Right. You’ve just put together your latest greatest shot at the world’s perfect reed. (Yeah Joe, we know you’ve already done this a million times but hear me out! )
So you’ve got it bound, and crowing something like a reed ought to crow. But where do you go from there? Is there a note you aim to get in tune first? Do you work your way up or down the scale? How do you alter your scrape or perhaps the length of the reed to adjust your reeds tuning?
My current dilemma is that I seem to be able to get the A and two D’s relatively well enough, but I seem to keep coming up with a flat B and C#/Cnat, and a pretty sharp E (in both octaves).
I’m a bit worried that scraping much more might kill what nice tonal qualities are there and I’ll be forced to start from scratch again. So - as in the “Makers who have studied” thread I’m curious to learn as much as I can from those who have gone before. Obviously, thee aren’t many reed museums that I can run off to and go take measurements, so I’m curious to learn what you experienced ones may have to say on the matter.
With isolated tuning stuff like this, you might try changing the staple taper a bit. You could even change staple size up or down and compensate with the reed head width.
Sharp E in both octaves sounds like a job for wax or electrical tape - in any case I’d try that first. The flat B may be the trickier one to sort out. If you are using a tapered staple, perhaps reducing the rate of taper would help that - however it may make the Es worse.
Or you could try bringing the B and C# up via reed insertion, while flattening the back D by using a longer reed head or longer scrape.
Would altering the staple taper length help to spread out the individual octaves?
Meaning- if the staple taper were to be increased in length for example, would this have the effect of making the top hand notes (D, C#, Cnat, B & A) sharper in relation to the bottom hand notes (G, F#, Fnat, E and bottom D)? Or would this be something in the scrape alone…meaning it needs to be longer?
It seems that this is the one mystery I’m trying to figure out how to control. Joe?
Increasing the taper, meaning starting the taper further down the reed would serve to decrease internal volume thus flattening the top octave. Less taper length would increase internal volume sharpening top octave. The more surface area you are squeezing in to make a taper the more internal volume you are squeezing out; like a tube of toothpaste.
Mind you, length of taper would probably affect other aspects of tuning too due to it’s effect on the shape of the reed head.
You’re mentioning the difference between the relative octaves though correct? I’m concerned not with that, but with the “spreading” of a single octave if possible - making the top notes sharper, the bottom flatter, or both. Does this then still apply?
How flat are your notes. Bear in mind that B is supposed to be 16cents flat relative to an electronic tuner (just intonation scale). Equally, Cnat is supposed to be 4 cents flat & Csharp 12 cents flat. If you are tuning to a good steady set of drones & the notes are still flat, then the chanter could be at fault - check other reeds & see if they are the same.
Hmm, maybe I was misunderstood. I was talking about changing the rate of taper in a rolled staple in such as way as to maintain a constant internal volume. I think I also suggested other changes that would keep the internal volume the same. Different parts of the staple effect certain notes more than others, since after all the staple forms the upper part of the bore.
Just pushing the reed further into the reed seat will serve to “stretch” the scale by sharpening the upper notes proportionally more, of course. The trick is to make other adjustments which serve to keep the overall pitch correct.
Gordon is of course right that we need to be sure ‘sharp’ and ‘flat’ are relative to the drones, or at least take just intonation into account. Tuning meters are useless for anything other than checking octaves and the D/A notes, unless you correct for this.
The chanter is a Gallagher made mid last year so I have little doubt it is at fault - though I suppose anything is possible. The notes that are flat and sharp are all well over 50-80 cents so - almost a full semi tone at times…much more than the standard deviation when checked against an equal temp. tuner.
I think my troubles may be linked to the use of a tubing staple here as opposed to a rolled conical staple. I’ll try some experiments there and see what I can come up with. Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Keep 'em coming!
No, I knew what you meant. I was responding to Brian’s question about lengthening the taper which is different to changing the rate of taper. Anyway, yes, I don’t think lenghtening or shortening the tpaer would spread the individual notes.
Just for kicks I tried using 7/32 (??) id tubing for a staple - it was much wider than normal anyway, but with common 12mm wide head. Notes were in tune largely as were the octaves, surprisingly, but it sounded rough as guts, and individual notes were very unstable. If I had compensated by making a narrower, shorter head, that may have helped.
Ah-hah! There is your problem. The staple is just as important (if not more) as the head.
I have had the best results with a rolled staple (even with a chanter that supposedly was designed for hobby tu\bing),
The hobby tubing staple reeds need to be rather thin so that you can “blow them into tune”. The pressure differential between notes of the same octave will be much more even with the rolled staple, requiring only the Es to be blown into tune on my chanters.
The pressure for the notes in each ovtave is almost constant when you “get it right”.
In speaking with Seth, he said the biggest difference between a tubing staple and a rolled one is that the second octave might be a bit flatter with tubing. But tuning problems within the octave shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve got one rolled staple that I’m not sure was even made for a Gallagher chanter, but it’s dimensions seem just about right - so I’m giving it a try tonight with some slips I know are fairly close with tubing…we’ll see what happens.
The taper of the HR staple is a different shape to tubing. Tubing tends to spread sideways, you have more control over the way you shape the taper in HRs. A lot of the tuning/spread of e, f & g 2nd 8ve is controlled therein and this may also be able to help with a sharp E? (Otherwise a rush and a roll of card above E hole etc.,) I don’t really think there is too much in 8ve tuning being different between HR and tubing itself (except obviously yuou can alter the id more on HRs), if anything, it is that the internal volume of the reedhead is different in shape, and often bigger, depending on the thickness of the material you use to roll. If bigger, then the 2nd 8ve will be sharper (Goldy pointed out about internals elsewhere).
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