December 27, 2016
I was looking to change the design on the bass side but I never received the bag of extra black and white bass buttons, so called up a local Roland dealer. They were willing to help, but for a stupid ridiculous price and 2 months wait as apparently the parts were on backorder.
No thanks, lets see what my friends in the Yahoo forums would say. I posted on the FR-8x Yahoo forum asking for info about if anyone had spare buttons for the bass side for sale, as this was something that I did not get when I purchased the V-accordion.
Well, within 24 hours, Jim D. from Falcetti Music responded. We exchanged a couple of emails and then I called him directly. Jim had all the buttons I needed, and then some. On top of that, he told me that he had some jeweled buttons with Swarovski crystals no less! Well, we discussed things a bit and decided on postage format and destination. The price was a ridiculously affordable $15 for all the buttons I asked for, and more for spares. In fact, the shipping from the US to Canada came out more than the cost of the buttons!
The package was sent via USPS Priority Post, and I expect the package to arrive within a week, after which I will take some pictures.
I’ve not decided completely on what design I will change it to, however I know that I want the “C” button of the Free Bass (using the system of my choice) changed to one that holds a Swarovski crystal, and I will definitely look to change the design a bit. Not sure if the design change will be mild, wild or something else. I’ll just have to surprise you once I have decided.
Oh, I also wanted to mention something else! Thanks to some pictures I saw even before I got my 8x, I knew that some 8x accordions demonstrated this unwanted vibration on the bass box side thanks to the woofer thumping out hard low notes at high volumes (care to guess who took those pictures? Yup, Jim D.!)
I noticed my 8x did this soon after I started playing at full volume and deep bass settings, and I also mentioned this in my phone conversations with Jim. He was nice enough to let me know that he had some extra gasket material (“enough to do 3 accordions”), and that he would be including it in the package. What a nice guy!
That was not all, he started asking me other questions like about the bellows straps and if I got the Roland cover with the accordion, all of which I am good, but the thing is that he took the time to talk to me and during our banter, went to the trouble to make sure I was good not just with what I thought I needed, but he went over and above and even suggested that if I ran in to troubles with the vibration repairs, that he could Skype me through the process.
Did I mention that he’s a super nice guy? 🙂
More to come after the package arrives!
Addendum January 5th
Package arrived, tomorrow I am going to play with a few designs!
Addendum January 6th
I must have played with perhaps 10 designs and ended up going subtle. Thanks to the number of buttons Jim sent, I had a lot of possibilities. In the end, I ended up doing the following:
Used 5 Swarovski crystal buttons to identify the “C” note of every Free Bass octave (4 back, 1 white)
Extended the “V” symbol at the counter-bass row by 4 buttons and bass row by 2 button with “standard” white buttons.
Added a standard white button at the very top middle of the “V” on the counter-bass row.
Changed the 2 outer concave buttons in the bass row for “cross-hatched” ones (1 black, 1 white)
The results are definitely easy to notice, but not overtly wild. I preferred a bit of subtlety, and I think I achieved the look I want while looking unique at the same time. The nice thing is that I can change the look tomorrow easily.
Here are the before and after pics
Oh, not totally related, but my sister bought me some “crystals” and I added 4 blue ones to my right hand registers. They make finding the right button quite a bit easier. So now I have 4 white and 4 blue… perfect!
ADDENDUM March 25, 2017
The New “more perfect” Look!
I needed a change for a couple of reasons, first it looked a touch plain and second, I was needing a little extra reference when hitting registers, so what I did was remove the register “diamonds” and created a new design where each register is identified. Using the colours of the Czech flag (blue, white, red), I placed the new sparkles in place. Things are easier to spot quicker now and I like the look a little better. It makes my 8x a little more different from the plain version as it comes from the factory!
I love it!