Reed tuning sharp... reed advice?

Uilleann Pipes
1

Made a nice reed. It’s tuning quite sharp, though.

It’s the right size and total length, right staple dimensions, etc. I do not think the staple is inserted too far, although I won’t rule it out.

Think the bridle might be too high up? It borders the scrape pretty closely.

What would you try first, new bridle or staple insertion depth?

I have 22 guage wire rushing the chanter and it’s still too sharp for my taste, although it balances pretty well.

Thanks for any advice -

Dave Jones

2

Define “too sharp”. I would try moving the reed further out of the throat first. Just wrap a little more waxed thread around the bottom to prevent leaks. Sometimes the easiest solution is the best one. :slight_smile:

djm

3

Moving the reed out however tends flatten the back D relative to the rest of the octave however. Is it well in tune with itself as it stands? You may try playing it in over a month or so and see if it comes into pitch naturally. If it’s pretty far yet, you can try either scraping the entire scrape a little further or making a new reed that’s just a touch longer than this one and see what that does.

When I make my reeds to Seth Gallagher’s spec’s, I invariably end up sharp. I’m usually .15" to .20" longer, and it works well for the most part. Still working on my own fine tuning issues however.

4

re: moving reed farther out – I moved it out to what seems to be unusually far and still sharp…

I think I tied it up too far. Bridle sits atop the scrape. Gonna try changing that.

I used to have reeds that always had sharp back Ds and sinking back Ds (but nice hard bottom Ds and otherwise tuning nicely). I don’t seem to be doing that with this generation of reeds, which is improvement.

Thanks for advice … will post after experimenting today

DJones

5

Staple had “sneaked” up higher into reed (probably while I was sinking into chanter), so I retied the reed and didn’t bind it up so high and my sharp problem went away. Ta-da!

… nice, quiet “buzzing” reed now that balances nicely. It’s last problem is that it drops out of second octave on high A.

I have assured myself there are no leaks and staunched the edges with wax just in case.

I know I often sand the middle of my reeds too thin… I have been scraping sides to try to fix the octave dropping problem, but don’t want to go much further until anyone on this forum is bored with life enough to want to comment on my octave dropping dilemma…

Thanks-
DJones

6

I’d play that reed for a while and let that cane settle in a bit. As the cane settles in and gets used to the notion that it’s a reed now, the octave dropping is likely to go away on its own. At least, that’s been my experience with reeds that are a little on the strong side. In the long run they often turn out to be the best players - again, that’s just what I’ve experienced so far.

7

thanks – that seems right by me.

I sanded the sides a bit, I opened it a bit, I pressed a little harder: did the trick. I like to play high A with F# finger open (brings it into tune on my other chanter) and this is probelmatic on this chanter. No problem, though. What’s one more finger pattern anyway? :frowning:

Speaking of fingering, after attending the East Coast Tionol, instructors noticed my GHB fingering of the high hand (using pads on tips rather tham second finger segment) and advised I switch. What a mess this week as I work to retrain. It’s going well enough. It’s inevitable that some GHB would stick around in my playing…

…and at band practice I’m starting to slurr notes in a way that is most un-highland…

thanks all for input -

DJones