Chiff and Fipple Forums

I played irish tradition on accordion back in the 90s and then some latin stuff during the first half of 2000s, and gave up music entirely for about 15 years. The bands I played with all had electric guitars and amps, so I tended to overplay to compete with those amps that were nearby and my accordions all ended up having problems (not to mention I live in the southern US, so crazy humidity).

I'll probably run my 20 year old hohner someplace to get cleaned up, but I'm thinking of going digital for playing out. I'm starting to play Irish Traditional once again and the hohner really isn't ideal for the sound I want (I'd also love to try learning some Piazolla, but not sure how well that would transfer over to PA nor whether I'd ever get good enough to really pull it off). So, I'm leaning toward getting one of these.

It'll be a few months before I could actually start considering spending that much, but I'm curious what folks think about them. All of the reviews talk about how light it is, but the weight suggests it's probably no different from my old Hohner, so I'm guessing they are comparing them to the accordians with a huge number of reeds. From what I saw on youtube, if you know what you are doing, it sounds really good, but it can also sound like a crappy keyboard with an accordion sound...probably related to how you are using (or not using) the bellows.

Also, is there anyone in the Middle Tennessee area that could recommend a place for an overhaul? I'm not sure the tuning is too bad, but there are some frozen reeds and other issues from sitting in my closet for 10-15 years ignored and from playing at shows with the guitarist's amp at my feet.

I have owned a Fr4x. It was really a nice set up I had the pedal too. It could do a lot if you were preforming and spent the time to really learn the ins and outs of it. I just used it at home and found that I liked the FR1 alot more due to back problems.