Chiff and Fipple Forums

I notice that often chanters are sold on their own, and a couple of times I have seen sets for sale without chanters. I've also seen sets for sale with multiple chanters from multiple makers. To a newbie like myself, it appears that you I could simply pop in a chanter from one pipemaker into the set of a second pipemaker. Is that the case? Or are those fittings proprietary? If they are in fact interchangeable, is a simple plug and play?

Here's where I am going with this, I am considering getting a half set made in Ireland, possibly Banba, but I live in Chicago, a very different climate. I am concerned with the response of an Irish chanter reed to the climate contrast. So I was thinking of getting a Daye chanter, whose chanters have a good reputation for being consistent and playable, but whose half sets are not expandable to full sets.

Thanks!

Short answer, yes. More or less completely interchangeable. Slightly longer answer:

The connection in question is just a "hemped" metal pipe that goes into a wooden socket that's tied into the bag. People make that wooden socket slightly different sizes (and shapes), but most of the time you just need to adjust the amount of "hemp" on the metal pipe. There are some rarer pipe makers that use a larger size metal pipe (usually around 3/8"), but David Daye is not one of them.

What Nate says is all good. I'd just add (as you're a newbie ), that chanters and sets come in different pitches (Bb, Bnat, Cnat, C#, D, Eb), the most common being D (concert pitch). 90% of the time you can switch a D chanter with different D sets by just adjusting the chanter stock/air-intake. What you don't want to do is play a D chanter over, for instance, B drones/regs.