Considering that regular computer keyboard is also a staggered rows setup (although only 4 rows)… why not directly map that to Bayan? It’s just a plain text file containing MIDI pitch numbers (60 = central C) for each key. Then I realized that the key mappings can be customized. I even bought custom keycaps for my keyboard: The default mimics 2 rows (2.5 octaves) of piano. Like many other music workstation programs out there, it allows you to use the computer keyboard as a fixed-velocity MIDI keyboard. But… FL Studioįortunately I bought FL Studio. Sadly I’ve never had a chance to lay my hands on one of these expensive Russian imports. In a word, instead of piano keys, their accordions look like an old-fashioned typewriter - 5 rows of cute round buttons on a hex grid! They are arranged like this: But of course when Russian pros came for concerts they played something else - they played the бая́н/Bayan/巴扬 with their dazzling fast fingers… and more likely than not a free bass system on the left hand. Specifically, the piano accordion - size-reduced touch-insensitive piano keyboard on the right hand, and Stradella bass on the left hand. Backgroundīrought up in a Soviet-esque industrial town in Northeastern China, it wasn’t surprising I learned to play the accordion, like a lot of kids did back then. If you use FL Studio and want to type-to-piano using the Bayan layout, here is a mapping file I made.
