Best Accordion VST Plugins & Samples In 2024

Accordion Samples

The accordion VST is not the most popular instrument, but if you’re like me, you like to have access to all sorts of instruments. In order to dive into some of my favorites, we should discuss what an accordion is first.

In this article, we are going to highlight the very best accordion VSTs currently available for every price range.

My Favorite Accordion Plugins – A Quick Glance

Here are a few picks that are affordable that I recommend before getting into other options down below.

IMAGE PRODUCT DETAILS  
Editor’s Pick Jazz And Big Band
  • Over 50 Instruments
  • Beautiful Jazz accordion
  • Great for organic tones
Alternative VI. ONE
  • Over 2,000 patches
  • Very diverse library
  • More than just accordions
Budget Organetta
  • Inexpensive
  • Melodica meets accordion

Accordions are a family of box-like instruments that are the free-reed aerophone type.

I recommend that you have a MIDI controller to take full advantage of plugins.

Note: The options that I provide in this post are mostly options that I have experience with and that I truly enjoy. When hunting for VSTs, you will come across a lot of options that you just don’t like. My goal is to do all of that work for you and to present you with the top options available.

It is my opinion that accordion VSTs and samples definitely have their use in the production world. While it’s not going to be seen all of the time, you may see it in film scores.

Best Accordion VST Plugins

Below you will find four solid picks that we have reviewed. I hope you find some great accordion plugins to use.

1) Little Pump Reeds

Little Pump Reeds is brought to you by the fabulous Soundiron company. This is a collection of handheld air-driven reed instruments.

Each instrument has been sampled with a ton of attention to detail. This is something that Soundiron does with every plugin they bring to us.

One of the coolest instruments in this plugin is the plastisax. This is basically a children’s saxophone that sounds like an accordion when it goes through the processing.

Sounds

Little Pump Reeds provides you with 997 samples and over 1.39 GB of sounds. The sound is on par with any other plugin on this list.

Overall

Overall, this is a fantastic accordion plugin that I truly recommend. It’s not crazy expensive and there’s a little bit for everyone with this plugin.

2) Sonokinetic Accordion

The way this company sampled the instrument was by doing it thoroughly. They recorded all of the samples with different attacks and with different velocities. This makes the samples sound a lot more realistic.

I find this to be one of the most in-depth sample packs for accordions as it’s specifically made for just the accordion. Kontakt works extremely well with it and recognizes it with chord mode.

This allows you to play chords a lot more easily.

Sounds

Personally, this is my go-to for accordions. I think the sound is quite pleasing and it’s the most convincing to me so far.

Overall

The Sonokinetic accordion is one of the best overall accordion VSTs to have in my opinion. I find myself using this from time to time. The built-in sequencer is a great feature and I think a feature that makes this product very valuable.

3) Eduardo Tarilonte’s Accordions 2

This collection is probably the biggest collection that I have found. There are over 13 different accordions and 8,000 samples to pick from. Since it is so in-depth, it comes in at a higher price.

The samples were recorded on a U47 microphone, which is one of the more expensive mics to record with. You will notice immediately that this is an extremely high-quality sample pack.

One thing that I don’t love is how big the library is. It takes up 6.2 GB and to me, that’s a huge amount of space.

You will need to have an updated DAW to use this. Pro-Tools 10 is the minimum.

Sounds

Extremely pleasing in the sound department. I would definitely say that in the sound department, I like it as much as the Sonokinetic product.

Overall

Probably the most in-depth accordion sample pack that you can purchase. With this comes a huge amount of space that you need on your laptop or PC. With this being said, this is an amazing product.

4) Akkordica VST – Free Accordion VST

Akkordica is a pretty cool VST. It features an accordion, harmonica and a melodica. These are all very similar types of instruments that also sound very similar.

If you’re unfamiliar with the melodica, it’s a similar instrument and you can check out the guide I created detailing everything you need to know about melodicas.

There’s an ADSR envelope generator that is pretty cool with this VST. You can really get in deep here, but the one thing I don’t love is the overall sound.

A lot of people recommend this plug-in as it definitely worthy of checking out.

Sounds

Quality sounds, but not my favorite available. Since it’s a free download, sometimes you sacrifice a little bit in the audio department. If you want to use something and you’re in a pinch for money, this is a great option.

Overall

A solid pick overall, especially for those on a budget.

More Free Accordion Plugins

While I listed a free option above, Here’s another you can check out. This listed will continue to grow as more free options emerge.

Safwan Matni Accordion – Windows Only

What To Look For In An Accordion VST

Sound: Obviously, I lean towards the products that, in my opinion, sound the best. Options that I don’t like the sound of, I will not be presenting. I find that a few of these options also sound similar to some of my favorite harmonica VSTs as well.

Price: Some of the accordions come in huge sample packs that include a lot of other organic instruments. Sometimes it can be cheaper to purchase a huge sample pack, rather than having to get plug-ins that only have one or two instruments.

Dynamics: How does it play when played from a keyboard? Since I produce from writing on a keyboard, I prefer plug-ins that sound real. The more dynamics and realistic feel that can be delivered in samples, the better.

Types Of Music Accordions Are Mostly Used In

This instrument is definitely most popular for being a folk instrument, but it has also had its time with classical music as well. We’re not seeing it used in a ton of modern music production today, but I wouldn’t be too surprised to see it.

Can You Play The Accordion If You Know How To Play Piano?

The short answer is yes, but that doesn’t mean you are going to be good. In fact, you will probably be just the opposite. This is an incredibly difficult instrument to learn, so don’t expect to be great right away.

The good thing this is that with VST’s it doesn’t matter if you know how to play it.

My Personal Experience With Accordions

I do not personally have a ton of experience playing these. I am a classically trained pianist who has dabbled slightly with accordions, but I have used these types of VSTs frequently.

My goal with this post was to present you with some quality information that you won’t be able to find elsewhere on this subject.

Conclusion

There aren’t a ton of great options with these accordion plugins, so I hope you were able to find something that you like. If you’re not going to be using these a ton, I recommend just going with the free option.

Do you have any experience with accordions? What are your favorites for samples and VSTs? Let me know in the comment section below!

5 comments
  1. You might want to let people know that Akkordica’s free version is severely limited. It can play only a one-octave range, and it deliberately adds random white noise to its sound output to make it unusable for serious applications. It appears designed only to test compatibility of the product with your system.

  2. Let’s face the facts: 6GB is actually quite compact and definitely not a huge amount of space… A library with a large footprint would be something like BBCSO Pro which comes in at over 600GB. And I have another 1TB SSD just for EWHO Opus Edition.

  3. Just having a midi guitar (Casio) and a Godin multiac I find accordion sounds lacking. Is there any way I can use thease sounds

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