Hiyo! My name's Brendan Vavra, and I started a crazy project to turn an acoustic accordion into a MIDI accordion - something I would not have thought was possible until I stumbled across someone who did just that.

If you're interested in building your own MIDI Accordion, or if you're just curious about how it was done, you can head over to the Project Overview page to get started, or you can check out the GitHub Readme for the condensed version. I'll also be posting blogs here every now and then - some will be in-depth retrospectives on various parts of my project, and others will be cool things can do you with the accordion when you're done. I'll also post any updates I make to the software/hardware.

Thanks for reading, and happy squeezing!

Putting together this page took a significant amount of time - if you found this information helpful and wish to show your appreciation, please consider donating!

Documentation Updates

New pages for Bluetooth and Pressure Sensor

Posted on December 24, 2019

Hiyo, It’s been a long time coming, but I finally got around to finishing and uploading detailed pages on setting up the MIDI Accordion’s Bluetooth and pressure sensors. Thanks to denia85 for opening an issue asking for more documentation around the pressure sensor, which was just the kick I needed... [Read More]

MIDI Accordion v1.3 Release

Accordion Whammy Bar

Posted on October 10, 2017

MIDI Accordion version 1.3 introduces support for a new component: a joystick that can be used to control pitch bend! I positioned the joystick to be triggered by the accordion’s master switch palm button, thus creating a whammy bar: Here’s a demo video of the whammy bar in action: In... [Read More]

MIDI Accordion v1 Release

It's DONE!

Posted on December 10, 2016

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! After 10 months and over 250 hours of dedicated time, my MIDI Accordion has finally come to life! Check it out! Now that I know my implementation works, I’m excited to share this project page with everyone to inspire other accordionists/musicians/programmers/tinkerers/etc. to do the same. If you want to... [Read More]

Introduction

Welcome to the MIDI Accordion Project Page

Posted on February 5, 2016

Hiyo! My name’s Brendan Vavra, and I started a crazy project to turn an acoustic accordion into a MIDI accordion - something I would not have thought was possible until I stumbled across someone who did just that. If you’re interested in building your own MIDI Accordion, or if you’re... [Read More]