Now here is a question I have been thinking about recently…Having spent years playing keyboards that can do just about anything…backings always on time..everything too perfect…and having recently come across some folk playing folk and Irish trad using such instruments…I found myself objecting to their use in folk and Irish trad…kept my objections to myself as I had no wish to offend…Ive now progressed(or have I regressed) to whistle and accordion…hope I’m not being pompous but I see no place for gizmos in either style of music…thoughts ? Les.
I am counting the days till I can get an electronic concertina…or would be if there was a release date. Can’t wait to plug in some headphones and play it on the underground… 
I read, and unfortunately I can’t remember the book, that traditional music (yes, I know it changes—not saying this to you, Les, it’s just an ongoing discussion that I’m trying to forestall until I can say my piece and run) is based on a particular style and a particular repertoire.
I think instruments would be included in style—for example bluegrass music is generally played on fiddle, mandolin, bass, banjo, and guitar and has high tenor vocals, although sometimes one of these instruments is missing.
I have heard bluegrass music that sounded good with different instruments than listed above. It even sounded great. But I don’t feel that it would be called traditional. I mean no insult to the music when I say it is non-traditional. I just mean that the style is non-traditional. It’s just a comment on history basically.
I feel the same way about Irish music. I like to distinguish between what is traditional and what isn’t. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty of extremely fine non-traditional Irish music. It doesn’t mean that the musicians are not extremely accomplished. But it is just a different category to me, it is just keeping the history straight.
So, I would agree with you that these electronic things (I have no idea what they do) would not be in music that was termed traditional Irish music. They would be in music called non-traditional Irish music. I don’t really know what the folk music genre is exactly, so I will keep my mouth shut on that one.
As for one’s preferences, which I believe one could have without it meaning that one is insulting the music one doesn’t prefer, I almost always prefer to listen to and attempt to play quite traditional music in terms of style and repertoire. So if a group used these keyboards, although you could be surprised and I have been sometimes, I myself would probably not enjoy the music as much as if it was the old time music. Just my opinion. I will start running now. 
There are differing types of electronic instrument.
The type I understand you to refer to is the “entertainer”
type multi-function keyboard. Any “pre-set” music will
sound somewhat artificial because it is MIDI code -
if only, as you pointed out, because of PERFECT timing.
But there are the sampler type instruments which do not
have any backings or rythms etc. The type of instrument
I have come to use is a high quality electric piano with
good sampled sounds. This means the sounds start life
as real instruments with the attack, delays, harmonics
and decays all have a natural feel to them.
I love the piano but my place is a bit too small to accomodate
any decent sized instrument, so started my quest to get an
authentic sounding electronic piano.
This type of synth, when recorded or played through a decent
amplification system, is very close to real life on strings, piano etc.
I believe sensitive use of this type of instrument is not only fine
but sometimes unnoticable, especially in recordings.
Another area I believe there is room for ‘sensitive’ use of a synth
is in traditional music is to provide the bass line or drone effect,
like one hears on the Uilleann Pipes, or in the Tambura or Shruti
Box of Indian music.
Traditional music has always been evolving and continually adopts
new and available instruments. It is what “sounds right” or appropriate
for the music that counts. Time and public opinion have seemed to
settle that question reasonably well to date.
Gizmos…
I keep wishing for an electronic flute to take to sessions…so I could wear headphones and play along “silently”…or for that matter, a black box that could tune out the guy who should be playing silently !
My next conquest will be a Camac Baby Blue electric harp that you plug into a guitar amp. To which I will hook up my Vox Tonelab guitar processor, and wail away with feedback, distortion, wah, and pitchbend. Maybe a wooshing phaser or two.
All for that traditional groove, ya know?
Well Jack wishes do sometimes come true… but usually not in the way you expected… I have one of these and while not trad they are great fun as you can play piano, or sax or trombone or clarinette or drums…(the list is endless) all with fluty fingering!
WOWZERS ! 
(what’s the reference, although it looks more like a whistle, it looks like a great gadjet !)
Ah, that’s a Yamaha](http://www.google.com/search?q=yamaha+wx5&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official%22%3EYamaha) WX5, they also have WX7 and WX11 at least. I thought about getting one for a very long time, but am saving up for other toys now.
Yup I have the WX11, which I’ve had 8 years or so, I should have added that you also need a Yamaha VL-70m to supply the sounds.
http://www.yamahasynth.com/products/vl70m/
Some of the instruments sound good clarinettes and sax especially, flutes are a bit dodgy the thing is to think if it as an entirely new instrument and not a stand in for real ones, for example it has a range of 6 octaves so you can go from Jiminy Cricket’s piccolo to a bass flute the size of Michael Flatley’s ego in one run!
Ahhhhh…
So these things are just a specialized keyboard for a midi system ???
I did notice the mouthpiece is presure sensitive instead of velocity sensitive…
Breath pressure Controls loudness as an aftertouch midi function called breath control. The mouthpiece also detects pressure from your lips as a reed would and controls pitch bend, this being midi you can make either of these controls activate any midi function you like… with some painfuly unmusical results! The instrument can be extremely expressive and great fun though I have hardly used it since I bought a flute.
Rob
Actually, you can remap the pressure to be just about anything you want: attack, delay, etc. MIDI has nothing to do with rhythmic timing. MIDI transfers information about what actions were taken and when. It does not carry actual sound information - just performance information, i.e what did I hit, when did I hit it, how hard did I hit it, how long did I hold it, how fast/slow did I let it go.
I have fiddled with guitar synths as well as some of the MIDI wind toys. It is better to think of these instruments as “controllers” and not as the instruments they resemble. The thing with all of these controllers is not to play the instrument, but rather to play whatever sound patch, or mix of sound patches, your synth is currently set up for. Trying to play a flute-shaped controller like a flute when the sound patch is set up for gamelan sounds like poop. Similarly, I have seen people take several thousand dollars worth of guitar synth stuff and sound like crap because they were trying to play the guitar-shaped controller like a guitar, when the patches were set up to make long, sonorous horn sounds.
These really are a new breed of instrument and need to be treated with the same respect.
djm
Ahhh…that’s what I wanted to know…
Thanks
There are two Midi concertinas on the market at the moment. One maker will take an old broken box and restore it as a new Midi instrument. Wim’s version is a complete build from the ground up as a midi.
Someday I’ll get one so I can practice with headphones on and not wake my wife and son when I want to play at 2am (more frequent than you would believe).
Now, as for taking it to a session? Naw…I like the feel of the real thing.
Did you check out the “blues” clip on that site?
Pretty crazy stuff!
I think I’d take mine in a more heavy metal direction 
The real thing always sounds better to me.
I’d love to hear Steve Earle’s ‘Copperhead Road’ played with real pipes.