Discussions > Instrument Makes and Models
Marc Sérafini
-Y-:
Good news folks, Marc Sérafini is back in business.
He's reopened a website (http://diatoz.fr) where you can discover the new classical models (made on his specifications by Maugein and Mengascini) and the return of Darwin model, plus a new one, which is an 18 basses version of the Darwin.
melodeon:
That's great news !
Winston Smith:
"That's great news !"
As long as they aren't made by Dino Baffetti, I presume, eh?
-Y-:
I'm not sure to follow all the implications of your message Edward, but from what I can gather, prior to his comeback, things were a bit chaotic for Marc Sérafini, and perhaps before his break he took too many orders, and couldn't honor them properly (my tuner explained to me that he'd have to re-do most of the interior stuff of a Serafini that was done just before he temporarily stopped his activity). Now, I see the option of having more classical models being made by acknowledged small factories a good way for him to concentrate fully on making good high-end models that are innovative and bringing much (IMO) to the melodeon world.
After having manually entered several hundreds of accordions models in my database, it's rare to see fully customizable accordions. Agreed, sometimes that's not what you want: sometimes you just want a plain model that does its job well. Some companies have made their business model accordingly, I think in particular of the Italian factories that aim at having the most reproducible work as possible, and for which adaptability is not the keyword. See for instance the latest 24 basses from Castagnari: it's a feature that was asked from several people and it took the name of someone enough well known to have it available as standard in the catalogue.
Marc Sérafini, however, has initiated a trend, particularly visible in the makers he trained (Miguel Gramontain, Jérémie Vanglabeke, Antoine Errotaberea and - I think - Tania Rutkowski) to make more personal accordions. Not the same production type so, you can't really compare what's not comparable.
We talked at length here of the need of some accordionists to have more flexible registration. It's the case on the Sanfona and Darwin models, which feature 6 stops on the left hand to have a variety of sound.
More generally, I feel that regarding the melodeon we're lagging behind the CBA world in terms of sonorities and what's available. So yes, great news I think.
Winston Smith:
Perhaps I should have made it more plain! My flippant comment was with regards to melodeon's posting (reproduced below) on another thread, and regarding what I view as the beginnings of a similar manufacturing/trading/retailing arrangement.
"Saltarelle don't actually make anything though.."
Contrarily, yes they do. They make money.
And they talk as if they do make accordeons , and defend their quality in spite of the obvious, and contest the first hand observations and comments made by players and owners, to include we of the Parish Pushers of Buttons.
I find no reason to use solid woods unless of extreme quality and figure. Modest quality laminates far exceed the solid woods used by Saltarelle instruments made by Dino Baffetti.
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