there is so much information out there concerning oboe reed making i was wondering if this can be applied to uilleann pipe reeds?
they seem to go into the forming of the scrape in much more detail as if you could tune the reed to every note by where you scrape the scrape
Also i was looking through a charles double reed catalog and they sell reed staples of brass and silver stating that the brass gives a warm tone and the silver a bright tone ,has this ever been tryed with chanter reeds or are they just too different ?
I’m not sure about the staples, but the issue of oboe reeds has come up several times, with the general conclusion that they are different due to having different requirements. I think if you do a Search you will find some detailed answers on this.
Reedmakers like Dan O Dowd used to use copper for the concert pitch staples and brass for the flat sets. That has gone out of fashion it seems but it shows that at some point material was a consideration.
Oboe reeds are much more forgiving. One doesn’t change tuning with the scrape except in the grossest sense, scraping just gets the reed to play comfortably and the tuning is generally accomplished by moving the reed in and out of the instrument. Fine tuning can be accomplished with embouchure.
much of what is applied to constructing double reeds, wet or dry, applies to UP reeds. Measurements are different, templates are different, but the science is the same.
An article I have from a magazine for wind players called ‘Shapes and Scrapes’ was very useful. It was an essay about the effect of tying on amongst other things. It covered how the tail shape/tying pressure etc., affected the shape of the lips and the shoulders of the reed head and then how the reed head will respond to scraping, all of paramount importance.
In fact, just reading it again, it talks of staple measurements in terms of 47mm long, 4.9 - 5.2mm diameter which in UP terms is useable (yes I know the staple design is different). So, anything that is important in governing tonal response in a reed, is important across the board. I also have a book ‘Reed Making in Early Woodwind’, which helped a lot.
As for Brass v Copper, I would prefer Brass for smaller reeds merely because the brass is more stable when thin, so a smaller staple would be less likely to collapse/spread under the hammer. ???
I also have this book, but I am puzzled by what you find so helpful in it (haven’t finished reading it yet). So far as I’ve got, there is no mention of how to size/proportion the reed for instruments other than the specific ones they mention (shawms, etc.) and no indication of how they arrived at the dimensions they give. Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to what it is they are getting from this book that I seem to have missed?
It’s a book on how to make reeds, double reeds at that. The process is the same for all reeds with just some variations in design and measurement. The smallest point like how you shape the tail to receive a reverse cone staple for example can enlighten you in the way you shape you UP tails.
I don’t think you can apply it to specifically design a UP reed, but to confirm, reaffirm and experiment like buggery.
The instrument itself wasn’t magicked out of thin air, so information from other instruments were crucial for it’s development. This applies today still. There’s not a huge amount of (useful, correct) info on UP reeds out there, and a lot of conflicting stuff at that, or unproved/undecided theories etc.,
Thing is, these books and articles are a bit hardcore, but if you want to succeed in an area that is still grey, every bit helps.
The oboe world have had it so good in comparison to the U.P,s because they can buy anything, from the raw cane to a gouging machine ( I saw one on Ebay recently for £2500!) and make up their reeds from any kit combination they choose. At The 1st Annual Floating Tionol which I have just come back from, Brian Howard gave everyone a kit of his and of the five pipers who had a go everyone was successful and made a working reed to take away with them. There were sets by four different makers and most novices even went so far as to say that the reeds were at least as good as the originals and in some cases better ! I think that is truly outstanding and if anyone is brave enough to have a go you can get all the material from www.howardmusic.co.uk
This thread has set me reading up on general reedmaking today and I spotted gouging machines that can be made to your specs., (cane bed and gouger) and then adjustable by 0.1mm increments for gouging depth, all for $1,200. But the following article makes good argument against mass produced reed parts.
