Hi,
For those who often play in air-conditioned rooms/venues, what do you do to make sure your reed behaves properly in such environments?
Thanks in advance!
Well, living in Central Sauna…er… Florida, I make certain to never play out of doors during late Spring through late Summer. Another thing you may want to consider if you are worried about the effect of AC on your reed, is to make a reed within the AC environment that you play in… or your AC environment at home… and that reed should only be played within that climate.
I live in Miami. I play where ever …inside A/C or out doors and have never had any probs. it’s always humid here…
It’s always been a mystery, I remember not being able to play in 40 degree’s C weather back in sunny Perth but the air-conditioning allowed playing although it’d go from seriously flat to squeeky sharp…
In Wales, too cold makes the reed play up instead and I had trouble getting out crans in D! Can’t win!
I had to avoid cran tunes in Winter or find a very warm room with a fire.
Cheers!
Andy
In Atlanta in the summer (now), if it wasn’t for AC our pipes would not play due to the heat and 100% humidity…the AC gets the temp into the 70s and humidity into the 50-60% range…perfect for playing.
-gary
The nice thing about Miami is the fact that for most of the time there is a steady breaze or circulation of air. In land-locked Central Florida, those breazes usually do not reach us until mid to late afternoon… and then they are usually accompanied by thunder storms. 
I wish I could afford A/C. I just stop playing until things ease off. If you’re playing in public, or if you’ve signed up for a summer class in the tropical northeast area, that’s probably not an option. There are two ways I have heard of people dealing with this (intense heat & humidity): change to another reed, or acclimatize the reed you have. By changing the reed, you could make a dedicated hot weather reed as was suggested, or try making a treated reed, e.g. soaking in neats foot oil, as has been recommended by others. For acclimatizing, I have found showing up a couple of hours early and playing in the reed can help to a point, but when its as hot and muggy as it has been this summer in the northeast, the reed will play for a while and then just give up. I tend to give up before the reed does. 
djm
… as do I, something about melting into a slushy puddle disturbs me… not that I’m not already disturbed.
… or slushy.
djm
… yyyeeeesssssssssssssssss… slussssssssshy…
Pray.
Seriously, if/when I go back to Japan, I’m going to have to get into the habit of making reeds to suit the seasons. Playing in the muggy summer months with or without AC wasn’t so bad…it’s just the snap change from hot and muggy to cold and dry around the end of October that was a problem (lost a gorgeous sounding reed to cracking that way…). Singapore has the advantage of staying relatively warm and humid all year round (at least in comparison to many other parts of the world, anyways…). I’d suggest trying to get your pipemaker to throw in a few extra reeds as backups (never a bad idea), try your best to keep them in as stable a climate as possible, and learn to make your own reeds when you can. But don’t stress. Uilleann pipes are not hothouse flowers. They can and will adapt to their environment…eventually. That’s the theme for today, kids: don’t stress!!! Clear your head of anxiety, have a stiff drink, and relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax.
Slainte,
TSP
That’s great to hear from you with your Sloan set. I have one on order from Ray, and I was wondering about that being that Columbus, OH is on the very humid side. How is the set working for you, by the way?
… 
… rumor has it that he has a new chanter… but I’ll leave that up to Snoogie to disclose… or not…