Reed problem: no C-natural

[mke_mick]

Hi, all:

I just made a batch of six new chanter reeds, with two of them working perfectly so far (woohoo!). But my success rate would jump from 33% to 50%, if one of the "not quite right" reeds would just play C-natural! That is, that reed is nearly perfect except that when I finger C-natural, C# comes out regardless of bag pressure (though with practically no pressure, it will sometimes sort of "wobble" into C-nat but then pop immediately back to C#).

This is at least the third reed I've made in the past few months with this problem, using the Dowd/Hegarty/Sky method to reed my Pat Sky chanter. And a Dowd/Hegarty-style reed that a friend made and sent me has the exact same problem in my chanter.

Has anybody else had this problem? Were you able to fix it, and how?

Thanks in advance,
Mick

[AlanB]

Hello.

It's a shot in the dark without your reed measurements, but...what I reckon you could try, is to scrape the centre of the V more and thin the lips to see if this brings the Cnat in? It's likely you'll trash the reed in the process, but if this does bring you luck, then you can try altering the internal volume of the reed (by possibly narrowing the head 1 - 2mm/steeper rate of taper for the staple/slightly bigger staple eye?).

Also, try tying the the bottoms of the tails really tight to fix the reedhead in place, but relax the tension as you go up to closing the shoulders, somethimes a too tightly bound reed can refuse to play where you want it to. Maybe a longer slip if you narrow the head?

[mke_mick]

Thanks much for the tips, Alan! The suggestion about not winding too tightly too far up, rings especially true: I've been wondering what the ramifications are of winding tightly at or even above the shoulder, which some reedmaking methods actually say to do "until the sides close."

Better, it seems to me, to form the insides of the slip to better match the shape of the staple. Speaking of which, for sure I'll try tweaking my staple and re-tying.

Thanks again,
Mick

[pudinka]

I wish I had a good suggestion...

[Bill Reeder]

For what it's worth, I've had some success in obtaining a reluctant c-natural by repositioning my bridle a little higher than normal.

[PJ]

For what it's worth, I've had some success in obtaining a reluctant c-natural by repositioning my bridle a little higher than normal.

Me too. In fact, I have replaced copper band bridles with wire placed about 1/2 way up the reedhead (like Andreas Rogge does with his reeds).

[Cathy Wilde]

I knocked a sharp C and back D down a couple of pegs with a tiny rush in the reed. But that said ... you know what you gotta do, Mick. Don'tcha, Mick?

[patsky]

From one of old articles:

One of the most popular complaints, especially for beginners, about D chanters is that the C natural is too sharp. In general D chanters are more erratic than flat chanters. It is much easier to fit a reed to the flat chanters and they are also more in tune with themselves and the C note is usually no problem requiring no special fingering..

On the D chanter both the C# and the C natural are closely related and adjusting one effects the other. In order to get the C# note in correct pitch the pipe maker must make the C# hole large enough that it causes the C natural to also play sharp.

This brings up one of the most difficult piping techniques to master: Half holing the C# hole in order to get the C into concert pitch. This is accomplished by simply keeping the third joint of first finger on the chanter and "pointing" the finger so as to half cover the hole. If the student learns to control this technique then the C will be in tune and a nice sliding effect will be produced.

Pat Sky

[maki]

It sure is cool to see pipe makers and reed masters on the forum
offering advice.

[mke_mick]

Maki: too true! That's what I was counting on.

Mr. Sky: yep, I already half-hole the C finger for C natural; but C natural on these particular reeds isn't just sharp, it's 100% indistinguishable from C#. Thanks for weighing in, though!

Cathy: I'm going to spend half of tomorrow trying all these tips out, including rushing, on the reed that prompted this thread, plus at least two more that are sitting in my box of "candidates for rehabilitation as regulator reeds." (I won't own a set with regulators until next June or so, but boy will I be well-stocked in bass regulator reeds when it arrives!)

Bill & PJ: bridle position is generally one of the first things I mess with, but I'll try moving it up. Haven't used wire bridles yet in my own reedmaking. They sure seem to work well on my two Rogge reeds (I have one of his injection-molded student chanters ), and I've even got the right gauge copper wire to try this out, so maybe this is the nudge I needed.

Speaking of bridles, the O'Briain-style thin copper bridles with a loop in back and curled ends in front (both for easy adjustment) are the bomb! Props to Mr. Pudinka for introducing me to those a few months ago.

Thanks to all,
Mick

[maki]

Speaking of bridles, the O'Briain-style thin copper bridles with a loop in back and curled ends in front (both for easy adjustment) are the bomb! Props to Mr. Pudinka for introducing me to those a few months ago.

Any more info on these?

[mke_mick]

Maybe later I can post a photo, but they're like these except each end is curled back out into a nearly closed, very small (1.5mm dia.?), loop, out towards the side of the reed. If you bought those, you could curl the ends yourself using a needle-nose pliers. They're easy enough to make from scratch anyhow.

The end-loops serve as handles for adjusting the reed without needing pliers. Win!

Note that the copper strips involved are thin: 1/8" or even less. I've made mine by cutting them from a sheet of roofing-copper with a tinsnips. Cutting so thin causes the strip to expand disproportionately on the cut side, i.e., to curl away from the sheet sideways as you cut, which isn't a major problem -- you're going to twist the copper seven ways to Sunday anyhow in forming the bridle -- but according to Mr. Pudinka, you can make straight thin strips of copper more effectively by running copper wire (1mm?) through some sort of jeweller's rollers that I haven't yet bothered researching.

Are you sorry you asked?

Cheers,
Mick

[maki]

Sorry I asked? Not at all.
Metal working, especially soft metal, is fun a not very difficult.
We used to play with making jewelry chains from straight wire, cuting links, brazing. etc..

Reeds? Thats a whole 'nother planet of pain.

[andymay]

I had this problem with some of my reeds a while ago and got some very useful advice on this forum.

Basically the reeds magically fixed themselves as i continued to work them down with the knife. But more specifically i found that working the bottom of the scrape from a V to more of a U seemed to cause the C note to behave normally again.

Obviously if you go too far some other problem will appear, but i was scraping there to allow easier staccato bottom hand notes in the lower octave, and noticed the C as almost a happy by - product.

Worth a shot?

Good luck

Andy

[pudinka]

Any luck yet, Mick? I think what Andy suggested might help me out, and DH suggested similar to me at the workshop in St. Louis.

I'm finding right now that my C natural is very flat (or so the tuner says, it's more B than C) unless I open the G hole. But if I do this, the note is too loud - too strident and does not have that nice, plaintive sound. I suppose a half-hole there might fix that problem but I'm not used to that.

But then again, it could be this piece of sh*te chanter that's the problem or maybe it's both reed and chanter that aren't fit for each other...nor for the daylight of outside world.