Well, I don’t know, I played the Soefirne one made by Dave Evans and from what I remember it worked fine. Their design was much compacter than Chris’: basically a stock with three tiny little things sticking out that you could switch off separately. Shuttle drone type. There are pictures of it in An Piobaire nr 40 from 1988, it should be here for download. It’s a bit like the chanter with the drone at the side, compact and handy. I don’t mind having the full set though.
Eugene Lambe described a McGregor in An Piobaire as well, some time during the mid 80s.
I have pictures of yet another one here but not sure the owner wants them posted.
I think I might have a go at making a barrel unit, I’ll see if Chris will part with the measurements, it should sound nice enough if one makes it right, I have plenty of holly & rose wood lying around in the workshop, don’t want to part with a piece of ebony yet, infact I think I might have some measurement for barrel drones from Kevin Scotts bagpipe workshop I think, I’m off on a mission to track them down. all the best.
Chris also has a design for a four drone shuttle set with slide tuners, similar to what Peter has described. It is even more compact than the barrel unit as there is no need for a drone switch; the individual drones being able to be completely muted and tuned by closing the slider over the airways, doing away with tuning slides.
Here is a comparison with a standard three drone barrel set:
The fourth drone can be tuned to G or A. Both these sets are equally as loud as a standard drone set up, with the advantage that the reeds phase-lock and give a more stable sound.
That second barrel, with the slides is set up like a musette de cour.
Hans
Chris is on holiday for a couple of weeks, so he might not be able to get back to you that soon. Although he has already posted since going to France.
Chris also has a design for a four drone shuttle set with slide tuners, similar to what Peter has described. It is even more compact than the barrel unit as there is no need for a drone switch; the individual drones being able to be completely muted and tuned by closing the slider over the airways, doing away with tuning slides.
As I said the shuttle drone type thing Dave Evans had made was much more compact, as you see in the picture in AP it was the size of a large-ish main-stock and placed directly into the mainstock cup without the need of a stock to take the reeds as Chris’ does.
Nice pic Mike, it should be possible if you made the barral bigger to have a two keyed set of drones in the one barrel, which would be very handy,you could just use drone stop plugs to close one set down while you played on the other set of drones and vice versa, it would mean two sets of returns, but it could be possible, it would take precise drilling, I’ll wait till Chris returns for measurements, before we see what is possible, concert D & C would be nice on the one barrel.. all the best.
Stew - there is no need have a dual pitch set in the one barrel; this shuttle will tune down reliably to C. You have a fair amount of leeway in the tuning - as the fourth drone shows, tuning to both G and A with the same reed and no loss of volume. I use a slighty longer set of reeds if I am going to play in C for more than a tune or two.
Peter, the NPU does not have that particular issue of An Piobaire available at the moment, but from what you say it would appear that the shuttle must be similar to the Musette du Cour, having multiple compound airways.
Hans-Joerg, following on with the French theme of Musettes, drilling multiple bores on multiple centres is covered in "L’Art du Turneur, by Bergeron, which is an 18th century work on Ornamental and other turning. Basically you use a four jaw independent chuck and a four point steady to offset the proposed bore from the centre point. The lathes used in the illustrations are of the treadle type, and the work would have proceeded very slowly.
I did two years at a wood turning school, and let me tell you what some of them older boys in there could do with a piece of wood on a lathe was no ones business, I still think one could on a well centred lathe, and with a hollow drill guide in the tail stock, could drill the bores, without rotating the stock, useing quality long drills rotating at 150-200rpm, try not putting to much force on the drill bits when cutting the bores, one would also have to keep cleaning and cooling the drill bits when cutting the bores, you could do a test run with a rough peice of timber first just to see if it was possible, no harm in trying.
Chris, how do you set up your lathe in order to make these paralell bores?
I use a four jaw independant chuck to hold the workpiece off centre. Free end is supported with a hollow center and boring is now carried out with pneumatic gun drills which run very cool. Originally I used ‘D’ bits and this took a long time as the workpiece tended to get quite warm.
Do not know how McGregor did it but would guess he was familiar with ornamental turning techniques and manuels written by Plumier and Bergeron which used a ‘cage’ to offset work.
Peter Laban wrote
Peter Laban wrote:
I played the Soefirne one made by Dave Evans and from what I remember it worked fine. Their design was much compacter than Chris’: basically a stock with three tiny little things sticking out that you could switch off separately. Shuttle drone type.
Have made one to the shorter design based on the length of the Tenor drone which requires more bores to the baritone and Bass drone. I prefer the longer McGregor style which is based upon fitting two regulators
This uses three bores dedicated to the Bass Drone, one for the baritone which also has an extension in the main stock. The Tenor drone is a seperate unit which plugs into the barrel.
All of the McGregor barrels I have seen have drones that tune out of the end of the barrel unit however there is a photograph in Frasers “The Bagpipe” show a set which has Musette du Cour style Layettes.
all the best.