Hi, just a question about the drones on Rogge sets.
I’ve a D set.
When the drones are played with adequate pressure, I notice that the middle [baritone] drone has more air coming out than the other two, even though the pressure is the same and the drones are all bang on in terms of tuning/tone/steadiness.
I read in a recent Na Piobairi that Andreas sets his drones up like an old set he’d seen where the middle drone dominated.
So…
if you have a Rogge set, in D, and you have it running nicely, will ya do me a favour and put your hand down to the middle drone’s vent hole and compare it with the other two drones, and tell me what your findings are…
Hi Boyd,
do you have cane or plastic reeds? On my set, the baritone was never “dominant”. Out of the workshop, the dominating drone was the tenor , which tended to crow when pressure was too low. Icould remedy that easily by putting on/removing some wax on the tip of the tongue. I’ll investigate the venting later tonight. Hope that helps,
doing that will affect pitch too, and can affect stability
[I have tried that in the past out of curiosity, and as per Dave Hegarty’s book, although close inspection will reveal that he is -on Page 101 if you have it- referring to a problem associated with the bass drone end, either sound box or cap, rather than tenor or baritone]
By the way, there’s nothing wrong with my drones …they work fine as they are…but in my search for air tightness I noticed the difference in airflow between drones…would have expected the biggest drone to take the most air, perhaps, but not the case in practice.
Try putting a drinking straw into the drone.
Take the tuning slide off and slide the straw into the part thats in the stock. Replace the tuning slide.
You are decreasing the internal volume of the tube and, by default, changing the expelled air pressure to internal back pressure. This will also increase the stabillity to the quill too.
[quote=“boyd”]When the drones are played with adequate pressure, I notice that the middle [baritone] drone has more air coming out than the other two, even though the pressure is the same and the drones are all bang on in terms of tuning/tone/steadiness.
Why are you trying to fix something that,s not broken
Hmmm… my Lynch drones have the same sort of air requirements, the baritone seems to require nearly as much as the bass and tenor together. At least that’s how it feels to my bag arm. Its a composite plastic tongue/metal reed. Works great, but most of the time I keep a golf tee in the drone and the end in the case, I just don’t like to work so hard. I can reduce the air requirements with a guitar E-string rush in the drone tip, but its more stable without it.
Basically the same thing Tommy mentioned above. Remove the drone end and place the folded wire into the drone end coming from the stock. Wire diameter depends on the size of a difference you want to achieve. Experiment with it… but be sure you can fish out the wire easily.
I have a Rogge D set with plastic drone reeds and have the same condition that you do. I think he does set up the baritone drone as being dominate. I have used weed eater line, plastic tube, straws. It will make the drone some what quiter but also flatter, so you have to move in the drone slide, almost to the point it will go no futher in.
The best sound to my ears, is to remove the end cap altogether! My pipes are with white img. ivory, so it’s the white end cap on the baritone drone. (At times I have thought of asking Rogge to make an end cap with the exit hole being a large as the inside diameter of the drone.) To protect the end of the drone, I have taken a brass tube of the same diameter and cut a small section to fit the end of the drone.
I play it for a while that way and then put the white end cap back on, and go with it the way Rogge made it. I have a narrow bore chanter in addition to the concert D. When I use the narrow bore chanter, many times I will close off the bartione drone. I like flat pipes but in a session with drones, its back to the conert D chanter and full drones.
I inspected the airflow on my Rogge drones yesterday. The most venting is on the bass drone, not the baritone. Boyd, it might well have to do with the setup of your reeds, as has been posted before. My drones were made in '96, so maybe Andreas preferred a different setup then.
If the drones work well, I wouldn’t bother in your place.
For my Rogge D set (circa 1999-2000) the tenor was THE big sounder! A real screamer. It has the dowel/plastic tongue combo. I have managed to quiet it down with some tongue tweaking. I have replaced the plastic tongue on the base drone with a bronze one (cane body). This drone sounds much richer now. At one time I managed to crush the bottom of this reed. I shored it up by inserting a piece of brass tubing to support the area around the cane that was split. I don’t know how this affects the accoustic properties of this reed.
All the drones seem to sound better with these adjustments.
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