Which would you choose, and why, both C#/D and for the same price ? About the only difference being that the Ciacy doesn’t have the bass stop but is full size and with super durall reeds.
I appreciate your thoughts
I guess you’re a bit too far away from the Button Box to pop down and try them, Don, but that would be the ideal thing to do. I have never seen or tried a Ciacy so cannot compare. I’ve owned a Bouebe and they’re a great little box.
If you intend to make any sort of use of the basses, the ability to go thirdless is essential. You could probably tape up the thirds on the Ciacy - maybe the shop could do it for you.
The Ciacy will be considerably better finished and prettier generally so if aesthetics are very important, you’d probably like it better. But in the mechanicals department, the Bouebe has a nice design feature for esp. C#/D playing: the inner row of buttons opens the outer row of pallets, giving the inner row a more open and more powerful sound (the reverse of what happens on most two-row boxes, where the inner row sounds more flutey and muffled, due to the pallets not opening so wide).
Saltarelle have had a reputation for slightly hit-and-miss quality control in recent years, but I’ve heard of the odd lemon coming from Castagnari too. Based on other Castagnaris I’ve tried (Dinn II, Tommy and Dinn III), the Ciacy will probably require less “breaking in” of the bellows, i.e. be easier to play at first. But according to Castagnari website, it weighs 3.7 kg, which seems heavy for a 2-voice box. Can’t remember how much the Bouebe weighs but I think it’s nearly a kg (about 2 lbs) lighter.
Someone I know bought a Bouebe a few months ago (from the Button Box) and it seems to be in very good fettle. Like the one advertised at present, it’s dry tuned, which I think is a waste of reeds. The one I had was swing tuned and sounded lovely - a more interesting and complex tone than Castagnaris IMO.
You can hear older Bouebes being played by the likes of Eoghan O Sullivan on The Smoky Chimney CD and also used by John Williams on his tutorial DVD. Both sound great.
Probably sounds as though I’m pushing you in the direction of the Bouebe - I’m not really, just that I know them and like them. The Ciacy might be better but I’ve never seen or heard one, let alone played one.
Thanks StevieJ for the insight. Your comment about playing the bass side is important to me. I have began working the bass on a few tunes on my rented box and think the bass makes a big difference in the overall experience.
I guess I don’t understand what removing the thirds has to do with the function or sound as this box has no registers or shifts at all. (Weltmiester model 510 three voice.
Removing the thirds is what the bass stop on the Bouebe does. All the chords are major by default - tonic + major third + fifth. When you remove the third you end up with a two-note chord, tonic and fifth, which will sound right in both a major and a minor context.
In other words, without a bass stop (or a taping intervention) to block the thirds, you can forget about accompanying a tune in Am, Em, or Bm - not to mention Dm and Gm when you’re ready to tackle tunes in those keys.
I prefer the sound of thirdless chords, even when the tune calls for a full major triad. The equal-tempered major third makes for a graunchy sounding chord. So taping over the thirds to remove them (semi-) permanently is no loss to my mind.
Thanks again StevieJ, now I understand. I have been working on the tune by Charlie Lennon “McDonagh’s” in the Em key. I was having trouble finding the bass to go with the melody 
It’s great to have an experienced player like yourself help us newbie folk.
Thanks Don, but experience is relative you know. I talk better than I play! 
BTW that tune, McDonagh’s, is often called “Charlie Lennon’s”, but I’ve been told he didn’t compose it. Great C#/D box tune!
Thanks from me as well for the good explanation of the stops, Steve. I finally understand.
Could I ask what is meant by swing tuning, as well as musette? The Serenellini which I borrowed for a time was musette. It had a definite distinctive sound which I can’t describe.
The Brock McGuire Band will give a concert in Columbia, MO later this month. I’m not familiar with Paul Brock but the tunes they’ve played on our local radio sound very listenable, very traditional.
Jenny
Paul Brock is a great box player - plays a one-row melodeon in D and a C#/D. The McGuire part is Manus McGuire, great fiddle player, well known in his own right and as part of a duo with his brother Seamus, like Manus both a fiddle player and a doctor! The young banjo player, Enda Scahill, is a hot property. http://brockmcguire.com/
Tuning: short answer - musette tuning is “wet”, lots of tremolo. Not very fashionable these days, unlike swing tuning, which is much “drier” - very slight tremolo.
Long answer: most boxes have at least two treble “voices” - sets of reeds. (Your Dancemaster, and the two models Don was asking about, and lots of others, have just those two voices and no more.)
Traditionally they are deliberately tuned slightly differently and this is what gives the tremolo sound. For any given note, at least one of the reeds will be tuned slightly sharp or flat of concert pitch. So when you sound your note of A, there will actually be two notes sounding, one maybe at 440Hz, another at 442Hz or another value. The interference between these frequencies is what creates the tremolo.
The size of the gap between the two voices determines the amount of tremolo, or “wetness” if you like. The greater the gap, the greater the tremolo. Tremolo is often described in terms of “beats per second”: sound a long note on your box and you’ll hear a “wah-wah” effect - the “beats” created by the interference of the two frequencies.
The greater the gap, the greater the tremolo, the greater the number of beats per second.
In musette tuning (the name comes from the French valse musette, which is stereotypical French café accordion music) you’ll have many beats per second. In swing, far fewer - maybe only one or two in fact.
Another way of expressing the tuning difference is in “cents” (a cent being a hundredth of a semitone), and in fact definitions of swing, musette and other tunings habitually quote the difference in cents.
These terms are all rather imprecise however. Different makers and tuners seem to mean different things by them, so they are to be taken as general guides.
More info here (with simulated sound examples): http://www.accordionpage.com/wetdry.html
Some theory here: http://www.hmtrad.com/catalog/articles/theory.html
A recent thesession.org thread: http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16681
HTH
Steve
Terrific explanation, Steve. That does help quite a lot. Also increases my appreciation for the skill that goes into crafting a good accordion.
Jenny