Hunting a mellower chanter sound

[ScottMaurer]

I have a set of McClellan cocobolo smallpipes in Bb. They are lovely and sound beautiful (if only I could sound beautiful on them...) but I want to try for a mellower sound on the chanter (the drones are perfect for me, buzzy but not overly so with a sweet complex sound), it currently has an Abbot Practice chanter reed in it and its pretty good but its a bit brassy and edgy. I thought someone here with some experience might be able to chime in with a recommendation on a different reed I might try.

[daveboling]

Are there not cane reeds for smallpipes? I would think that the sound difference cane makes on the big pipes would translate to a comparably better sound on the wee pipes.

dave boling

[pancelticpiper]

Yes with the same chanter you can get a wide variety of volumes and tone-qualities depending on the reed.

Some plastic reeds are brassy, some even sound like a Kazoo. Some plastic reeds are mellow.

But you're going to get the optimum tone from a cane reed, I think.

My smallpipes are vintage. They didn't come with a chanter, so I had John Walsh make me a blackwood one, with his own plastic reed in it. I love the sound of it.