sinking tenor drone pitch at average pressure

Uilleann Pipes
1

Hi folks,
maybe some of you know this problem and can tell me what to do to solve it:

I have some Daye Budget Drones I recently bought second hand. They really sound great and after setting them up for my range of pressure the bariton drone and the bass drone are rock steady!
I followed the manual that said if a drone rises in pitch with rising pressure the bridle should be moved to close the tongue, towards its end. That worked perfectly, altough I had to bend up the tongues a lot to make the reeds work at my (fellow pipers told me) very high pressure.

Now comes the problem: The tenor drone is perfectly in tune when I sound it at a very low pressure, and at a high level of pressure I need to sound the second octave. Inbetween, at the level I play bottom D to top D it drops down 5 cents.
When I close the tongue more, I have the phenomenon of the drone rising generally with rising pressure and vice versa, as metioned in the manual. So the bridle position should be optimal where it is now.

What can I do? :boggle:

Cheers,

Philipp

2

Philipp,

  1. If the reed is adjusted properly, there should be 2 tones. The first tone will sound with light pressure and when more pressure is applied the reed should drop down to the more solid second tone…this is the tone that you want. If the reed takes a lot of pressure to drop to the second tone, then the tongue is too thick.

  2. make sure thet the slider is not all the way out. Adjust the reed so that it is around 1/4" out from the top.

  3. Also make sure that the drone is air tight. Leakage will drive the drone mad.


    All the best,
    Pat Sky