I’ve no problem with the barritone reed up until now. Which makes me think that I’m the problem (or weather). I’ve noticed that it’s become way to flat and only sounds in tune (if at all) if I pull the base drone right to the end of the hemp. I have only noticed that this has been a problem in the last few days.
To see what was going on with the reed. I carefully pulled the drone out of the mainstock and realised to my dismay that the reed was way to open. Funnily though it is not any harder to blow than the other drones. So it’s not a problem with the drone itself. Just the reed.
I left the reed for a while to see if it’d settle down after a few days. But no such luck. To try and sharpen the reed I placed some more blue tak on the lip of the reed (the wax had melted away in the heat about a month ago). I switched on the drones and nothing had changed much (very flat).
The reeds that I have are about two-three years old (including the chanter reed) and have been easy to tune up until now. Are there any remady’s you’d recommend or has the reed finally kicked the bucket (no problems with the tenor or bass reed).
If your interested I’ll try and take a picture of the reed and show you. Then you can make your own decision on what to do. I’ll only contact my pipe maker once I’ve tried apsolutely everything.
Cheers L42B
PS: I made a post on Na Piobari Uilleanns forums yesturday but nobody’s replyed so fare. If you would perfer to reply there instead of on the C&F. The title is “Daft Reed (Barritone Problem)”.
Maybe I’m confused, but there’s no mention in your post of the moving the bridle up.
Another point I’m confused on is adding the blue tak at the end of the reed. This should flatten it.
Lastly, there’s scraping at the tongue tip (insert usual caveat of not ruining a perfectly good with irreversible changes when you aren’t familiar with the side effects of the change).
It wouldn’t hurt to check for air leaks.
These are standard procedures, so maybe I read your post wrong.
Hi L42B, It may be that the bridal has slipped down to the bass of the reed causing it to open up and play flat, in which case moving it back to it’s usual position around a 1/3 of the way from the bass should fix the problem. You’ll have to experiment with the exact position; too far up and the reed will tend to stop, too far down and the reed will be flat.
I am confused. If it is playing flat, then no matter how far you pull out your drone tuning slide, the reed will still be flat. Unless I am confused, you need to sharpen the drone reed , to get back on the tuning slide. Just move the bridle up and retest. Maybe I missed the point but…rethink this.
Woops, I completely forgot about the bridal. That’d be the problem . Thought something was funny about the reed now I know why. The bridal on the barritone reed is vertiually non exgsistant. Which is strange as the tenor and bass have one . What are reed bridals normally made of and can I replace it? I haven’t confused people even more, have I?
While string would work, might I suggest using a rubber O-ring? You can pick one up at most any hardware/plumbing/electrical shop, and they come in varying sizes. Take your reed along with you so you can pick one out that will fit it to a tee. The nice thing about O-rings is they move up and down the reed easily, but stay in place where you shift them.
Thanks I’ll take it to the hardware store tomorrow. That’s what the bridal was made of. It wouldn’t have supprised me if it was the wrong size and slipped of the reed. Thanks guys.
Cheers L42B
PS: That has to be the quickest post in world history
This is just to let you know that I fixed the problem. I worked out that a bridal was needed. The problem was that the reed was far to open which ment that it sounded flat. I managed to solve the problem by moving the bridal (o-ring) higher the lip of the reed to close it.
The only note that I haven’t managed to tune it to is the ghost D in the low octave. And since it’s mainly used as ornamientation and not a reed I’ve decided to leave it alone. Thanks in particular to Joseph who offered to help.
. Thought something was funny about the reed now I know why. The bridal on the barritone reed is vertiually non exgsistant. Which is strange as the tenor and bass have one 
. What are reed bridals normally made of and can I replace it? I haven’t confused people even more, have I?
