Chiff and Fipple Forums

Over the past summer I collected an order for a set. It's the first time I'm dealing with regulators. When I first picked them up the set was perfectly in tune. Within a few weeks though I could hear the slight harmonic buzz that comes when the tuning is not spot on. It was OK though, I didn't mind much & overall was still close enough not to be irksome. Winter has come & now some of the notes, mainly the F on the tenor, are noticeably off. I'm a bit nervous about messing with anything too much, hoping they might come back into tune again... And I don't really play out much, it's really just for myself.

So, I'm curious as to when others might decide to start tinkering with rushes etc., necessity being out of the picture

You should get a teacher to help you learn how to tune your regulators.

I fine tune them every time I play, usually just with wax on the rush or occasionally moving the reed. When they've shifted a lot, I'll have to spend more than a couple minutes on tuning, which would involve adjusting the reed (bridle, etc) and possibly starting the wax process from scratch again.

My bari and bass regs is quite stable, but I still have to adjust them (more the bass than the bari) from time to time. Maybe 3 or 4 times per year.

My tenor reg is a little more finicky, and requires adjustment maybe every month.

By adjustment, I mostly have to adjust the bridle to open or close the reed, or adjust the reed in its seat. I don't use rushes.

That said, my reg playing tends to focus on the lower- and mid-ranks of keys, which tend to be easier to tune. I don't pay too much attention to whether the notes of first rank (C-A-C) are in tune.

Depending on where are you are located they might come back in tune without touching them.

When and how often do you tune?
A gentleman never tells..........

If you want to enjoy playing as well as not ruining your hearing, you'll have to tune them when they need tuning - it's as easy as that.
When I had mine new, I spent more time tuning than playing... but now, after almost 40 years, the reeds start getting settled and it's becoming enjoyable
You can do a lot with rushes (which in the beginning was all I worked with, being unable to make reeds myself and being very unsure of adjusting them, so I decided to keep my fingers off them as long as possible) - which IMO is the way you should go for a start - provided the reeds still play more or less as they should.
I have always tried not to do any changes to the reeds except setting it higher or lower into the reed seat, and do any further tuning only with rushes, or, in extreme situations, by downsizing a single hole opening by means of cramming a small piece of cork into the hole, taking care it doesn't get into the way of the key pad, the main consideration being to avoid any irreversible changes.
This method has served me quite well for a couple of years, but things get much easier when you learn more about adjusting the reed, there often will be situations when the reg is not just out of tune but also too hard/too soft to go with the rest of your set, so if you have the chance to attend a reedmaking workshop, do it as soon as possible - it's not only about making reeds but also about handling them.
What I mentioned in the beginning - if you keep playing with out-of-tune regulators, your hearing will get used to the false tuning and perceive it as right,which means you will spoil your hearing in the long run.