Chiff and Fipple Forums

After reading a few articles about synthetic drone reeds in D, my head is confused. I wonder what is the best method to choose? Ezee reeds work best in many cases. I admire people who try to create something universal. What do you think about the methods of producing reeds? Do you have any dimensions that you use at home? The cane is great, of course! But in many cases it fails. If anyone wants to write something, please feel free.

My cane drone reeds are almost 40 years old and haven't failed so far.
My experience with Ezee is: they do work, but in many cases the tenor reed doesn't fit the socket in the main stock and you have to widen the bore and irreversibly remove material from the stock - I wouldn't do that with my own set. Soundwise, I found them insignificant.

I prefer cane drone reeds. David Lim did a fantastic job of making a bass regulator for my Williams 3/4 set of pipes. I asked for new reeds for the drones and regulators, and also requested for the old baritone and tenor regulator and drone reeds to be returned. David made synthetic drone reeds, plastic with plastic tongues. They worked, but I found them difficult to tune. I got the set back in July 2020. I now have the old cane drone reeds back in place and find them easier to tune and I prefer the sound.
I'm sure synthetic reeds can be fine, and I shall continue to try out my synthetic drone reeds, but just now in the grip of the Swedish winter I'll go with my old, 23-25 year old, cane reeds.

The Ezeedrone reeds were really made to fit drones from one particular maker... I forget who, but he lent them one of his sets so they could design the reeds to fit.
Using them with sets by other makers is hit-or-miss.

As far as I can see, synthetic reeds are a compromise between acoustic appeal and functional ease, so which do you prefer, a reed that sounds great but may let you down occasionally or a reed that sounds bland but is reliably bland.
RORY

My Martin Preshaw B set has what he calls "hybrid" drone reeds; tubular plastic bodies with a wood or cane (hard to tell which) tongue, bound to the body and using an o-ring for a bridle. I like the sound very well, and they are fairly forgiving of changes in environmental conditions. The bass drone does tend to sharpen after warm-up.