[Ofir]

Alan, as far as I understood Lowboy’s post it had nothing to do with sound versatility of one instrument, but rather the usage of many.
As for Quetscher’s, he did approach a new direction which I didn’t respond to any way in my comment.
I never claimed that different instruments sound the same, and that you cannot find different qualities in different instruments; I only raised a question of weather one is required to use many instruments, or is it just too easy.
(A side note – I know quite a few fields in which easily accessible tools leads to overusing those.)

The issue which you just raised is well put. Does the accordion share the same limits, and therefore has few ‘sounds’ within the instrument? (there are buttons for changing the sound setup of the instrument mechanically.) It may be the case. I think that both woodwind and brass instruments let the musician get involved more in the creation of the sound than the melodica does.

All in all, I make a huge difference between collecting the instruments (for collecting purpose) and having many for practical performance reasons.

Quetscher, I haven’t had the opportunity to hear your very interesting test recording, and I do plan to do it tomorrow (with a proper studio equipment). You took this discussion to a whole new direction, which may satisfy both sides of the argument. For the order of things, I will keep my comment to that to your own post, where it belongs.

As for what you wrote here, of course I won’t make my Bluthner sound like a Steinway (especially Bluthner, with its well defined sound character). On the other hand, I will NEVER decide not to play a piece just because it’s not the right piano for that.
A musician wishing to fit in, has two main roles: 1) to make the instrument sound as good as he can for the purpose; 2) play according to what the instrument sounds. Fulfilling these two will allow me to use any piano for any purpose. Is the melodica THAT different?