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If there could be one greatest thing in the way of combined acoustic and electronic accordions, MIDI accordion is the right name to mention. MIDI accordion is, in fact, considered as one of the latest inventions in the music industry, although they’ve been around a number of years now. Perhaps this is due to the fact that with this instrument, you can play all your standard MIDI synthesizers, whether it is rack-mounted, standalone module, or having a keyboard attached. What is best is that you can also get the original acoustic accordion sounds as well.
Actually, MIDI is simply Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It is a serial or electronic bus standard that was intended for musicians. Typically, it is equipped with a switch on every key and button. Note that a switch and a small circuit board for every key and button are all electronics required inside the accordion. Hence, there is no minimal weigh added to the accordion. Additionally, the circuit board of a MIDI accordion functions to scan the keys and sends out MIDI “Note On” or “Note Off” messages every time a change in the state of a key is detected. The change normally comes out every time a key is pressed or released.
In a MIDI accordion, a cable that attaches the accordion to the synthesizers is always present. This cable is simply a thin cable which weighs similar to that cable used on the old Cordovox accordions. With a MIDI accordion, you have the option to obtain wireless transmitters for the instrument and this is commonly considered so that you have no cable going out of it at all.
There are a number of advantages for a MIDI accordion, and one of these is the fact that the synthesizer technology is continually growing at a much more rapid rate than is the acoustic accordion technology. Therefore, if you have a standard accordion that you really love, you don’t need to trade it whenever there is an improvement in the synthesizer. All you need to do is to keep the same accordion, upgrade the synthesizers to a MIDI accordion, and you’re updated with the new technology.
Another great highlight of MIDI accordion is that they make an ideal MIDI controller, which is a lot better than a typical keyboard controller. With this instrument, you can also set up the MIDI channels for chords, for treble, for bass, and solo, effectively making the sound of the accordion like a five piece band, counting the acoustic accordion as one instrument.
Tagged with: types of accordion
Filed under: Accordion