Reedmakers: What’s ythe widest reed head you’ve made for concert D chanter?
Just finished tie-up of a reed that has great potential, but wasn’t being mindful as I worked and reed head width is 14 mm! I have one that is 13 mm wide and plays nicely… I’m wondering whether width of reed has anything to do with quality of hard bottom D. In experimenting with different sizes, my wider reeds seem to have better quality hard bottom Ds…
DJones
The answer to this question, I believe, lies in the bore diameter and length. Remember, the staple is an extension of the bore.
I had an obsession with wider heads for a little while (and a short lived stab at narrow heads too). I never went wider than 14mm and found, like you, that the hard D’s were nice when the reed had a wide head. I also found that the second octave tuning was nicely matched to the first (I had flat 2nd octave problems at that time). However, what got me off the wide head train was that the back D was really flat and I couldn’t get around this problem.
I’ve been sticking to 12.5 - 12.7 for a while now and don’t intend to go back to trying narrower or wider heads. I hope not to need to do any reedmaking for a while anyway, since my current reed is great and I only make reeds when I’m trying to supercede a less than satisfactory one.
All the best.
Yes! Yes! Exactly what I found! I chop-chop-chopped my great, big reed head down, but flat back D was just too flat… Too bad… nice, flexible cane slip and shaped nicely.
I am playing a nice reed now that has no really nice hard bottom D. “Soft” D is nice and plays in tune with minor adjustments to pressure.
12.5.. that’s narrow… I’ve been averaging around 13.
Thanks for the input. Always appreciate your comments. When I have some time off or whatever, I always try to get in a little reedmaking. I’m afraid that what little and modest skill I have would be lost if I waited until my nice reeds gave out.
DJones
All you had to do is move one hole, right?
It’s funny that you should say that, because I did end up elongating that damn back D hole. Not to compensate for the wide reed head, but because I had always had problems with the note. A nice discussion thread on “Undercutting” grew in this forum at the time (incase you’re interested in reading it).
I modified the chanter after years of struggling with this note and a gurgling bottom D. When I saw two similar chanters to mine had a slightly higher placed hole, I decided to elongate it by a couple of millimeters (I also tried scolloping the hole). I got by for a while, but later tried my reed in another maker’s chanter and was amazed at how I was getting sharp back D’s and no gurgles, so I gave up on my chanter and ordered a replacement from the other maker.
Many reed makers use this sort of width. Due to the flat back D problems I was having, I needed to go as narrow as possible and found that 12.5 was as narrow as I could go before the reed became really reluctant and the second octave play flat.
My reeds look just like Alan Burton’s from the outside, but with thinner and more closed lips. On the inside, they don’t have his tone chamber, but are instead formed on a 50mm sanding block. Based on my experience, I’d definitely recommend you trying a slightly narrower head to see if it brings you better results.
All the best.
I like the a wider reed 13.20mm -13-50mm for a chanter throat of 5.20mm, and 13.60mm - 13.90mm reed width for 5.25mm-5.30mm throat, remember good cane makes good reeds, I personaly don’t like skittary little reeds.all the best.
Made a very nice “looking” little reed today with 12 mm width… my chanter (Childress) just does not like skinny reeds. It’s nice enough, but terribly sharp. Perhaps it will improve with age (but my experience is it would get sharper…) since I just made it this morning and I dip the tails in water on assembly to avoid cracking while winding.
My best reed is 13 mm. Will stick with what works.
My problem is I experinment too much.
DJones
If you make a skinny concert pitch reed, generally it will have to be longer than a similar ‘wide’ reed head; also, it should usually have a wider eye. This means, in effect, that the internal volume of the reed is preserved (to keep the octave tuning correct) while the reed head is narrowed.
BK-style narrow reeds do have rather thick middles (across the eye); this seems to help the E’s a lot.
regards
Bill
thanks - yes, made adjustments in the staple eye and increased the length. May not have done these things enough, though.
Thanks all for comment - I learn a great deal.
DJone