In the quest to find the reed with the magic tone, I have come to a place of questioning (as I’m sure is typical in such a state). The main question I have is- what about reed design/construction contributes to the “reediness” of the tone of the reed??? Every time I listen to (live, or recorded) pipes made and/or reeded by Williams, Burke, Froment (especially), and many times even Rogge, I hear in the tone almost a pointed “buzz” or “attack” that I don’t hear quite as much in pipes made or reeded by Preshaw, Lynch, or many others. Now, I’m sure that much of it has to do with chanter design and bore, but some of these makers are pretty close to copies of the old Rowesome concert pitch design, correct? If that’s the case, then my guess is that much of the “reediness” is actually coming from the reed (is this pointing out the obvious?). If that is true then, I get back to the question- what about the reed design adds or subtracts from the overall “reediness” of the tone?
Unfortunately a lot of that has to do with two factors nobody wants to have to deal with. One is bright, hard cane. The other is not overscraping the reed in general just to make it comfortable, nay, easy, even lazy to play, and in particular, not overscraping the lips. You get the same pitch with hard hard cane, thicker lips and a bit wider reed as you do with a soft cane scraped to nothing and a narrower blade. The latter plays more like an old narrow-bore reed, and former tends to have that bright buzz of a wide-bore.
Anyway, I’ve seen pipers put masking tape or thread or oil or gease on chanter reeds trying to get them “quieter” so as to not stand out in a session or whatever, or bother the neighbors as they imagine to be a serious problem with uilleann pipes. (Coming from 30 years of Highland piping I find this notion entertaining.) You don’t get a nose-blower reed (as we say in the Highland piping world) and that bright buzzy tone.
Now this “buzz” is something new to me… someone else recently made a comment on the buzz of Wooff sets (not refering to the reeds). I’ve thought it was that bright “ring” (or bell sound) of the chanter that was most sought after. Now we’re looking for buzz(?)
I posted a response way back, that I thought the metal rush up a stick, aside from the presumed reasons for using it, also produces a buzzing, or slight vibrating, and depending on the thinness of the metal rush, even a ringing.
(ps, really great sounding drum you make, Metloef!!)
All a matter of personal taste, I suppose. My own preference leans toward the “buzz”; something softer and less bright is how I hear what I’m trying to relate, here, which stands at apparent odds to Royce’s description. Can you have it both ways?
I can’t go with this hard cane for “attack” or “buzz” or whatever. I find hard cane is fairly dead with a lot of crank needed on the bridle to close the eye, and you end up with a nasty mid frequency clack. The trick, I think, is to get the staple to impart as little outward pressure on the reedhead and then the bridle has only to “mute” and tune the reed, with a great deal of closure already done with the binding, with a hell of a pressure used for the first few mm of the tails (which is why I shy from waxed hemp now, as it breaks on that job). You can also make a more narrow “shoulder” where the tail finishes (or perhaps just a longer thinner tail) so the reed head takes on a more triangular shape, but they tend to be a bit hard blown. Easy reeds have fizz, hard reeds have quack.
Do you gouge out the tails, Alan? Ted said this was unecessary, but using the soft cane he does, couldn’t the tying on distort and compress the fibers sufficently to do the job without gouging?
What are you using for string? My local pipemaker uses very thin, fresh stuff so it doesn’t snap, but I don’t think he has to use much pressure to tie the reed on either.
Froment etc. do have a hard edge to their sound. I know Lynch uses soft California cane, and Kirk likes small toneholes as well, I’m told. The online Craig Fischer article on flat pipes discusses the ramifications of using smaller fingerholes, that it brings out more of the harmonics of the sound. Larger holes = more fundamental. Craig explained it to me once - you put a piper in a room playing a Coyne chanter or the like, and in the next room a Froment chanter or the like, so there is no difference in overall volume. The Coyne will be heard more fully, due to the overtones in the sound having more carrying power, being more penetrating. This of course is a Coyne etc. with a nice bright reed, to maximise this characteristic fully.
So - the reed can go a long way in determining what you’ll hear. The fellow who made my first reeds was also a fanatic for alternate metals in the staples - I think I will expand on these comments in the “Rolling Staples” post, actually, this was quite a rant the guy had.
I do gouge tails, but usually only for Concert reeds.I use a fairly short tail (about 22mm), and also my slips are a little thicker than most, about 1.3mm on a good day (but this does not mean they are harder or louder than others!!). I’ve never had problems with weakness due to the little extra meat on the bone, but I do start the gouge 10mm from the lips. Hence getting the pitch with a shorter reed slip. As for binding, I use a waxed polymer kinda stuff, I don’t know the trade or scientific name for it, but it’s the stuff that Rogge uses (used?). I get it direct from Cillian O’Briain. It’s reusable, and it sticks to itself, and you dont’ have filthy finger nails that black wax causes (or wife problems due to little black blobs everywhere!)
I’ve played soft and hard cane reeds in my Mackenzie chanter and have found that it is possible to get any reed to play buzzy or flat in sound by altering the thinness of the blades in the scrape region and the elevation of the lips. The thinner the blades- the more buzzy, the smaller the elevation- the more flat the sound. I agree with Alan on the “fizz/quack” analogy between soft and hard cane. However, I have found that if you take a wide reed made from hard cane, scrape the blades very thin, and close the elevation (to make up for the reed being thinned too much for a normal elevation), you can have a hard cane reed that plays easy and has that “buzz”/“fizz”.
I far prefer the sound of a buzzy reed and love the quieter volume of a closed and flat sounding reed. I believe that you can have a marrying of the two by scraping* and closing*.
NOTE If anyone decides to try this, be bloody careful. I have overscraped lots of reeds rendering them useless. I have also found that this sort of reed will only play well with a perfect elevation so it can take a lot of repeated opening and closing of the reed trying to find that sweet spot. Furthermore, the hard D is more likely to gurgle/warble with a very thin scrape.