Drone reed: wrong partial

[mke_mick]

Wow, three pipemakers and one professional reedmaker in one thread -- that's what keeps me coming back to this forum. Thanks much!

A couple of nights ago, I got my Gallagher drones back in full fettle by swapping in a brand new baritone reed (the old one had developed cracks and was leaking), applying more arch to the tenor drone's tongue, and adding ballast to the tip of the bass drone reed's tongue.

That got me 90% of the way there. The last 10% came from adding still more arch to and scraping the tenor & baritone reeds' tongues, and reluctantly adding ballast to both as well.

Tim, I recently re-read the drone-reed chapter of your reedmaking book, so I tried to avoid resorting to ballasting. However, adding arch alone was not enough to both keep them from clapping shut and to lower their pitch sufficiently. (Lowering the bridle caused other problems.)

The thing is, the ballast isn't causing any of these three reeds to go sharp under higher pressure: all three are now quite steady across octaves, even up to high D.

Thanks again to you all,
Mick

[Mr.Gumby]

The thing is, the ballast isn't causing any of these three reeds to go sharp under higher pressure: all three are now quite steady across octaves, even up to high D.

No, weight does not, in my experience, tend to make drone reeds go sharp under pressure.

[Brazenkane]

In 99% of all my experiences w/reeding drones, I find that putting weight the tongue does indeed cause the pitch to rise under pressure.

There was one reed in which I used Geoff's trick and like magic, the pitch was correct and the reed was steady. However, since I don't own the kit that had that reed any longer, I cannot confirm that under hard pressure that reed wouldn't rise (or fall). It did work w/in the range of the chanter, so I didn't purse/solo the drone and put it through it's paces. So, it may've been shifting slightly... (?)

The steadiness test: Turn the 2 drones not being tested, off. Do not play the chanter. Play the drone in question, and apply hard pressure. The drone should not rise, fall in pitch, gurgle, or shut off.

Now, if weight is added and the pitch rises, then you can start to move the bridle up by wee increments, and testing the drone again. Of course, other issues follow if the bridle has to moved too far up....because then, the slide will have to be moved down to compensate for the new pitch. Hence, we have then have the issue Tim so eloquently stated e.g. not enough slide to accommodate steadiness. (There are many other nuances someone can add, but for now.. I'm keeping the writing to a minimum. Lucky yous!)

Some may say, "well my drones are dead steady w/in the range of my chanter pressure." I suppose that's fine. Simultaneously, how fine is that situation? Hard to say. I like my drones to be steady, and neither rise at all in pressure, and certainly not drop.

....it's can be a tough place to get to indeed!

[mirabai]

The thing is, the ballast isn't causing any of these three reeds to go sharp under higher pressure: all three are now quite steady across octaves, even up to high D.

No, weight does not, in my experience, tend to make drone reeds go sharp under pressure.

beg to differ... it may be that you have never sufficiently tested it out...

[mke_mick]

Guess I may have spontaneously gone tone-deaf; weirder things have happened. Doubt it, though.

All I know is that a lot of pipers around me, including some verifiably brilliant ones, also have one or more weighted/ballasted drone reeds that don't sound sharp under increased pressure.

--Mick

[mirabai]

Let me just add one more thing...

Whenever someone requests my help with their pipes/reeds I always ask if their drones are steady. They almost always say yes. When I go to check it out myself, they are almost never steady and usually very very much to the contrary. I can only conclude that they either don't pay enough attention or don't have the ears to discern the difference.

and one more bit... Drone reeds will "pull" each other into tune, through some sort of sympathetic resonance, until you push them beyond their ability do so. This means that in order to truly test their steadiness you must test them individually, while varying the pressure relatively dramatically, while still within a range of relatively normality.

So Mick, I suggest that unless you have tested those pipes yourself in this way, you're not really in a position to say what you said definitively. Not to be harsh here... just trying to clarify a long standing situation... but don't take my word for it... try it yourself... but please reserve judgement unless you really have followed up properly, before disseminating possibly faulty info...

