I was planning on getting a set of Davy Stephenson’s practice pipes with the concert D student chanter to being my learning experience on. After listening to recordings of flat sets though, I must admit, that I have become rather partial to the mellowness of the flat sets (in particular B). I was wondering that if I had a half set with a concert D chanter, if I were to want to switch to a B chanter, must the drones also be changed out? I guess I’m basically wondering if the drones are made specifically to each chanter, or can drones used with a concert D chanter be tuned down to be used with a B chanter? I hope that makes some sense to someone here. 
42nd, Congratulations on your decision to take up the Pipes. As to your question, my 2¢… As a fellow beginner, I will tell you that most of the teaching programmes are in D. I don’t know if you have access to a live teacher, 42nd, but all the taped stuff that I have seen/heard is in D. All the teachers that I have met also say to start out with a D chanter.
You are not alone in your love of the sound of flat sets, but IMHO you would be best advised to start off with a D practice set. After your playing matures you can move on to a 1/2, 3/4 or full set in whatever key you want. If you are planning on starting out with taped instruction like the NPU program or Armagh Pipers Club, you need a D chanter to play along.
Good luck!
Slan
-Paul
Thanks for the reply Paul. I was planning on starting out with a D set, but I was just wondering about down the road. I definitely will want a B chanter at some point, but does that mean I will need new drones as well (and regulators if I have them) to accompany the new B chanter, or will drones from a concert D set tune down to a B chanter? I just didn’t know if drones were…how would you say…“chanter specific”?
42nd, I personally do not know if a B Chanter will work with D drones, but Tony, in an old post about Hybrid sets, says that he plays a C chanter on D drones.
Hi,
In some cases it is possible to play a C chanter with D drones, if your drones will tune down far enough, but I’ve never yet seen a concert set with drones that will tune all the way down to B…This also would create balance problems, since concert-pitch drones are usually wider bore (hence louder) than flat-pitch drones, and would probably be out of balance with a flat-pitch chanter. Same goes for air requirements–flat-pitch chanters usually take less air than concert-pitch ones (unless you’ve got a really hard reed), so you might find that in order to keep the drones going, you’re constantly overblowing the chanter (this happened to me when trying to play a C chanter on a D set, with drones tuned down). And, of course, there’s nothing to be done about the regulators, which can’t be tuned down…If you can afford it, I’d get a practice set or half set in concert pitch, which will allow you to work with tutor videos and also to play in sessions, and then maybe in the future look into a full set at a flat pitch, for playing solo.
Just my two cents…hope this helps!
I figured that this was the case. I’m most definitely going to start out on a D practice set, and hopefully later on add a B set to my collection. Thanks for the help!
Paul, my comment about playing a C chanter on D drones was only for the minor key (middle eastern) melodic effect. The drones remain in D and my starting note in the chanter was fingered as an E.
I cannot tune my drones down to C, as they physically can’t extend that far. I have cheated by taping off the bass drone and inserting short pieces of drinking straws in the ends of the baritone and tenor drones and it gets me a (crude) temporary solution (the straws easily fall out) good only for practice.
You should be able to make drone reeds that can bring the drones down to C, however the drone set will be quite unbalanced from the narrow bore ‘flat’ chanter. You may also, depending on the bore of your drones, experience sound outages when your drone reeds stop playing.
Okay for practice, but not ideal.
Dionys
Start out with a D set…most popular music is set in that key. TRY a B chanter first…it’s a bit of a stretch for the hands and I found I simply couldn’t play that bottom hole. It probably won’t sound too good with D drones.