Hello everybody,
Well, I promised this a long time ago so here it finally is. I’ve been touring with my band for the last year or so, and haven’t really posted at all. But I’ve been lurking! Oh, how I’ve lurked. And I’ve been reading, and wanted to say thanks to everybody for keeping this place interesting.
I’ll jump right in and I’m going to try my hardest not to ramble or be random, but I’m not making any promises.
Okay,
Regarding this post I guess I should say that all of this is just my opinion, that opinions vary, what I believe is maybe not what you believe, and all that. I am not a salesman for Rogge, I have never met him, never spoken to him, and I can’t even say for sure if I’ve ever even had an email from him as most correspondence seems to be with his ?assistant? Jens. I do have a set on order from him that I hope to get before the year is out, and I ordered this chanter to replace the poor old Matt Kiernan chanter that I was learning on.
I should also say that I am not a master piper, nor do I have vast experience with different makers pipes. For what it’s worth I have been (seriously) playing for almost two and a half years, and I now play this chanter and the bellows with the rest of the Kiernan set. And I have lots of fun.
I’ve had my plastic Rogge chanter/practise set for a year now, and my overall opinion is that it is a very good buy, and I would recommend it to any beginner or seasoned player who wants a robust spare chanter for travel or to play outside in the rain. It arrived if I remember correctly exactly 3 days after Rogge got my money order (the german postal system must be something else!), nicely packed in a box, and pretty much ready to play. It was winter and the whole set was freezing, but despite that I strapped in and played a few tunes while it warmed up. And wow, how it warmed up. The first few notes were in tune, but the tone was weak and thin. As I played though, the tone improved dramatically, and after about half an hour and a few minor reed adjustments it was playing great and sounding not too bad. The bag and bellows were set up nicely, and everything was comfortable, so you can pretty much expect it to play well right out of the box.
The basics:
The bellows- The bellows are birch plywood, leather, and delrin. They are unpadded, but are finished nicely and are completely (I mean completely) airtight and function better than any bellows I’ve tried except for maybe Michael Dow’s. The intake valve is delrin wit a rubber flap secured by a machine screw. Works brilliantly.
The bag- The bag is leather, stitched along the edges. The stocks are delrin.
The chanter- made of plastic (obviously), with brass ferrules. The chanter top is plastic as well, not brass as pictured on his website. Looks a bit clunky but not too bad. It has the set screw adjustment for the back d which is nice. It also has brass tubing in the reed seat for super easy tuning adjustments. The chanter is finished nicely, although it hadn’t been polished after leaving the cnc lathe so it has sort of a textured surface, common I think, when machining plastics. Hard to explain, but nothing really bad.
To me this chanter plays really well. I have it set up what is probably on the heavy side as far as playing pressure goes. I have no difficulty playing the second octave or reaching any of the really high notes, it does play the third 8ve d and e. Although it plays well set up lightly, having it heavier seems to fill out the tone, and I also find it is more stable in different climates, the only drawback being that this thing is LOUD. Not as loud as a Britton chanter I’ve played, but still quite loud. When it is playing well it has a killer hard D that’s nice and stable. Although in some climates (colder, drier) it tends towards sharpness in the second 8ve g and above, it is very well in tune and I’ve had other musicians and other pipers comment on that before they know it’s a plastic chanter. They don’t have much to say about the tone, though. It really doesn’t stand up next to most wooden chanters in that regard, although it’s not as pronounced a difference as you might think, and it definitely sounds a lot better than some wooden chanters I’ve heard! And really most people I’ve played with have never even noticed it’s plastic.
I am still using the original reed, and it sounds better all the time. It has a stamp on it that says “PRG Impregnated” (some sort of glue maybe?) and it is really amazing how well it holds up in massive humidity changes. I’ve played it here in the manitoba prairies when its 45 below and probably 5% humidity, and I’ve played it on the bayou in louisiana in about 150% humidity and it has yet to let me down.
The other great thing about this chanter is that it’s pretty much indestructible. I’ve put it through hell and there is literally not a mark on it. When I travel I can pack the whole practise set in a backpack with lots of room to spare.
Okay, problems:
I did have a couple problems, both of which I fixed quite easily.
One of the first things I noticed when I got the set was that the holes on the chanter were quite rough. Most of them had big burrs and they were all really sharp and uncomfortable. I started off just using sandpaper and a file, and they cleaned up nicely. I eventually (after talking with jens) decided to (gasp!) scallop all the holes. I seem to have a thing for scalloped chanters, I’ve played a couple by Dave Williams that I loved, a beautiful c chanter by K&Q, and I almost killed a guy once for a Rogge chanter that was scalloped. My old chanter had been scalloped and I definitely find it more comfortable. It could be my imagination but I also think it brought the 8ves in tune a bit better. Other than that I noticed no change.
I also had a big problem with the second 8ve e. It was in tune, but was hard to sound, and with a slight variance in pressure, or if the chanter was lifted off the knee at all it would make this horrific screeching sound and drop to the first 8ve. I tried fixing this by opening the reed, as Rogge or Jens suggested but it didn’t work. I finally saw a post by Alan Burton mentioning the roll of cardboard between the e and f holes and that fixed it perfectly.
Oh yeah, the bag also started leaking along the seam, but an email and two days later I had some Rogge brand seasoning that worked amazingly.
The only other thing that sucked was the lack of padding on the bellows. I was hurting REALLLLY bad the day after I got the set, so I went to fabricland and got some foam, nice upholstery pins, and some black corduroy and padded them myself. It was easy, looks great, and no more elbow pain.
Well, I guess that’s about all I can think of. If you think I forgot anything or have any specific questions feel free to let me know. I have pictures of the set, if anybody wants them just send me a PM and I’ll fire them off. I also just recorded a tune on them and as soon as I can figure out how to get it off my minidisc and onto the clips and snips page I will do it.
I hope someone find this useful, sorry if it was too long.
All the best,
Jordan
I dunno
