Chiff and Fipple Forums

Tone Enhancers I was just sent this from a newish piper who was led to believe such devices would allow her to play the pipes with reduced air demand: “Tone enhancers proved to be an immediate and outstanding success allowing players to maintain a tighter pipe bag with less air as the main escape ro...

I am putting together a post on the Bb chanters to answer some of the questions I have been sent. I was sent the following section of a post from an unnamed GHB tutorial site for comment: "I am always in awe... and in great gratitude... of those craftspeople among us... who are ever striving to...

Fundamental Chanter Pressure Had plenty of messages about this and many, it would seem, are none too pleased about my conclusions so I will cover it in a bit more depth. As previously stated by me, the GHB, and other bagpipes have a fundamental playing pressure range. The engineers that assessed the...

Mr Gumby I understand your point and it is just my poor wording. While the NPU may not endorse makers and specific pipes, they are recognized as a credible source of information that uilleann pipers can rely on for information and help. In the GHB world there are few, if any, reliable sources of com...

Chanter Pitch and Pressure Processes. My last post has resulted in an unexpected interest in the chanter design fundamentals I raised, especially the pressure. While it might make me feel warm and fuzzy having all that sunshine blown up my clacker, I am not the smart one, I am really only regurgitat...

The Chanter Selection Rabbit Hole Because I make so many custom chanter reeds, I get many questions over which chanter is best? The pragmatist in me instantly starts to create a mental list of all the subjective and objective parameters that need to be considered. GHB chanters are not made to any kn...

Using High G to Tune the GHB Chanter is 24ct Codswallop. After my last post I received an email from fmwpyper@(undisclosed).com which, with the profanities and expletives, would be read as abusive by someone with thin skin. This piper feels my reed tuning methodology is incorrect and that the high G...

The reed pitch is not mutually exclusive to the chanter. I have posted many times in this thread about the importance of the reed pitch being matched to the chanter. I made a short you tube video so the sound could be heard so the concept might be better understood yet, every week I get emails askin...

Why do the GHB mob just not get it? In the sixties (or about) some uilleann pipers/pipemakers woke up to the fact that their craft was dying, so concerned were they, the NPU was formed as a way of keeping the craft alive. The NPU became a source of information which aided the craft with mostly well ...

Synthetic Chanter Reeds – Properties, Advantages & Disadvantages Because I make and distribute synthetic GHB chanter reeds I am constantly getting emails and phone calls about them so I will go over the types of questions I receive and the answers I provide, mostly anyway. The people that contac...

I think I have found more Snake Oil A client sent me a humidi-reed storage case after my post on the Humidi-cap reed protector. She bought this case because she was told it would do the following. “The **** *********™ Reed Case: Digital Reed Storage with Two-Way Humidity Control. The **** *********™...

Good morning Nano I get quite a few questions on this exact point On a GHB practice chanter, (straight bore) many do not have the low G hole(s) and the chanter is cut off at the low G hole length. This allows keeping the hole finger spacing true to a normal pipe chanter and allows the overall length...

A new Humidi-crib Reed Protector – All I See is More Snake Oil. While I have covered these devices in my video requests where I gave these devices every chance to prove they could work as described, all I found was “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and lashings of Snake oil. I have copped the odd abusive ...

Don’t believe the marketing blurb, do your homework. I was sent the following information on a new “Infinity” chanter from a school pipe band tutor/manager with a view to buying these chanters for the school pipe band. He was so impressed by this following description placed on a Facebook link by a ...

The GHB with three bass drone stocks. This has been raised with me several times over the years and my standard answer is, with so many great pipers in the GHB world, why it that only a small handful have done this? If it was an improvement to the sound, wouldn’t more pipers have adopted this system...