Curious about the relative merits of African Blackwood verses other woods (Cocobolo, Rosewood, etc.).
I know in the GHB world, blackwood is valued for its hard nature. What’s the deal with UP’s? Is there a sound difference?
I have heard from one maker-of-note that he works almost exclusively in ebony although I have see first hand a gorgeous set in castella boxwood, as well as several other woods from his shop. Ebony is also a very hard wood, and very abrasive on cutting tools. ABW may be more moisture resistant for those pipes that can’t fit a bellows to them as proper pipes have 
I’m prototyping in castella boxwood right now because its easier to turn, cheaper to buy, and if anyone asks what all of the odd looking sticks I have are I can tell them that I’m making small cricket bats. 
I’m sure that someone who has thrown out more wood than I’ve ever turned will come forward with a better formed opinion.
dave boling
Yes, and there can also be a noticeable difference in pitch too. I’ve heard it myself using the same reed set at the same distance in on three identical chanters made of three different woods. Plus a world renowned oboe maker said the same thing.
It is an ongoing debate what virtue certain woods lend to the tone of chanters etc. Several different camps to chose from.
You could make a concrete chanter, and it would sound the same, right?
Ask an accoustician.
(just joking)
Yup, something like that.
So, what do you people like as far as wood for a chanter.? I ran in to a guy the other day who plays an ebony chanter. I imagine that harder woods like that produce a louder tone. What do people prefer?
My least favourite is blackwood, OK for highland pipes,OK for a
busking Uilleann chanter, but really for Uilleanns pipes I find it for to Strident, Ebony, Rosewood, Cocabolo,Holly,Laburnum, all maker lovely Uilleann pipes, Holly & Laburnum makes lovely drones. 
My personal favorite is Cocobolo. However, due to its toxicity and potential for serious health issues, it would seem that fewer and fewer makers are using it.
According to acoustical theory, a concrete chanter or a paper-mache chanter of equal dimentions should sound the same, with the same reed. Players note different tonal qualities, depending on the timber used. This is accounted for by the differences in the surface of the bores which vary in degree of smoothness. A rougher bore has introduces more turbulance into the vibrating air column which results in a mellower tone than a smoother surface, which sounds brighter by reinforcing more upper partials.
Sorry, double post.
As opposed to reality? 
That’s interesting. I’d never heard that this could be the case. Did the reed play sharper in the harder woods? (that would be my guess).
My experience of blackwood and ebony chanters has been that they play very bright by comparison to my lancewood and tallowood chanters, but I got to hear a Mackenzie blackwood chanter recently and found it to be very deep and warm sounding which was a surprise to me. So I guess the wood does contribute to tone, but chanter design can also either counter or exacerbate the tone of the wood.
As a comment on woods, I love my tallow wood chanter. Although I’ve stained it to a jarrah colour for asthetics, I love the sweet tone I get out of it, while still getting a reasonable amount of brightness out of it (a perfect balance).
I’ve had the opportunity to swap reeds between many chanters that were theoretically “identical” as they came from the same reamers, ect, and I could hear quite distinct differences between them, even using the same reed. I’d say that chanters can vary tremendously even within the “identical” spectrum. Perhaps the bores are “the same” but what about the tone holes? The undercutting? Wall thickness? Sharp edges? Keys, and the holes under them? Too many variables to account for, not to mention the tonal qualities of the wood itself, wondering if it’ll shrink or warp on you!
I certainly think there is some difference depending on the wood, but in my opinion at least 90% of the final sound quality is dependent on the reed itself. The reed is also the primary control for volume. I play a boxwood chanter and it’s certainly a bit louder than many blackwood or ebony chanters that I’ve played or heard. That has nothing to do with the wood and everything to do with how my reed is set. How finely the bore can be reamed does have an impact on the final tone of the instrument, apparently. The grain of the wood in the bore an ebony chanter, for instance, can be finished to a smoother degree than that of a boxwood chanter which is why ebony is often attributed to producing the sound with the most crisp, clear je ne sais quois.
But hey, different strokes for different folks. People have their reasons for going with different stuff; some of them aesthetic, some practical. Personally, I don’t think I would ever want a set of pipes made of something other than boxwood or ebony, but that opinion is certainly not set in stone.
Yes, that’s my experience. It also makes theoretical sense because the effects of acoustic damping (due to surface roughness, turbulence, porosity, etc. etc.) will always be to lower the resonant frequency of the damped system.
I suspect that surface roughness is only part of the story here, but possibly a key part. I find that for concert pitch pipes at least, rosewoods (technically including blackwood) produce fewer high partials than ebony. I refer to a chanter with more high partials as “brighter” but not everyone uses the same terminology there, some people seem to use the word “bright” when they really mean “more fundamental and second harmonic”.
The “theoretical notion that materials don’t matter for woodwinds” is somewhat unfair to acousticians. A keen acoustician will acknowledge that there are a number of simplifications in the the equations that lead to the above conclusion. As it happens, a number of those simplifications/approximations are less valid for union/uilleann pipes (least of all for narrow bore pipes) than for most woodwinds.
The “usual” explanations given by non-specialists for why different woods may sound different are obviously rubbish to acousticians. In explaining the misunderstandings it is very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that there are no materials effects at all.
Actually trying to show a theoretical basis for materials effects in narrow bore conical double-reed instruments requires some serious mathematics (and computer simulation power), and no one seems to have made a serious attempt at doing so yet. I think a reasonably complete acoustic model of an oboe was attempted a few years back but I am not aware of the results being published.
For what it’s worth, I prefer ebony for concert pitch (with boxwood coming in second), but for narrow bore/flat pipes I think the rosewoods sound great, possibly for reasons similar to those goldy mentioned.
Bill
Hi Goldy, I’m not sure. Malcolm McLaren was scratching his head over the issue last year when he knocked together a few SSP chanters of different woods and couldn’t understand why one was almost a complete half tone flatter. Then I sent him the article that David Lim I think sent this forum of an interveiew with an well-known oboe maker who noted that same effect.
People often say african blackwood gives a brighter tone than ebony, but my own chanter (ABW) always seems fairly subdued compared to many ebony chanters I’ve heard.
That would partly explain (not forgetting reed design) why my ABW concert chanter sounds subdued compared to some ebony chanters and even Brazilian Rosewood chanters I’ve compared it with.
The bore is a big factor too - in most all cases differences in the bore design will probably swamp materials effects. The materials differences really only make sense, IMO, when comparing “identical” chanters using the same reed. I’ve compared a very high density rosewood (d. louvelli, seemingly very similar to ABW in its physical properties) with ebony, using the same reamers and same reed, and seen a quite noticeable difference… but then again, although I measured both chanters to confirm that they were substantially “the same” in bore, I reckon my measurements were only good to about 0.01 mm. I’ve also seen chanters affected by dimensional changes of about that magnitude, so even then it’s conceivable that the differences I saw had to do with minute differences in the bores.
In any case the ebony had a lot more high harmonics, and this seems to have been borne out anecdotally by the other ebony concert pitch chanters I’ve made when compared rosewood and ‘castella boxwood’. True boxwood seems somewhere in-between but that’s my purely subjective assessment, I haven’t done an A/B comparison of boxwood/ebony with spectral analysis software as I did for the rosewood/ebony.
Bill
True. Mine is an Adrian Jefferies old design using reamers made by John Hughes based on Rowsome chanters (of course). Both his concert chanter(also ABW) and mine sound nicely subdued compared to other ABW (and ebony) concert chanters.