Iorio Bass Button #5
Single button from my mom's vintage 1950's IORIO tone chamber accordion. Pitch it down...for giant sound! preview instrument made w phone- see desc!


ByJay Lifton
The story
I used to play this accordion when I was a kid. It was so heavy I would need an adult to help me get it out of the case, and even then I was a little worried that it would fall on me and I would be stuck there forever. Luckily the spirit of the Yankovics- Al or Frank- your choice, was with me, and I lived to begin sampling this beast. What you’re hearing now is just a preview of the #5 button on the left-hand side, and just some of the unison notes, sampled with my phone. The higher notes are some short bits that I paulstretched to be unnaturally long. The low octave is almost pipe organesque when pitched down. If this gets favorable reviews, I may attempt to deep sample the whole thing with nice mics. If it gets trashed, and come now, are you really taking time out of your day to trash a free sample library made with a phone? In that case I shall just let a giant accordion fall on me and re-evaluate life’s true purpose.
IBB#5
Reviews
A kinda cinematic accordion, maybe?
This might be the most interesting take I've heard on the accordion. It has this very weird texture, in a good way, that makes it kind of cinematic to my ears. It feels somehow uncanny to me for some reason, but again, in a good way. Was it really recorded with a phone? Damn.
YES! But...
Very beautiful! But now there are a lot of samples missing...please?
An interesting mix of sounds from a quality accordion
A synthy upper register (presumably the 'unnaturally stretched short notes') with a more traditional sound in the middle and really big bass sound. The phone mic has functioned surprisingly well for decent sound quality but there are some anomalies with the instrument/samples themselves that make it difficult to play. Mainly there is a strange and inconsistent latency between different reeds (octaves) on the notes so the bass octave kicks in some interval after the treble, and at least one of the notes has a stop-start.
This iteration of the instrument has fairly limited usefulness for me, but I think there is a lot of promise for a sequel based on the lovely tone of the instrument, even through a phone mic. I hope Jay will bless us with a deep-sampled and slightly more consistent version of the instrument in future because I think there is potential for a really good quality accordion sample instrument here!