Purchasing an Accordian?

I have had a lot of requests asking me about my make and model of accordian by those of you who like the sound of mine or the accordian sound on Amelie, so I thought I would answer them all here for everyone. Firstly, I play an "Allodi" accordian, and actually this is really because there is not much choice here in England and they have a large shop full of high quality Accordians in London - however - since purchasing the instrument I have actually had the sound of it altered by a technician as the sound was too 'bright' - whereas I wanted it to be more 'bittersweet'.

You see, the tuning of an accordian is achieved through 'musette', where two or more sets of reeds are tuned slightly off pitch from each other. The smaller the musette, the more bittersweet and wistful the sound. Larger musettes will give you that brash tango sound you can hear on most italian accordian music. If you like my sound, or the sound from Amelie, you really want one voice setting with a very small musette, as heard here:





...and one voice setting with a slightly larger musette (still small in comparison to true Musette) as heard here:





On the bass side, you will find that Accordians come with a different number of bass buttons - my model is a 96 bass, which is plenty enough for me. Finally - women's models are generally a little smaller - I actually began learning on a women's model without knowing it was one, before purchasing my Allodi.

Hope this helps everyone in their quest for the right instrument.

- Dave