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[Clive Williams]

(I know, I know, I won't go on unisonorics yet again).


Clive

Please do.

Heh heh. All right then.

One of my 12 bass boxes has a bass setup like this (push/pull)

C/C   Bm/Bm   Em/Em
G/G   D/D       A/A

Mad? Yes, quite possibly. You have every chord you have on an 8 bass, but you have them in both directions. Which means you can play them conventionally (oom-pah, etc), or you can press and hold notes to create drones regardless of how you're playing the treble line. It's really quite a powerful setup, but it's not too hard to learn - it took me a few days to get my head properly round it. You can hear the sort of effects you can get on the Jan Lucas track here: http://www.clivew.com/vivant/vivant.php.

Now, I hear you say, doesn't that destroy your ability to play conventional melodeon-style basses, which gives the melodeon drive, etc? Um, with a bit of practice, no. The clever thing you see, is that the pull chord is always to the right of where it would be on an 8 bass. So you just have to move your hand to the right when you want a D chord on the pull. The A chord on the pull is again one pair of buttons off to the right from where it would normally be. So it's quite easy to play as you would normally play, but just play the pull chords slightly differently to how you'd do them on an 8 bass. It's actually still quite easy to play an 8 bass - it doesn't mess up your 8 bass technique at all - in fact Carousel on the Vivant page is done (you'll be delighted to hear) on an old Hohner Club, 8 bass.  If you look at the 'Name that Tune' thread I put up a couple of weeks ago, there's a snatch of tune here: http://www.clivew.com/download/whatsthis.mp3. This is played on a unisonoric bass setup, with very little thought from me - I just dashed it off quickly to demonstrate the tune, not any playing technique. But is it noticably different to what you'd get on an 8 bass with conventional basses?

Now, I hear you say, melodeons are designed to be restrictive, and that's part of their charm... well, yes they are, and I agree. I've merely moved the restriction level a bit. It's still restrictive, but it can do a bit more than it could. That's part of the joy of melodeons in my book - the design is not fixed in stone, and individual players can set them up to fit in with their style and what they're trying to do. If you go to French festivals, you see lots of 18 bass players. I mean *lots* of 18 bass players. They're probably more common than 12 basses these days. You can do an awful lot with an 18 bass, but for me, that's a little further than I'd like to go in terms of lifting the restriction level. So I guess, I agree with you - I just like life a *little* easier (but not a lot easier!)

Cheers,

Clive

[Doug Anderson]

Interesting. I've been tempted to try a 12-button mini-Stradella arrangement, but I find that more often than not my bisonoric bass helps me find a workable accompaniment when the treble side gets complicated. Of course, when it goes bad it can go very very bad  :-)

[Larry Anthony]

I have been thinking for some time now of modifying my G/C/F bass to that shown in the attachment.   I don't know whether I should get new reeds or re-tune the ones I have.   What do you think?

[Theo]

Since they are all unisonoric one route would be to find a dead piano accordion and use the reeds from that, then you could put the original reeds back if you don't like the result.

[Larry Anthony]

Since they are all unisonoric one route would be to find a dead piano accordion and use the reeds from that, then you could put the original reeds back if you don't like the result.

I have been looking, mainly on eBay, for some time now but people seem to be prepared to pay silly money for them.
And how would I know if the reeds are any good when buying through such a medium?

On the other hand maybe someone like you good self may have one going  for a song

Thanks

[Theo]

Try a wanted ad in Adtrader or similar or Freecycle.

There are loads of old piano accordions out there that people want to get rid of.

[Stiamh]

One of my 12 bass boxes has a bass setup like this (push/pull)
C/C   Bm/Bm   Em/Em
G/G   D/D       A/A

I really like the idea of unisonoric basses. But the trouble with that layout is that too many chords are missing... on my current 12-bass C#/D I have all those plus F, F# and C# (but only G, A and B in both directions, and the A is on two different buttons). I could lose the C# without any great hardship but not the F and F#... having too much fun with those. And going to 18 basses is definitely a step too far... Maybe 14, Joe Derrane style...

BTW where's George? We need one of those periodic reminders of the advantages of the stradella system...

[Clive Williams]

One of my 12 bass boxes has a bass setup like this (push/pull)
C/C   Bm/Bm   Em/Em
G/G   D/D       A/A

I really like the idea of unisonoric basses. But the trouble with that layout is that too many chords are missing... on my current 12-bass C#/D I have all those plus F, F# and C# (but only G, A and B in both directions, and the A is on two different buttons). I could lose the C# without any great hardship but not the F and F#... having too much fun with those. And going to 18 basses is definitely a step too far... Maybe 14, Joe Derrane style...

BTW where's George? We need one of those periodic reminders of the advantages of the stradella system...

Yes, I agree with you - my Mory is tuned to a hybrid system that tries to give the best of both worlds:

C/C Bm/Em F#m/F
G/G D/D     A/A

I put a full diagram for my Mory tuning in the keyboard layout section in the main site a couple of days ago if anyone's interested.

I think this is a pretty good compromise for a 12 bass box.... but perhaps I need an 18 bass ? 

Cheers,

Clive

[george garside]

I have been thinking for some time now of modifying my G/C/F bass to that shown in the attachment.   I don't know whether I should get new reeds or re-tune the ones I have.   What do you think?

not sure what the + or - means on your chart.  Howevr 12 tunisoric (same both ways) bass would give all youve shown olus a bit more  i.e fundemental & major chord for  Bflat FCGDA.  With 18 stradella you could also have the minor chords for all these. 
george
back again thanks to theo who has sorted out the difficulties I was having loggin on - Thanks Theo

[Larry Anthony]

I have been thinking for some time now of modifying my G/C/F bass to that shown in the attachment.   I don't know whether I should get new reeds or re-tune the ones I have.   What do you think?

not sure what the + or - means on your chart.  Howevr 12 tunisoric (same both ways) bass would give all youve shown olus a bit more  i.e fundemental & major chord for  Bflat FCGDA.  With 18 stradella you could also have the minor chords for all these. 
george
back again thanks to theo who has sorted out the difficulties I was having loggin on - Thanks Theo

(+ = major chords) and (- = Minor chords) corresponding to the fundamental basses, however I did consider removing the thirds so that major and minor would be undefined.

[george garside]

removing the thirds works well, particularly for dance music where rhythm is king. The bass layout using either 8 or 12 buttons ,same both ways or push pull, is bound to be limited but can be  set up with notes & chords to suite a particular style of playing  .  This is probably ok if you play mainly one particular type of music  and on that score it is sensible to make the mods easily reversible in case you change/extend your repertoire or indeed in case you want to sell the box.  For what its worth  I think the limited bass is best used as  the rhythm section (getting what harmony you can but not getting knickrs in a twist over what you cant do) meanwhile  generating harmony (fairly easy on 4th aprt boxes)  by shoving down a varied selection of right hand buttons simultaneously or partially simultaneosly!.  For semitone boxes the idea of  just having 8 'thirdless' major chords  has considerable appeal to me & one of these days I will get round to modifying one so that you would have reasonable harmony plus rhythm in keys of FCGDAE. As to the hybrid layouts I think I would find them a bit confusing to play!

george