion if somebody wants it, but
his advice is to buy new, if for nothing else then the five-year
warranty (and his profit, I suspect.)

>> Cooperfisa (or some other ownership with that name)
>> is alive and well in Vercelli,
>
>now you mention it, i seem to recall some years
>ago the Scottish Gary got a new box from them and
>really liked it... they were part of a teaching
>facility at that time. the old CooperFisa I remember
>was way back, similar to the federFisa arrangement... some
>group effort trying to keep healthy during slow times...
>you know those efforts come and go with the economy
>

Hmm. You mean Gary Blair? Yes, I found references to him and his
connection to Cooperfisa on the Web.

Gee, is there a link between that family and the Borgias? :-)

>anyhow, hope you enjoy your new box

I am enjoying it tremendously. Thanks.

>ciao
>
>Ventura

[Excelsior960]

my guess would be, considering the influence still felt
from organ-Accordions, it's a half-step de-tuning preset
that lets you simulate a hawaiian guitar
(it's original marketed purpose)

it sould be implemented in any number of ways,
and you could run a midi-stream viewer on your computer
and watch what control number and value it sends
to specifically identify it

even if you don't use it for the defined preset value,
you could use it to trigger some other controller
and/or value using an in-line MIDI manipulator

well i guess that fella impressed you - though with
your knowledge of things, you could have ordered
something directly - or have they kinda banded
together over there to make that difficult again?

though sometimes being able to trade stuff in
ia a relief and way less hassle.

ciao

Ventura

[Alan Sharkis]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:58:19 -0800 (PST), Excelsior960
<excels...@gmail.com> wrote:

>my guess would be, considering the influence still felt
>from organ-Accordions, it's a half-step de-tuning preset
>that lets you simulate a hawaiian guitar
>(it's original marketed purpose)
>
>it sould be implemented in any number of ways,
>and you could run a midi-stream viewer on your computer
>and watch what control number and value it sends
>to specifically identify it

Ever hear of a free program called Midi-OX? I use it often when
things in midi need to be explored or diagnosed. It usually comes
together with another program, Midi-YOKE, which can be useful if you
need virtual patch cords, which I don't at this time, but maybe
someday ... In any event, Midi-OX not only shows what is input to it,
but what it outputs, and it has a ton of things like filters, mappers,
etc., built in. The problem is that I don't always have a computer
handy.

But, there's another way. There is a whole bunch of little in-line,
programmable gadgets from a company called Midi Solutions. I got
their Event Processor Plus when I was having trouble with the constant
stream of volume change messages from the Ciao overrunning more
important data to my DAW. So, I programmed it to filter out all of
those messages, and relied on my ability to add velocity or volume
changes after recording. I also program to map the Ciao's rather
unconventional use of numbers to change banks to something that would
drive the Ketron SD-2 in my computer system properly. By the way, I
will probably do something similar to those two actions with the new
Master Midi Play in the new accordion.

>even if you don't use it for the defined preset value,
>you could use it to trigger some other controller
>and/or value using an in-line MIDI manipulator



>well i guess that fella impressed you - though with
>your knowledge of things, you could have ordered
>something directly - or have they kinda banded
>together over there to make that difficult again?
>
>though sometimes being able to trade stuff in
>ia a relief and way less hassle.

The trade-in factor was a definite advantage for me. I've never
accepted the idea of Craig's List or similar services, and the only
guy I know who trades anything (definitely not musical instruments) on
Ebay is far from beyond reproach.

>ciao
>
>Ventura