M Accordion FAQ: How to Mic Your Accordion Hypertextualized from Alan Polivka's accordion FAQ. Please send comments about the contents to the author (AcrdionMan@aol.com) and comments about the WWWification to Phoebe Sengers (phoebe@cs.cmu.edu).

How to Mic Your Accordion

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Question:

What is the best way to mic an accordion for amplification?

Answer:

There are many ways to mic an accordion, each with its own set of pros and cons. The best method depends upon whether you're mic'ing it for amplification or for recording.

If you're RECORDING an accordion, use external mic's on stands - one for the right hand, one for the left hand. For further information on the types of mics, etc. to use in recording accordions, I recommend e-mailing Bob Berta (RKB4%ERF%EbrFacErf@go50.comp.pge.com). He does a very nice, professional quality job of recording accordions. If you just want a very inexpensive method to get decent results, use electret condenser mics. You can buy them for about $20 a piece from Radio Shack. Condenser mics give a much brighter sound than dynamic mics.

After much experimenting with various types of mics for accordions, I can suggest the following if you're wanting to AMPLIFY and accordion:

Use a voice microphone (on a mic stand) to pick up your right hand. Install a standard crystal mic element (available from all accordion supply houses - the same folks I've listed as accordion dealers) inside your accordion, mounted to one of the reed blocks to pick up the left hand. This mic will also provide some amplification for your right hand, but will give excellent (very deep) bass response. When you order the mic, specify that you want a bass mic (one that has good low frequency response), since you'll be using it primarily for amplifying the left hand.

Alternatively, you can rely on the standard approach of installing crystal mics inside the accordion to do it all. There are two different approaches for this:

1. Mount a mic inside the bellows, usually on a reed block, or
2. Mount mics under the grill for the right hand and near the bass mechanism for the left hand.

These approaches (especially #1) have the advantage of allowing a little more volume before incurring feedback and also allow less restriction of player movement (you don't have to always stand in front of a microphone stand). However, the right hand sound quality will not generally be quite as good as you get when playing into an external mic on a stand. This is primarily because the built-in mics are so close that they sound harsh on notes closest to them (due to the high near-far ratio) and secondarily because of the low quality of crystal mics. Approach #1 gives better sound quality (especially for the basses) than #2 but gives you no separate control of right hand vs. left hand volume.

I've obtained especially good results putting electret condenser mics in accordions. These are much more complicated to install, however, and although they are better mics than crystal mics, you'll get very good results if you do what I suggest initially above (external mic). If you are having a mic system professionally installed, I recommend getting an electret condenser mic system.

Dynamic mics (like the Cajun folks attach to the front of their accordions) have some of the advantages of both the external mic (good sound quality) and the built-in mics (freedom of movement). However, they do have one problem in that dynamic mics are very sensitive to vibrations (e.g. they pick up key noise, etc.). Yes, the typical voice mics are also dynamic mics, but if you use one attached to a floor stand rather than to your accordion, it won't pick up the unwanted vibrations (key noise, etc.) on the accordion.

Disclaimer: I make no guarantees regarding the accuracy of any information included here. If you know of any corrections, please let me know via AcrdionMan@aol.com.