I take it you went for the low G one, which makes me wonder if you didn’t want two Ds in octaves for a drone. But maybe that’s just my inner piper thinking out loud.
I said it before Noirín ní Riain was one of the first to use these widely in Ireland. As a result shruti boxes are, in certain circles, referred to as ‘Noirín’s handbag(s)’ .
I did indeed go for the low G one. G itself would be useful to me, and A potentially even more so. Also Bb. Unless my understanding is completely off, I think the only note where you can get an octave drone is the key note itself - in this case, G. Every other note occurs in one octave only. I will, as I mentioned, be playing with a piper, so it’s important to me to be able to use tones that will go with a set of concert pipes. Greg has a B chanter, but none of the rest of a low set … yet …
That’s lovely. 
Very nice!
Those things are a bit pricey though.
I’d love to build something smaller and simpler with foot or knee bellows to make a drone while playing harmonica or whistle. I bet if I could get my hands on a cheap bellows I could build something to drone a few notes or chords.
I actually thought it was quite cheap for what it is. It’s about a third of the price of either of the only two alternatives I could come up with - the foot bass and the Moog Taurus pedals.
I don’t think I could come up with anything that would work. Well, not and build it myself.
Although you’ve already got the shruti box ordered and Deb in tow, Ben, when all’s said and done you could always cozy up to a box player. Part of the time the box could be the dogsbody when it’s a drone you want (and certainly to better variety than a shruti box - this is not to take anything away from Deb in the slightest, perish the thought), and for the rest, you’d have extra tonal color to fill out the show. You could similarly accompany the box, or pipes, on fiddle in turn, as well. This arrangement would offer a number of combinations. Just something to consider.
Hmmm … I don’t know any box players I’d trust to do it. The thing about me and Greg and our music is that we are absolutely in sync in terms of what we are trying to achieve. We almost finish each other’s sentences when talking about new ideas, arrangements etc. And it’s getting more and more like that. Deb says she gets jealous because me and Greg are in love. 
I don’t think bringing a third person into that would quite work.
Now, I’m quite prepared to believe that what Greg and I see as complete musical synchronicity is entirely in our own minds and maybe doesn’t work at all. OTOH, the absolute roars from the audience after each of our numbers in the recent Eire festival in Bondeno were amazing. We were in a room which would comfortably fit about 50 people, and there must have been at least a couple of hundred people in there. I was absolutely blown away with the audience reaction. There was someone on after us, but we found it difficult to get away!
Now, would that have happened with a box player? 
Cunningham … maybe. 
Ye-s-s-s … wonder if he’d agree to play a drone on one or two numbers for me. I could give him a tenner for his troubles.
Oh, you should totally put him up to it. And pay him the tenner afterward, right there on stage. The audience would soil themselves.
What you need is a basse aux pieds. Works well with a concertina, so why not flute or fiddle?
As I said somewhere above, I do think I’d like one of those things, but I don’t think it will do what I’m after. It won’t produce a drone, and that’s the main thing. That’s because it doesn’t have an air reservoir (or whatever the proper term is). So the foot bass will produce a decent bass line, but will constantly need to be topped up by releasing the pedal, at which point the sound ceases, so it won’t produce a drone.
Here’s what I wrote above: