When considering the cost of a set of pipes I’m forced to wonder why some innovative pipemaker hasn’t come up with a design for a set of drones that could be used with more than one pitch of chanter.
I mean, why not make the drones in such a way that they could just be extended more to accomodate a C or B chanter. Or maybe you could start longer and put on “tuning beads” (a la NSP) to accomodate a D chanter.
I once had a set of pipes (NSP) that had drone extenders to change from an F chanter to a D.
I know the chanter reeds are different. Are the drone reeds inherently different or something?
I’m forced to wonder why some innovative pipemaker hasn’t come up with a design for a set of drones that could be used with more than one pitch of chanter.
It’s not just about the length of the drone. It’s also about the stability of the reed. With adjusting the reed and the drone slide, I’m able to make my D drones play in C. However, the reeds are much less stable when I change the pressure on the bag - the pitch increases noticably with the pressure.
I suspect that it would be possible to make drones with a longer slide but you would probably have to change out the reeds to get them to play steady in other pitches.
I tried it, but found the pressures too different between the C and D chanters. No prblem with the droans, just add extenions. I ended up making a seperate set of droans for the C chanter with compatable pressures.
I made the main stocks so they are easy to unplug, so I can use the same bag. It works well for me.
Doc, if you take the slider off your (D) bass drone (while playing), as an experiment, although the pitch will come up several steps (I think it’s an A), this isn’t what pipe makers would call tonal quality. There has to be a relationship between the size of the reed, the size of the bore, and the length of the sound chamber to get the best tone.
As a parallel with other instruments, think of the resonating tube that is under a marimba bar. The tube has to be the right diameter and the right length to be in sync with the bar. When you get the dimensions just right, and matched to the pitch on the bar, suddenly the sound is amplified and fills the room. Lets say the bar is tuned to a D. If you put a longer tube (C) under the D bar, you’ll lose the volume and tone, the whole purpose of the resonating chamber. There’s a certain place where everything comes together for the best. Same with a reed to the drone tube. Both are sized for each other. Of course this can be part of the problem with poor sounding drones–they’re not sized perfectly to each other.
In my experience you can usually get a set of drones down a half step without too much trouble, provided there’s enough tenon length so that the slide isn’t in danger of falling off - AND if you don’t mind replacing or re-adjusting the reeds to do so. Trying to get a set of drones optimally stable in two different pitches with the same reeds is something which seems less likely to succeed.
I wouldn’t hold out a lot of hope for getting drones to work satisfactorilly for both “concert pitch” (i.e. medium-to-wide-bore concert pitch) and flat pitch, however (say, D and C#), because as has been pointed out, the pressure requirements are likely to be too different. Also the tonal requirements are quite different, so even with different reeds the result may be less than optimal.
Specifically, I wouldn’t expect to get most sets of concert pitch drones to work properly with a narrow bore flat chanter - tonally, volume-wise, or performance-wise. (From what I know of the design I think recent DMQuinn concert pitch drones may be the exception - with the right reeds I think they might be very nice for C#, but this is just speculation). Of course for the sake of experiment you can always try!
Robert Reid (famous 19th century maker of mostly Northumbrian pipes, also Union pipes and…umbrellas) made a set with two regulators and six drones, three of them gave D,A,d, the other set GDg. Or something like that. You get the idea. Northumbrian pipes use the arrangement tonic-fifth-octave for the drones - DAd etc. The seperate sets of drones were controllable by the drone switch(es?) of course. You could build a set with the other drones as E1,E,e or whatever you please.
Some modern NSP’s have been built with up to 10 drones. Buzz!
Informative thread. You describe the compatibility of wide bore d drones and flat pitched drones. I was wondering about the compatibility of 2 flat pitched keys say C and B. Since they both use less pressure than concert pitch, could the same set of drones be used with both a B and C chanters? If this can be done relatively easily, do most people find it’s easier to adjust the drones sharper or flatter-i.e. would it be easier to use a C chanter with a B set of drones, or visa versa?
Nick Adams used to have his ‘travelling set’ which had a number of separate drones that could bee switched on/off at will. Can’t remember what pitches they were. He carried it in a Golf bag by the way.
Eugene Lambe for a while had his AC/DC set which had it’s drones go to several pitches, it was sold quickly, another punter over the moon because he bought ‘the pipemaker’s personal set’.
During the early 80s Tommy Keane had a half set the drones of which were in C but had stopped holes that, when opened shortened the bore to go to concert pitch. He told me at the time this played havoc with his reeds.
All I can say with confidence from my own limited experience is that taking a Coyne-design C# set of drones down to C to play with a 16.25" Coyne chanter seems to work nicely. I think you might have trouble getting B drones up to C unless your quills were shorter than normal - you may run out of leeway on the slide tenons (this has been my anecdotal experience but I didn’t pursue the matter).
Of course this ignores the issue of whether the two “flat” chanters are of a similar tonal nature and pedigree - different chanter designs may sound better or worse with a particular drone design. I am sometimes struck with how different a particular set of drones can make a chanter sound.
The body is by Colin Jerry. The reeding was difficult, perhaps because I abandoned the original reeds in order to quieten the drones to play with the Woofe chanter. The drones are stable, although the higher notes (e,E,a,A) are a bit stronger than the lower ones (d,D,g,G). As to the sound: I would say the drones are not as harmonically rich as standard ones usually are, but that may be the result of the re-reeding. I will try and post some sound samples sometime so that people can judge for themselves.
I have a Tim Britton set in C that will tune down to B and is both steady and rich. Tim uses a trombone style slide to get the extra length. Yes it works extremely well. He offers it as an option. So there you have it. Tim’s the man.
