I’m having a bit of trouble recently with my David Daye bass drone. When I’m a bit easy on the bag, most the time it happens when playing the bottom hand lower octave, the drone warbles as if the drone is about to stop playing until iI increase pressure again. It’s like the noise the drones make before starting or stopping. I assume it has to do with air flow through the reed, but the last time I tried to tinker with it a bit I through it completely out of whack.
I know a solution is to lean heavier on the bag, but it seems like a fine line between getting lower notes to sound correctly and having the drone problem. Can anyone give me some help in going about adjusting the reed a bit? Thanks
It sounds as if the tongue of the reed is set too high above the body, probably only very slightly, which causes the springiness (stiffness) of the tongue to change the vibration mode when the air pressure decreases.
If you can slightly close the tongue by some means… a natural reed ( cane or some sort of wood) can be persuaded to bend down closer either by supporting the tongue in the middle of its length, slightly open, between a finger and thumb and pressing down the free end to remove a little of the curvature that should be present in a well made reed, or you can remove the reed from the drone and gently roll it between your two hands.
Another way is to slightly shorten the acting length of the tongue by adding a bridle at its fixed end… this might raise the pitch of the drone but if so then add a tiny amount of weight to the tongues free end which will bring the pitch down.
Also a tongue can have some of its stiffness removed by carefully scraping it to thin it towards the fixed end.
If you have a composite or plastic drone reed then there may be other solutions.
The reed is a plastic slip. I’ve tried decreasing the height/lift of the tongue by pushing it down/trying to bend it slightly, but it seems kinda stuck in the shape its in now.
OK, well I do not have much experience of this type but we had a very similar problem with a new plastic Bass drone reed in my Wife’s Cornemuse ( french bagpipe) that would drop out when the pressure was low… so I took a VERY sharp blade ( scalpel) and gently scraped the surface of the plastic tongue, at the back , starting just in front of the binding and scraping towards the free end for about half an inch.
I started firstly with the corner-edges of the slip… just one gentle scrape on each edge and tried the drone again. It did not take very much to reduce the starting pressure enough to stop this 'drop-out ’ effect.
Warning; Your results may differ. Here I am just suggesting what I would do to cure what you have described, whereas your problem may result from a different cause… as in ‘perhaps you just need to blow harder’… I say this because I have no idea of your experience or your make of pipes .
I make these all the time and they are relatively easy to make. I think this is a worthwhile effort. If you make one yourself you will spend many hours trying to get it to work, but once you do, the knowledge you have gained will be well worth it. You will be able to tinker and fix a reeds with confidence.
Again, if it is a Daye reed like in the video. The plastic used is very pliable and you can reset the double bend he puts in it without doing permanent damage. I would try that before scraping.
I have made this style for my sets in D ,C and B. The bass are the easiest. the little tenors are a little more fussy.
Thanks guys. I got it sounding again. It also seemed to reduce the pressure I was playing at previously. I had been pumping away at the bellows and wondering if I may have a leak somewhere. It’s amazing what such a tiny difference can make. That video helped a lot.
