drone reeds

[Joseph E. Smith]

Bass.............................Composite brass and styrene
Baritone........................Composite brass and styrene
Tenor............................Cane

[Patrick D'Arcy]

but he is in the Pacific Northwest, so his climate is more favourable to natural reed materials.

I think that's a load of old codswallop! I live in Los Angeles... absolutely crap weather for piping but I keep my cane reeds going great. I think all this tosh about artificial drone reeds is unnecessary. It's basically just done because it's possible, it's techie and small cane can be hard to come by.

If the cane drone reed is made well it will work well in most conditions. Mine work great down to about 30% humidity... then they just shut down. 30% only happens here for a few weeks a year... then I watch my Planxty DVD

I would like to hear some of the composite reeds side by side with cane ones. So far I can tell straight away that they are composite, the plastic ones sounding the worst. I have yet to hear a substitute for cane or elder that has the same warmth and resonance.

To my ear, drones sound best as a mesh of sound.. I don't like it when I can discern which drone is making which tone.... they should be humming along happily together, as one.

Now, that set you straight

PD.

[Joseph E. Smith]

.....(slinks away to change out composite reeds for cane ones, before anybody notices)............

[eric]

> absolutely crap weather for piping

I get the impression that it's the change of weather that raises the most havoc. People tend to say the weather here in New England has a lot of "sway" to it. I can't tell myself seeing it's all I've ever known

> side by side with cane ones.

Well, there's certainly a difference. Prefered the cane reeds myself, but for me, subtleties of sound had to take a back-seat to playability. It was a workout just playing drones for 5 minutes before I switched....

DJM, appreciate the tips. Your question led me to think elder as a drone material was new to you; glad to see it is not!

Peter, I didn't know that about Ennis's drones. Wouldn't mind taking wood from the lilac tree of my childhood home for drones. I'm sure, as with most things I attempt, it would literally sound better in theory than in real life (P.S. I mean that as a reflection of my ability to make the reeds )

[Lorenzo]

What Patrick said.

BTW, I live in the Pacific NW, and the East side of the Cascade Mts., in both Washington and Oregon is like night and day to the West side. The term NW means nothing. 20 miles from here, in SE Washington, they get an average of 7" of rain. Total desert, and with Prickly Pear Cactus growing wild, Juniper trees in sand dunes. About 35 miles east of Portland, is technically a rain forest--80 inches of rain, anually. Then it dries out real quick all the way to my place. I'm about 150 miles east of that rain forest.

My cane drones work fine in the same range of variances that I related in another thread, temp and humidity variances too. Get good reeds. I never cease to marvel at what some consider normal.

[djm]

I think that's a load of old codswallop! I live in Los Angeles

Pat, I always think of Steve Martin's movie "L.A. Story", where the climate is so stable that it has become a running joke. It is the variability from day to day that seems to have a negative effect on the reeds. Some days they play, some days they don't. I prefer not to accept this variability. My composite drone reeds work all the time.

I see people like Paddy Moloney go onstage with his pipes, and a penny whistle in case his pipes crap out on him. I have seen many top-level players from Ireland at the Chris Langan weekend chasing around desparately to borrow a local set here before they do a concert because their reeds have died on them.

I'm happy for you and Lorenzo for having cane reeds that never fail. I've never found any, and neither has my pipemaker, who's made quite a few and given up on them. I will be the first to admit there is a difference in the sound, but it is not a negative difference, just different. I feel much better knowing that I can turn my drones on and they will work every time, and they cost much less than codswallop.

djm

[Tony]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=codswallop

New word for me in my sheltered life...

[marcpipes]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=codswallop

New word for me in my sheltered life...

Haven't read Harry Potter yet, have you? Hagrid's favorite word.
To those who don't like composite/artificial reeds, why? What exactly if it can be explained, is the difference in sound? I'm not saying anyone is wrong at all, I'd just like to know the real difference.
Marc

[Dionys]

It's really hard to pin down a difference in sound to words. Plus each composite reed is different from another. Brass and styrene tongued reeds tend to have what I think of as a more buzzy sound. The natural reeds tend to have a more hummy-thrumming sound. The composite natural/synthetics (i.e. wood tongue with brass or dowel body) usualy are somewhere in-between. Your best bet is to listen to the same set playing the different kinds of reeds. Try your hand at making your own, too.

Dionys

[Lorenzo]

I see people like Paddy Moloney go onstage with his pipes, and a penny whistle in case his pipes crap out on him. I have seen many top-level players from Ireland at the Chris Langan weekend chasing around desparately to borrow a local set here before they do a concert because their reeds have died on them.

I don't think we are saying that we could travel overnight, from one extreme climate to another, and never have to adjust anything. People like Paddy Moloney do SF one night and SLC the next. He probably wants to leave it adjusted for Seattle the next night, instead of doing a ground-up adjustment just for SLC--which might take an hour of playing, and playing around, to get things right. Having a set that works in local variances means you don't take that set out of it's "adjusted" environment much. If I take mine out of it's happy house, and play a concert in the park on a cool humid evening, I may have to adjust the tenor drone a little (pull the slider out)--that's the first one to go. When weather changes, it usually gives time for the reeds to adjusted too. It ain't like stepping out of the bathroom--with the shower on--and thinking it will work just as well the next minute in the far room where the wood cook stove has been going for 24 hrs.

[morten]

I had a combination of elder and cane for years, but switched to all-cane when I got the Williams stick. It is a bit louder than my Roberts, so I figured that cane would keep the balance right.

I do prefer the sound of elder though. Round and mellow. Just like me

Obtaining and making elder reeds are quite easy; you can have a look here:

http://www.pipers.dk

- Look in "artikler"

Morten

[Cayden]

Peter, I use Buddleia, or the other name is the "butterfly bush" its in flower at the moment in my garden, but come November I harvest the thin branches,I get enough to make about three hundred bass reeds, thats when there ready to use the following year, there simular to elder but the sound a bit cleaner or crisper in tone, I like them. all the best.

Alain was guessing at the lilac, Ennis reeds apparently were nearly black. I have always thought they could have been buddleia, which is as common in ireland as elder is. I have several planted around the house and was thinking of giving them a go.
Was cuttign the old canes of the raspberries yesterday. Same woody wall and pithy inside, anyone try those?

[Roger O'Keeffe]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=codswallop

New word for me in my sheltered life...

"Origin unknown"? How disingenuous can they be?

[Joseph E. Smith]

djm wrote: "I'm happy for you and Lorenzo for having cane reeds that never fail. I've never found any, and neither has my pipemaker, who's made quite a few and given up on them. I will be the first to admit there is a difference in the sound, but it is not a negative difference, just different. I feel much better knowing that I can turn my drones on and they will work every time, and they cost much less than codswallop."
==============================================

....(slinks away to change out cane reeds for sythetics again, before anybody notices)...........

[John S]

I've made Uillean Drone reeds from Common reed Phragmites australis here in the UK and they work well, and I have sets of GHB reeds in both Common Reed and Elder. The Elder reeds have to be fully hydrated to work as elder swells quit dramatically as it absorbs moisture. Once in the bag and playing they are fine.
Reed canary grass is another UK native grass that I'm looking at for Reeds.
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/er/ ... s/reed.htm

TTFN
John S