On Stage sound set up for the Accordion
TommyMemphis
choices of on-stage amplification. As A guitar player I am somewhat of
a gear head, but it has always amazed me that many accordion players'
live set up is usually nothing more than plugging into an amp or maybe
using an effects box. I thought I would entertain some discussion about
how different people amplify and process the accordion.
Here is my deal.
I play a lot of different styles and mix some traditional Celtic,
Eastern Eurpoean and Latin stuff in with Rock, Pop, Folk, Hip-Hop,
Techno and Blues. I cover anything from John Hiatt, John Prine to ZZ
TOP and Aerosmith to U2.
For numerous reasons I really don't favor built in mics because the
proximity effect causes a real distorted frequency distribution.
Unfortunately, if you are playing at a club volume and moving around
much, it is pretty hard to prevent outboard mics from getting into the
path of monitors and speakers, thereby causing feedback.; ESPECIALLY at
louder volumes. In intimate settings this works, but not when you
really want to kick it out. So I have given in to using the built-in
mics in my Giulietti.
I run both outputs (keyboard and bass) into two whirldwind direct boxes
to get my signal to low impedence, then through an ART PRO VLA tube
compressor, and then to a Behringer Ultragraph Pro EQ. By squeezing the
signal and applying some aggressive EQ, on rock and blues tunes I can
get fiths and fourths on the piano side to sound virtually indetical to
the saw wave sounds of a distorted guitar or a synthesizer saw patch.
On the preparation side I plug my favorite guitar in to my favorite amp
and use the digital EQ to map out the actual EQ output of the guitar,
then I EQ my accordion the same for those tunes that need to drive like
a guitar. The cool thing about the Behringer unit, or some of the new
Drive Rack-type analyzers is that you can change EQ settings at the
touch of a button. It is the contemporary tones that present the most
challenge to the accordionist.
I would be glad to share EQ settings with anyone interested. But as a
general starting point I take everything above 150 HZ down about 6-8
dB, sometimes more if it is very bright hall. Once that is done, I suck
out another "hole" by reducing everything in the range of 500 Hz to
2000 Hz another 2-3 dB. This gives you that tight sound that an
overdriven guitar has.
For the record I have no use for any type of digital accordion. If I
want that sound I just play a Korg Triton.
I generally send the bass output to a crossover, bringing my own
powered 18"sub to the gig. Everything from around 90-100Hz goes to the
sub-woofer and everything above goes to the house PA. I have found that
sending the piano side to a sub really doesn't add much more oomph and
in live situations isn't worth the extra gear.
If the house PA can't handle the inputs, I play through a 4 x 10 Fender
Bassman with the sub always handling the low end.
Playing with a Sub Woofer will definately change the way you play the
accordion. Once you begin hearing a thunderous thud coming out of your
rig, you will by dying to learn new bass lines and riffs for the left
hand. You truly can eliminate the bass player and remain true to having
an authentic, contemporary sound.
On a side note, I cannot stress enough how important the bottom end is
to moving your audience and getting them into the music. Cheap trick?
Do you know who the pioneer of turning up the volume and delivering
thumping bass to live sound? Amizingly, it was the Reverend Jim Baker
who thirsted to bring the same frenzy to his sermons that he saw in
rock concerts. It is pretty well known that the big bottom end did NOT
originate in the back seats of rap-mobiles, but rather........... in
church. Pound it out for Jesus, eh?
A good, pro quality tube compressor will tame the ridiculous dynamic
range that an accordion produces and it will make all electronic sound
reinforcement products work better.
Here is the problem with buying sound reinforcement designed for
accordion. These products, 99.99999% of the time are not designed to
make the accordion sound more rounded and tame, but rather they are
simply designed with more head-room and speaker strength to allow the
problematic characteristics of the accordion to be amplified and
magnified. This makes it even mroe harsh for the listener. The real
trick is to process and tame the accordion BEFORE sending it to the
amplification chain.
For effects I find that the Jimi Hendrix Wah is the best. It has a more
mellow EQ profile than any Wah on the market. If you want a distorted
sound, you have a million options. but remember, the wetter your tuning
is on stage, the more muddy your distorted sound will be.
I like the Boss MegaDeath Distortion pedal the best.
So there you go................ some accordion talk.
Arthur Marshall
from "TommyMemphis" <to...@tunemanproductions.com> contains these words:
> A good, pro quality tube compressor will tame the ridiculous dynamic
> range that an accordion produces and it will make all electronic sound
> reinforcement products work better.
I play melodeon for ceilidhs, with an internal mike through a graphic.
Would a compressor improve the sound, which tend to be extremely toppy?
--
Arthur Marshall
Caller for Traditional Dances
nb Lord Byron's Maggot
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/barndancer
TommyMemphis
are so touchy. It is almost an all or none being that either the sound
is too brights and then, with the slightest change in the knob setting,
Poof, all the highs vanish.
The ART I spoke of is a studio unit and is not up to the rigors of
careless transportation. An inexpensive compressor like an Alesis 3630
for instance really won't do much for you. A less expensive alternative
is the Behringer tube COmpressor. The model is either T-1950 or T 1951.
