Just curious how many of you are playing hybrid sets. You know, chanter by one maker and drones or regs by another.
Doc
Soon I will…I have a half set by O’Grady but with bellows by Mike Dow, and in a few months, a Bruce Childress chanter.
I have a B set by Peter Hunter, with regulators by Brad Angus and bellows by Cillian O’Briain. I bought it 2nd hand as a half-set (with the O’Briain bellows). I had Brad Angus make regs for the set, as Peter Hunter wasn’t making pipes at the time. Brad did a very nice job of matching the regulators to the set. There are pictures of the set in the “pictures of your pipes” thread, but you’ll have to plow back a few years.
No E
I’ve been messing around, trying to convert a set of Pakistani D drones into B drones for my Kennedy B chanter… but I have had second thoughts as of late… it simply wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do to Joe’s Chanter. 
My Ó Briain half set has become a mongrel set of late with the recent addition of a nice new chanter from Gordon Galloway…It will become even more of a mongrel set in the near future (hopefully in the next couple of months) with the addition of two regulators from Michael Hubbert. I haven’t seen any pictures yet, but Michael is going to try to match the regs to the aesthetics of the rest of the set and I’m sure he’ll do a great job of it…I’ve thought of mongrelizing it to the point of absurdity by adding a bass regulator by another maker, but that would just be silly…
I have a Johnny Bouke chanter, regulators by Kevin Thompson.
Drones were made by Leo Rowsome, Kevin Thompson and Dave Biosvert!
And they’re fine.
Tommy
So, is it common to have to re-reed somebody to get them to get along or are you usually lucky?
Doc
My C 3/4 set consists of:
Bag and bellows by Mark Hillmann
Chanter and 2 regs by Seth Gallagher
Drones by Pat Sky
Chanter reeds by (1992) Dickie Deegan, Bernard Grigsby and myself
Drone reeds: composite brass tube arundo donax tongues made by me, I still have a problem with the bass drone not being happy outside of my apartment, especially in air conditioning.
I have 2 reg reeds made by Seth Gallagher, but I have never been able to balance and tune them, Soon, I hope, I will find the time to make arundo donax reeds for them that actually balance.
I haven’t had very good luck with the maker’s reeds, so I had to make most of my reeds myself.
So, is it common to have to re-reed somebody to get them to get along or are you usually lucky?
Doc
You should be ok. Most makers use slightly modified Rowsome designs (for concert pitch anyway) nowadays.
You’ll run into trouble if you had a narrow bore D and big wide Rwosome drones…
You may want someone to re-reed the whole lot if you want but you probably won’t have to.
Tommy
Most makers use slightly modified Rowsome designs (for concert pitch anyway) nowadays.
The emphasis is on that litle word most. i.e. Most makers are able to reed other peoples pipes but in the end it comes down to how experienced the maker is and how aware he is of differing designs. There are some out there who in spite of having been making for years just do not have a clue.