Improving Hard D?

Uilleann Pipes
1

I’m having trouble making a reed for a flat chanter which produces a good hard D. I can get it to play a hard D but not with ease, and the reed has to be more open that I like (it’s louder and the tone is harsh). If I don’t open the reed, the chanter plays very well in both octaves, with lots of tone, but just won’t play hard D. Putting a piece of card in the bell does nothing to improve it. There are no rushes in the chanter or the reed and no tape on the tone holes.

I’ve tried to scrape the reed so that it is more U than V, but I’ve been careful not to scrape the ‘heart’ (bottom of the ‘V’). This doesn’t improve the hard D but on some reeds it has destabilized the back D.

Any other suggestions? What, other than the scrape, could improve the back D?

2

I have found an O-ring in the bell (narrowing the opening there) helps the hard D more than other measures.

3

A short length of paper tube in the throat of the chanter might help.

4

My chanter has a small paper roll inside it as-well. I think it is supposed to help the chanter achieve better hard D’s.

5

I’ve tried the “card trick” in the bell, to no avail. I’ll try some paper in the throat and see if that work. Thanks for the tip.

When I try to play the hard D, the note falls in both pitch and volume.

The funny thing is that when I put the same reed in a different flat chanter, the hard D is fine, but the back D is very weak. :tomato:

6

PJ, you might try a wee experiment by using the small roll of paper to extend the bore a bit beyond the bell. Say no more than 3 mm.

Bob

7

Do you have a picture of what the o-rings look like?
Arbo

8

Always tough to field these beyond basic suggestions w/o seeing the yoke. It’s important to understand that the thickness of the lips too, play a role in the hard D. Also, from what I know “the heart” of the reed does not live in the base of the V, but more where you’d imagine the heart to be if the scraped area were a human body. However, not off to one side, but in the center area (almost 1/3 of the way down from the lips).

9

a good visual of this can be found in Appendix A of this document:
http://www.tuftl.tufts.edu/musicengineering/research/uilleann_pipes/uilleann_reed.pdf