There are makers offering narrow-bore D sets and just about everyone makes wide-bore sets. I know of a couple makers offering medium-bore chanters but unaware if anyone is doing complete medium-bore sets w/ drones & regs.
Just wondering if there’s a middle ground between “flat concert pitch” and a blaring cannon concert pitch set in the market. It would be interesting if there was so one could start right off the bat without having to modify a wide-bore set…
I kind of like this idea as I like having a concert pitch set but I don’t like the wide-bore stuff and the narrow-bore may be a bit too mellow for my needs. Of course, my holy grail is still a B or C set
Yes, it plays at whatever key the pipemaker pitched it to be. The wideness/narrowness of the bore relates to how loud a set can get. It also has an effect the overtones that develop. That said, reed design still has the single largest effect on tone.
narrowing or widoning the bores also effects the giving calibrated pitch of the instrument, so what if some one buys a set of these pipes, medium concert pitch and finds at a jaming session the chanter is slightly higher in pitch? than a true concert pitch D chanter.there has to be some difference? because the bores are difference,all the best.
Not if all the parameters are adjusted to or for the paticular instrument you are making, you cannot adjust one parameter without first changing or adjusting the rest.
A narrow bore D chanter or set can be made to play in concert pictch as is a wide bore concert D.
Most Rowsome chanters play a tad higher than true concert pitch some as high as 453 Hz, but they are in overall tune with themselves.
If one took a collection of pipes made by different makers at a gig, many of the pipes made there will not all be in exactly the same Hz range as each other, that is uilleann pipes in general for you, one is not at the Royal Albert Hall within the masses playing together guided by a conductor, but having fun nontheless.
You can also use either chanter on a wide/narrow bore set but not always without a few reed adjustments first, but both chanters will still be in concert pitch 440 Hz.
Stew: I’m not worried about playing in a session anyway, even though I have no worries about a medium bore set’s pitch. I don’t play pipes in sessions and don’t really have any intentions of doing so. That’s why I have a fiddle!
I do however enjoy kitchen music and often play with a concertina player…My apartment is very “live” and a wide-bore set is simply too much…too much for my taste anyway, I rarely play my wide-bore chanter now. My girlfriend’s apartment is extremely dead sound wise and that’s about the only place that the wide-bore is tolerable.
Neil O’Grady in Newfoundland makes D sets which are not all that loud. I don’t know if they would be considered narrow bore or medium bore, as they don’t have the flat set sound, but if you’re looking for something that’s less loud than a standard wide bore, Neil could be an option. His lead time would certainly be less than Joe Kennedy’s.
I think if you contact Sam at Hunters pipes at Bradford, Ronan Brown and Sean Potts both play Peter Hunter wide bore chanters, on the drones and the chanters CD album, Becky Taylor plays the same chanter as Sean Potts the banjo blaster, but Ronan plays a much sweeter tone concert D chanter design of Peters.
“Quote” From Sam at Hunters Pipe.
Just to clarify - I’ve been called an anorak already thanks - Drones and Chanter vol 2 features two wide bore Hunter chanters in the hands of Potts and Browne, no narrow bore at all. The narrow/medium/callitwhatyouwill/throat ~5.10/14 3/8" long concert chanter is the one you can hear on the Donal Lunny live album. It may be edifying to know that the whole front row of this gig were sitting on the edge of their chairs clutching spare chanters, poised to rush up to the stage if the reed collapsed . . . but it made it through. The high B in the slow air caused massed “leaning back in seats and exhaling”.
Peter Hunter has however made a proper narrow bore (ie flat) D chanter since about 1982. This design has been extrapolated from E to B and every point in between, coming out best in C# or C.
all the best. 