[Lorenzo]

I assume drone reeds operate on the same principle as pump organ reeds, or accordion and concertina reeds for that matter, in that the tongue slices the air as air is forced through, chopping the air in the chamber, and producing volume and tone. Maybe we need to determine the length, thickness, and type of material added as a weight, because you see weights (lead or solder) on the end of bass reeds in pump organs and some accordions all the time. In most cases this has been shaved and shaped in a rectangle and filed down flat to tune the reed.

Adding weight to the tip of an all-natural cane reed, in uilleann pipes, could range from gluing cane back on, after it's been shaved down a little...to adding a hard resin or putty of some kind. The shape ( length, width, height) and amount added to the end of the tongue would matter, and how far it is placed between the middle and the tip, right? Also, a composite tongue mounted on a cane tube would have to be part of the scenario, for the sake of this conversation, I assume.

So, I just took out my baritone drone reed, to add some weight to this argument, just to see what would happen (after all, unless you can demonstrate what you are saying, you may not be saying anything at all). I've never taken the drone out, since I got the set several years ago, because the drones are all as steady as a rock no matter how much air pressure I put into them. Lo and behold, it was a composite! (I have a Rogge boxwood C 3/4 set) And guess what? It had a reddish resin drop already placed on the end of the composite tongue, medium in size, and rounded off like a drip that had dried.

So, I abandoned my experiment. I suppose I could replace the composite drone reed with a natural cane reed, then try adding some weight. First, tell me why that would matter so I know what kind of material, what shape, and exact placement on tongue that would would make all the difference.

[mirabai]

Just use the composite reed you have. Do the test outlined above with the drone reed as is. Use an electronic tuner so your ears are out of the picture. Then add a small round blob about 3/16" of bees wax or other sticky putty to the existing blob. Let us know what you find...

and BTW, free reeds, although related, do not work quite the same as drone reeds, as pointed out earlier in the thread...

[Mr.Gumby]

it may be that you have never sufficiently tested it out.

Would you say playing a set of reeds, each weighed, since 1986 would be sufficient? I think I estimated at some point I have played them for over 35000 hours. They're solid.

[Brazenkane]

Tim's not saying (correct me if I'm wrong, Tim) that weighted reeds can't work/won't be rock steady. A reed may indeed need weight for a reason based on individual need of the tongue. What I believe he is saying is that random globbing of the tongue to bring the pitch down/get the tongue to vibrate invariably will unsteadyness, mostly rising in pitch, and ocasionally lowering in pitch.

**This is aside from doing Geoff's trick of overweighting the tongue and having it lock to pitch. Which has worked for me at times, in the past. Having said that, in other instances, I experienced the above mentioned issues. All that I believe, has everything to do with the geometry of the bore/how much back pressure the reed is encountering**

[mke_mick]

If that's the case, then what's the beef? Nobody here is advocating wanton random blobbing.

Myself, I'm talking about adding ballast to a reed whose tongue has already been scraped and flexed/arched but is still clapping shut or is still too high in pitch. There's only so much scraping and flexing you can do before the tongue breaks, and there's a hard limit to how far up you can move the bridle before even the best-arched tongue refuses to vibrate.

Of course adding ballast can cause instability. But subsequently raising the bridle just a hair or two fixes that, without raising the pitch nearly as much as the ballast lowered it. Problem solved.

I haven't done Tim's suggested solo-drone test yet, but if they're "holding each other" at pitch when played together, what's the point? I have no desire to use them singly. I'm interested in steady, open drones, and if I've got that I'm happy, non-randomly/wantonly-applied blobs and all.

My Gallagher drones shipped with the bass reed pre-blobbed. That reed has worked great -- stable and in tune -- except for the week or so I tried to get it to work without the blob.

Cheers,
Mick

[mirabai]

it may be that you have never sufficiently tested it out.

