Page 1 of 1

Hunting a mellower chanter sound

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:35 am
by 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.

Re: Hunting a mellower chanter sound

Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:24 am
by 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

Re: Hunting a mellower chanter sound

Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2015 5:51 am
by 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.