Chiff and Fipple Forums

In my opinion Geoff Wooff is the best maker at this time, particularly flat sets. That is not to say that there are not other makers producing pipes that work as well or are as reliable. Geoffs pipes are in the older style, perhaps closer to the standards and style that was achieved by the old great...

I had exactly the same thing happen to the reed in my Wooff B bass drone. It happened in New York as winter (horrible dryness) started to set in. I ended up with a lot, and I mean a LOT!!! of putty on the tongue of the reed and it kept getting sharper until I could adjust it no more. I made a whole ...

Craig Fischer was doing this kind of thing to measure reeds and adjust them. He made a chanter and attached the pump to the head stock. The air line had a pressure gague and a regulator on it. it was a great thing to experiment with. using tape you could sound all the different notes. Bottom d was i...

Take some poster putty and block the outlets of the drones. Close off the chanter stock and pump the bag up, turn on the drones and see if there is any air escaping anywhere. Sometimes the air switch leaks. Were the drones fitted with the chanter or were they delivered seperately? This could be why ...

Any chanter from Craig Fischer, flat or concert, if you can stand to wait. They are very stable and have a beautiful tone. Mine has never skipped a beat for many years and lots of travel and climate change. Any flat pitch Wooff chanter would do you fine, another one you would have to wait for. I hav...

if you get a good cane or elder reed made properly and out of good cane it should last you for ages. I think that through the Uilleann Pipe obsession page you can get good drone reed cane or find someone who doea, perhaps Pat Darcy knows. Anyway, the elder reeds I have lasted for years before becomi...

I think I would like to have been around during the time when the uilleann pipes or union pipes became their own instrument seperate from the pastoral pipes and whatever else they are immediately decended from. I think it would have been fascinating to be in the Kenna's workshop to see this developm...

I used the Clarke tutor but I think that the Ennis tutor covers a couple of things that I haven't seen explained elsewhere and that is the section on leading and tipping in the second octave, I wish it had been around when I first got going. There were a few things about getting notes in the second ...

My experience is that most well made sets of pipes are in tune with the pitch that they are suposed to be in, some of the time. Because of the nature of the instrument, particularly the reeds, the pitch is going to change as the temperature and more significantly the humidity changes. The UP reeds, ...

a good reed would be one that was well in tune and sounding a hard d and e, jumping the octave easily, responding to cross fingering and ornamentation properly. If you had a reed that did all these things and then began to not do them so well, that is what I would call a reed going bad. It could be ...

I am interested to know how long peoples reeds last. The reed in my narrow bore concert pitch chanter is fairly old, about 15 years older than the chanter making it almost 25 years old. It plays great and I have travelled with it extensively without too much trouble. I am on the second set of drone ...

it seems to me that cane hardness has quite a bit to do with volume or loudness. Softer cane tends to make louder reeds and harder cane makes quieter reeds. Perhaps to get greater loudness witout an increase in pressure you could make a reed with softer cane.

In reply to your question, I dont think you would find anyone in their right mind that would say no to a flat set from Geoff Wooff. I have one in B that I picked up from Geoff in 2001, it continues to be brilliant. I still have the old B chanter that I started on too and its not bad at all either.

For listening to recordings of flat sets in B listen to Robbie Hannan's solo recording or Sean Potts' latest. Jimmy O'Brien Moran plays in B on a few tracks on his record, Sean Reids Favourite, Mick O'Brien plays in B on some tracks on May Morning Dew. I think B is a great key and all the pipemakers...

Hi Kevin

Nice website for brad, has he seen it? How's he going to answer all the emails?

I'm coming to Portland on the 15th of this month. Hope to see you there,

Cheers,

Giles