Hello all,
I am a new member of this forum.
I hope the following is not another repetition of an FAQ-item…
I have a problem with my hard bottom D:
The only way for me to actually get a hard bottom D which is ‘reliable’ is if the reed is very open. This of course makes the chanter way too loud, hard to play, difficult to control etc. If the reed’s lips are closer together, and the instrument plays anywhere within the range of controlability, ease of play and loudness, my hard bottom D is either unreliable (sometimes I get it, sometimes I get an aweful note a few tones above it), or is absent altogether (and I get only that aweful tone). Many a time it gives me no choice other than playing soft bottom D only. Needless to say I don’t like this situation.
Notice that I don’t have a gurgling bottom-D problem. Moreover, I used to have a much better hard bottom D in the past (same chanter and reed).
Finally, notice that, in the NPU reed-making book, this problem is mentioned (chanter problem #17), but the only solution mentioned is “a wider staple eye may help”. Needless to say I am not that enthusiastic about changing staple eye.
I wonder whether anyone has a suggestion…
Roy.
Depending on the type of bridle you have, you may get bit of mileage tightening the bidle on the sides as opposed to moving it up and down, or maybe just relieving bridle pressure on the middle of the reed.
djm
Do you have a rush in the chanter bell? That should make it a bit easier to get a hard D and help bring the hard and soft D closer in tune with each other.
No E
Sounds like you need some poop in your hole.
PD.
… I’m just gonna let my imagination work with this one. 
This is the part where you take a $1,500 chanter and stick a garbage bag twist tie bent in a ‘U’ shape up the bottom of the bore to make it ‘play’ correctly.
I’m gonna bookmark this.
Well, at present I don’t have a rush in the chanter bell (I have a rush going from the B to F vents…). I WILL give it a try, although this is going to cause some flattening of the bottom D, which, errrrr, might not be too desirable, because my bottom D tends to be a bit flat at times anyway.
Hi Pat,
this is some slang you will have to teach me in two months time…
regards from Bella.
Roy.
You may have too much air coming through your throat. Swallow a wire of some sort. Some reeds will work okay, others won’t. There’s a million threads on this subject.
Should this thread not be kicked over to the FAQ FAQ FAQ thread for newbees?
Nope.
I just did this to my Gallagher chanter while working over the phone with Seth to get a new reed playing right.
As you put in a bigger tie, the soft D gets flatter so you need to experiment with the size of the tie. I ended up with about 1" of tie in a U shape. My hard D is now about 5 cents sharp and my soft D about 5c flat. On the hole is sounds OK, not poopy at all.
An option to a twist tie is to use an “O” ring. This method was shown to me by Kirk Lynch. There are at least two variables that you need to pay attention to:
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The outer diameter of the o ring must match the inside diameter of the chanter bell. It should fit snuggly just at the bottom of the chanter bell.
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The thickness of the o ring can vary to bring the bottom d into pitch…as long as the outer diameter is the same of course. (I try to keep a selection of thin and thick o rings to match different reeds or reed temperments.)
It can be a challenge to find o rings that fit perfectly. A selection of both Imperial and metric sizes can help you find a match to your chanter.
Hope that helps,
Paul
Roy,
Hard D becomes easier to make as you close down the reed, until you go too far and get that squeal that you’ve experienced out of the note (Paddy Maloney occasionally mucks about in performances by deliberately cramming excess air through and lifting the chanter off his knee two or three times for stacato squeals).
The ‘O’ Ring and “poop” option are definitely your first option, but please don’t take “poop” literally! (although you don’t stumble accross revolutionary changes without trying new ideas outside of the norm!).
As with Simon’s explaination about the flattening of soft D, there are always going to be trade offs to any adjustment. With that in mind, a second option is to scrape the base of the scrape zone a little more as this will make hard D much easier and flatter in pitch (closer match to the pitch of soft D). An additional plus is that it will quieten/soften the reed (if it isn’t already over scraped) and allow you to close the reed without introducing the squeals (the reed will be able to vibrate freely even though it is heavily closed). However, the trade off is that your back D is likely to become flatter and the second octave may also flatten as the extra scraping will flatten out the curve inside the reed and reduce the internal volume/space inside the reed. Regardless, the reed will be easier to blow and the second octave should become easier to get and hold.
The reduction in the size of the bell end is probably all that is needed, but I thought I’d give you another option incase it doesn’t work for you or you want to take a risk and play ‘Russian Roulette’ with your reed 
All the best.
I use poster putty rather than a twist tie or o ring. It is much easier to get hard D in tune with it.
An adjustable popping valve is another albeit expensive solution.
I folded a piece of light cardboard (the kinda stuff business cards are made of) over into the shape of an upside down “U” and stuck it in the bell. Solved the problem magically. Might play with various widths of paper to get what you want.
It might be useful to enquire how long the poster has been playing. Getting a hard D is a learned thing after all.
I remember after I’d been playing for 2 years or so, thinking I had the same problem. Joe McKenna was passing through Montreal and at the inevitable session I dutifully informed him that my chanter just wouldn’t produce a hard D. He took off the chanter top and looked at the reed. He put the chanter top back on. He played several thousand perfect hard Ds. Sounds ok to me he said.
So there is a lot of work to do before you can reasonably assert that your chanter “won’t produce a hard D”: mastering bag pressure in both octaves (hard D is a 2nd octave note), mastering the A cut, mastering “the lift,” and the timing of the sequence of movements that produces the hard D.
Have an experienced (10 yers minimum) player try the chanter. You may be surprised.
bensdad,
thank you for your advice. If I had a ten-years experienced piper around I would have let him look into the problem. Unfortunately, doing this would cost at least 1500$, when flight and accomodation expenses and the loss of working days are considered. I could have bought a new chanter with this amount of money…
While I agree with you that a truly experienced piper might have been more successful, this seems marginal to the problem. If it’s the piper’s experience that matters, then the piper should have a problem producing the hard D consistently on any chanter and with any reed. Conversely, if the piper masters any element perfectly on other chanter-reed combinations, then facing a problem with a particular chanter and a particular reed is more likely to be a technical problem, which requires a technical solution. Don’t know, but that’s what my logics imply.
Whenever I have the opportunity to play with someone else’s chanter, producing the hard D reliably becomes relatively easy, much easier than, say, making the right pressure for the back D.
In addition, it is always better to answer a technical question with a technical answer, rather than stipulating in length about the poster’s experience, wouldn’t you agree?
Anyway, if the problem persists until I come across you one day, I will surely let YOU have a look into it, perhaps you wouldn’t have any problem at all.
I just thought an anecdote from my own experience might be useful. And I think that many “technical” problems are inextricably linked to one’s technique, which depends on how long you’ve been playing.
Did you intend to sound so sarcastic?