Something like that. there are three T models, one is a compressor, one
is a pre amp and one is a tube EQ.
A tube compressor tends to be mroe melodic since tubes accent even
oreder harmonics. Solid state compressors accent the odd order
harmonics and as such are really not enhanving to the accordion.
Evening out your dynamic range will make the high end much less
offensive.
RatpackMD
I have 3 Sennheiser condenser mics installed - 2 on the treble side, 1 on
the bass. These are not wired in stereo, but do have seperate volume
controls for balance. I use an AKG WMS wireless system, which adds a
certain amount of compression and bass roll-off to the sound. This is
actually a positive thing, as it helps tame the sound a bit. I do use
effects (sometimes), but I like to keep things simple. I use a floor type
multi-effects unit - Digitech Vx400. It is designed as a microphone effects
unit rather than a guitar type effects processor. It has mic modeling,
pre-amp simulator, compressor, eq, reverb, delay, additional effects such as
detune or doubler and a programmable pedal (good for volume control). These
can be stacked and edited and stored for later use.
For back line, I use a Roland keyboard amp (I use 2 other keyboards as
well). I have a small PA system that I use if there is no house system (300
watts to mains, 300 watts to monitors, 2 2-way 15" cabinets, 2 2-way 10"
monitors). If there is a house system, I use Whirlwind direct boxes to split
my signals.
I mostly work in Las Vegas. You have to be able to get all your equipment
in and out in one trip with no help from anyone else. I know that seperate
components would sound better, but any extra weight or bulk has to be
eliminated. If it doesn't fit on the cart, it stays home.
_______________________________________________________
"TommyMemphis" <to...@tunemanproductions.com> wrote in message
news:1140795066.2...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Dave Garland
<to...@tunemanproductions.com> wrote:
>For those of you who play live, I would be interested in hearing your
>choices of on-stage amplification.
I'm not a pro. I do mostly folk, East European, klezmer, oldtime.
So, at the very opposite end of the spectrum, I just play up close into
a mic (SM57). And use the same mic to announce from. Running through
an inexpensive Yamaha mixer to a keyboard amp. Outside, add a second
keyboard amp. No FX at all. Low budget. In any case, without a sound
guy or monitors it's hard enough to know what it sounds like to the
audience without complicating things. On those rare occasions when we
have a sound guy, we just do whatever he tells us to do.
It's true that I can't amplify both bass and treble sides at the same
time, but there's a piano, a mandolin/guitar, and a clarinet/sax in the
group, so I don't need to be a one-man band.
Dave
John C.
"TommyMemphis" <to...@tunemanproductions.com> wrote in message
news:1140795066.2...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
your
choices of on-stage amplification. As A guitar player I am
somewhat of
a gear head, but it has always amazed me that many accordion
players'
live set up is usually nothing more than plugging into an amp or
maybe
using an effects box. I thought I would entertain some discussion
about
how different people amplify and process the accordion.
Here is my deal.
I play a lot of different styles and mix some traditional Celtic,
Eastern Eurpoean and Latin stuff in with Rock, Pop, Folk,
Hip-Hop,
Techno and Blues. I cover anything from John Hiatt, John Prine to
ZZ
TOP and Aerosmith to U2.
For numerous reasons I really don't favor built in mics because
the
proximity effect causes a real distorted frequency distribution.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is primarily I believe, due to the fact that internal mikes
are rarely if ever installed correctly. I haven't seen a lot of
internal installations, but the several I've seen all had the
mikes or pickups attached solidly to the body or soldered
directly to a circuit board with a short solid wire with the
circuit board screwed directly to the frame. With an
installation like this, the pickups can't help but pick up all
sorts of extraneous stuff. For what its worth, I just modified
an installation for someone that had 4 sennheisers mounted on a
circuit board strip for the treble. It sounded awful.. The fix
was simple. I unsoldered the pickups, attached short pieces of
very flexible thin audio cable to them and glued them to a small
foam pad with urethane (like shoe goo) and reattached them to the
circuit board in the same approximate location. Also put a piece
of foam weatherstrip under the circuit board to act as a sound
damper and to keep the circuit board from vibrating..
A real easy fix that made a huge difference. Another good mod
that, although it had nothing to do with the sound quality was to
replace the volume control with a five turn pot - makes it much
easier to adjust volume level.
As I recall there was a very long thread about internal mikes on
this group about a year or so ago that talked about this sort of
thing in great detail.
John C.
TommyMemphis
be exaggerated and as you mention undesireable sounds will be picked
up. I would imagine your fix made a good improvement.
The mics in my Giulietti are installed properly, but I am spolied to
listening to acoustic instruments recorded and even amplified with
nice, small diaphragm condensers. The high end sound of internal mics
coupled with too many unpredicatble phase cancellations continues to
drive me nuts.
Perhaps someone will deveop a transducer types system That would be a
nice fix for sure.
snavo...@neo.rr.com
Not transducer type but most certainly an encased condenser properly
placed and directed eliminates those problems. In the past, encased
crystal mics were the epitome of a warm sound. The latter is what I
used throughout my vocational years and I still use them over todays
products.
--
Stephen J. Navoyosky