I was just listening to and admiring this beautiful B set( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17VdUlxarMg )and it struck me as it has before that the drones on flat sets are not just tuned down versions of concert pitch drones or vice versa ,so the pipemaker must have designed them to complement the chanter in the set.
Do you think there is a specific tone that goes with a specific tone chanter . Should the tone of the drones blend with the chanter or should they in a way clash tonally with the chanter.?
To my ears it seems that some concert pitch set s have a softer toned drones with a crisper toned chanter and in the case of the B set in the above clip ,harder drones and softer chanter.
RORY
The only thing I know is that it’s a beautiful tune, played by a great player on a fantastic looking and sounding set 
!
As it is my own set you are addressing, Rory, I might chime in here. It is quite obvious that drones, regs and chanter must rather blend than clash tone-wise. I cannot go into acoustics and engineerings here, not my strength. But a pipemaker/reedmaker must have a clear concept of what he is aiming for to make a well balanced set.
Geoff Wooff describes the drones as “the carpet laid out for the chanter”. This sums it up quite well, I think. Anyone who has ever played a flat “Frankenset” can attest to that. Example: The C set I played before I got my B had chanter, drones and regs from three different makers. The differences in concept and sound were clearly perceivable and they didn’t match perfectly, although the set as a whole was lovely sounding and quite well balanced.
The particular set in the video is a Rogge B. Andreas aims for a more powerful, growling sound, so his pipes have a slightly louder “factory setup” and take more power to be worked than some other flat sets. But there is much room for individual taste in reeding and setup. This is what I did to my set, I like a lighter touch on my set. What you might hear in the video, Rory, is mostly setup and room acoustics.
@DJUntzUntz: Nothing to get too excited about, but thanks for the thumbs-up anyway
give me one reason not to be excited about it? 
I wasn’t lying, was I?
Nicely played Christian !
It is always dificult, not to say unfair, to judge the tone and balance of a Pipes from listening to a recording. As Christian says there could be a lot of room accoustics and microphone set up involved with the final sound. If the player is heavily involved with a final mixing of the recorded sound ,so that the end result comes as close as possible to the way the player thinks their pipes sound live then things can be most truthfull, I would imagine.
One reason that I much prefer to make only Full Sets is that I can balance the sounds throughout the instrument. Take the view that it is a little Organ, complete.
The drones on my old Harrington set , playing with original Elder reeds, gave me the sound scape (noise level if you like) to make the other reeds. Twas THE datum I used to voice everything.
The Bass drone by itself sounds like a cat purring and is difficult to hear unless there is relative quiet in a room but I have it reported that it was audible 150 feet away at the other end of a big Church at a large funeral, I was playing high up in the choir loft .
So ,I look for a ‘harmonic carpet’ from my drones on which to lay the melody of the chanter.
I was listening to Peter Browne on NPU and I think he was playing a Rogge B set. I heard no purr or buzz coming from it. I wonder how he did that?
Some people may disapprove of this thing I do, but I play with synthesized drones on our IOS IPad. And I have recently got an oscillator, which makes the droning sound ‘beat’ and now playing is 10000000000000000000000000000000x more magical, enjoyable, and fun to play! I dunno why but I just love the sound of beating sound of the drones!
Peter Brown plays a Brogan set I believe.
I’m not against synthesised drones. I’ve seen a few pipers play against drone loops etc, sometimes it makes more sense.
It entirely depends on the situation, if you are playing pipes in a loud amplified rock band micing up the drones is a nightmare scenario. Much better to send them through the front of house PA via a loop.
It’s also good to play against a loop if you haven’t yet got drones. This can help with note phrasing and tuning.
If you are playing solo though, there is no substitute for the real deal.
The metaphor of the carpet is a good one but what colour is the carpet? Say for instance the colour of the sound scape of the chanter is pastels would the colour of the carpet be also pastel or would it be vivid red or steely grey ? Just to be clear here I’m not talking about harmony I’m talking about tone/ timbre . To be honest the subject is probably to subjective and to talk about tone on the interweb can be confusing as my hard tone can be anothers soft and lead to nothing but headaches .
RORY
Brown.
Don’t know about the colour but the carpet needs to be thick, in the harmonic sense, thick but light and clear. So perhaps lots of clear colours ? The drones are ideal for me when they have a nice balance of upper partials which help to emphasize the harmonies made by the ‘perfect interval’ mix of chanter note and drones. The build up of the drone harmonics between the three octave fundametals can be quite dense and so the tone and loudness of each drone is ideal when none drowns out the others, when there is a clean carpet sound, when it is no longer possible to seperate each drone with your hearing but to experience an overal harmonic richess.
One thing that can happen is the phenomenon of a ‘bell tone’ which is a very high note, almost a whistle, when the drones are very well in tune. I enjoy this ‘bell’ tone but it dépends where it occurs. Usually for me it happens somewhat to the right of my head and slightly lower than my ears,( in the playing position of a right handed piper) but it might shift due to sound reflections from solid objects nearby. I can imagine this very high harmonic could be an unwelcome thing if it were constantly audible too near an ear of the player. To try to find and experience this ‘bell tone’ blow up your pipes and tune the drones as exactly as you can, then take your lower chanter hand and move it ,palm down, slowly back and forth over the body of the set, changing the height of the hand position untill your hand interupts the sound blend point between your ears and the drone exits, remembering that sound eminating from the mainstock also affects this. That is the best way I can describe how ou might find it.
Drones are magic things and the piper should feel that they envelope him/her that you are sitting inside the sound .
I can’t wait to get drones for my set!
Again pipers may disapprove, but when I get drones I would like to adjust them, so that they can ‘beat’ a little bit. Kinda like Ennis’ drones.
Didn’t Séamus Ennis drones have a ‘bell’ tone Geoff?
PS I always imagine the uilleann drone sound tastes like chocolate icing that you would find on a birthday cake… Hence why I said ‘brown’
Lovely analogy! Synesthesia, anyone?
[quote=“learnthegrip” Synesthesia, anyone?[/quote]
OK so most of us probably don’t see colours when we hear a sound but most would understand this sketch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T70-HTlKRXo
Do you like woody drones with tinny chanter or vice versa or woody woody or tinny tinny ?
RORY
I have synesthesia. Unfortunately it is number/form.
It seems to affect learning music as I see tunes as visual maps.
It is also probably why I am terrible at variations.
Anyway, back to the drone talk…
I don’t know how much of it is the recording itself or the instrument but the drones on Deadly Buzz made me stand up and take notice. Before I heard this recording I always just figure if they work and don’t cut off in the second octave then they’re golden. I had a similar experience hearing Mark Redmonds c set in person. I feel I can listen critically in a way I hadn’t felt before. In other words hearing drones musically rather than as just a ‘thing’ under the chanter. Before I thought those waxing about drone tone were at it.
I now ‘listen’ to the drones as well.
Certainly a good point about the blend of upper partials in the drones with the chanter. It is the reason I favor cane and elder (or other timber) drone reeds over plastic tongue or synthetic reeds. There are lots of harmonics with cane and virtually none with synthetics. You get a stable in-tune note but it lacks harmonics. It is the mix of harmonics that creates the magic in the sound. Many who have switched to cane will not go back to synthetics, even given the small hassle of breaking in a set of cane reeds, a skill every accomplished piper should have to maximize the musicality of their sets.
Another nice thing about cane is if and when a drone reed doesn’t seem to work right, you can always glue the tongue back in place, roll it over, and split a new one.