Would you say playing a set of reeds, each weighed, since 1986 would be sufficient? I think I estimated at some point I have played them for over 35000 hours. They're solid.

With all due respect, unless you have done a test similar to what I outlined above, given what I have experienced, I do not trust your judgement.

Re: Kinch's interpretation of what I said, adding weight will never make the reed go flat with increased pressure, always sharper, but in relation to what the reed was doing before the added weight. So, on the rare occasion that the reed is getting flatter with increased pressure, weighting the end of the tongue will indeed "cure" that assuming you use exactly the right amount. Though, as I said, I prefer to move the bridle down, revealing more tongue length, which will do the same thing but likely take less air and render a smoother tone, if that is desirable.

I'm repeating myself at this point. Do the test if you want to find out what I'm talking about. If not...

[mirabai]

Myself, I'm talking about adding ballast to a reed whose tongue has already been scraped and flexed/arched but is still clapping shut or is still too high in pitch. There's only so much scraping and flexing you can do before the tongue breaks, and there's a hard limit to how far up you can move the bridle before even the best-arched tongue refuses to vibrate.

Of course adding ballast can cause instability. But subsequently raising the bridle just a hair or two fixes that, without raising the pitch nearly as much as the ballast lowered it. Problem solved.

I haven't done Tim's suggested solo-drone test yet, but if they're "holding each other" at pitch when played together, what's the point? I have no desire to use them singly. I'm interested in steady, open drones, and if I've got that I'm happy, non-randomly/wantonly-applied blobs and all.

The problem is that though they will pull each other towards a medium, neither may be steady, and when pushed beyond their ability to "magnetize" each other, they will start "beating". Also, it is much easier for two drones to attract each other. When you add a third it gets much more complex and doesn't work out so well if they are not truly in tune and the same amount of steadiness. And the test is has nothing to do with playing them singly. It is just a lot easier to find out what's really going on. It only take a few minutes and a tuner...

If it is clapping shut, it has not been arched enough or in the right place. Geoff gave a nice description of that process earlier here.

And just to be clear, I do occasionally use "ballast", but very rarely...

One last thing... the issues I've been describing do not cover the entire range of possibilities of drone reeds. There are other factors that come into play that are subtler and more elusive to pin down or describe. Sometimes the pursuit of steady, good sounding drones is an easy one. Sometimes it is a wild goose chase, involving unforeseen factors. Good luck and enjoy!

[Brazenkane]

whoops! I didn't explain that one correctly (in my haste). I echo Tim; adding weight will not fix a reed that blows downward in pitch. Thanks for the correction!

[Lorenzo]

Just use the composite reed you have. Do the test outlined above with the drone reed as is. Use an electronic tuner so your ears are out of the picture. Then add a small round blob about 3/16" of bees wax or other sticky putty to the existing blob. Let us know what you find...

and BTW, free reeds, although related, do not work quite the same as drone reeds, as pointed out earlier in the thread...

I think I'll leave well enough alone. Much weight has already been added to the tip of a drone reed and it works fine. Adding more weight to already existing weight could possibly cause a rise in pitch with added air pressure, but it could mean other things too--like too much being added, too much in the wrong place, too much in the wrong shape, or the final balance wrong in relation to the size of reed. Replacing the existing resin with a slightly larger drop of resin, same type, same location, may not cause a rise in pitch at all due to increased air pressure, while adding 3/16th" sticky putty may. I think I'll let others experiment. I don't especially need to know, esp now that the original postulation seems to be subsiding a bit.

What I was mostly wondering is whether the same thing was true of cane drone reeds as is true of composites like the one I have--composite tongue on cane frame/tube.

Yes, free reeds do work a little differently. I hadn't read the previous page, thanks. With pipe drone reeds, the tongue is larger than the opening--which causes the tongue to slap against the frame, while a free reed is open to swing and bend. In this case, the parallel was for tongue-tuning comparisons, whether adding weights to the tips affects steadiness of pitch.