Session notes.

[Drew Stephenson]

My cheap plastic accordion has very noisy bellows so one thing I've been thinking about is sticking a ribbon mic side-on in front the centre of the bellows.

[Bob Bickerton]

Yep, noisy bellows really suck..........

Bob

[Hugh Robjohns]

Hey Bob, is this your coat?

[Arpangel]

My cheap plastic accordion has very noisy bellows so one thing I've been thinking about is sticking a ribbon mic side-on in front the centre of the bellows.

The "noise" of the accordion is an essential part of our music, the reason why the Microvox pick-up is such a failure is that it doesn’t pick-up bellows noise, or finger tapping on the instrument very well at all, it sounds really unnatural, and weak.
With our microphones it gets picked up perfectly, so that’s a major thing against using contact mic's.
My friend wants to try it on our next session, as he seems keen on improving the separation issue, but to me, it’s not a problem, we have enough separation with our latest mic set-up, the downsides of the contact mic far outweigh any increases in separation IMO.

[shufflebeat]

If memory serves, your project involves real time improvisation with real life sound sources, i.e., accordion (mic) and synth/amp (mic).

I'd have thought this is the perfect scenario where a bit of mic bleed is an artistic positive rather than a technical negative.

By God, if this is some kind of extended ankle-showing campaign to whet our appetites in anticipation of a Grand Reveal it's a bloody good one.

Kidding, no pressure. Enjoy your noodling.

[Sam Spoons]

My friend wants to try it on our next session, as he seems keen on improving the separation issue, but to me, it’s not a problem, we have enough separation with our latest mic set-up, the downsides of the contact mic far outweigh any increases in separation IMO.

Do you have enough inputs to record both the pickup in addition to the usual mic setup? If so that's what I would do.

[Arpangel]

By God, if this is some kind of extended ankle-showing campaign to whet our appetites in anticipation of a Grand Reveal it's a bloody good one.

Kidding, no pressure. Enjoy your noodling.

I’ve been rumbled

But everything you say is more than true, about mic bleed, it does sound great, I’ve just got to let my friend use the pick-up, and as Sam says, use the mics at the same time.
We are working towards an album, and it’ll be posted as soon as it’s done.
We are making headway, trying to use the accordion in accessible but different ways, we’re not after making a noise album, we want it to be a new take on looking at electronics with the accordion, as best we can, if we can.