Which transducer mic for direct placement on reed?

[buttermilkpiper]

Does anyone out there know which transducer mic would be the one to buy for a direct reed mic installation? I know Cillian Vallely has a mic on his reed and I think this might solve a lot of the chanter amplification issues I've been dealing with recently. The band is playing out a lot lately, so as soon as I figure out which mic to invest in, OUT COMES THE DREMEL TOOL BABY!

thanks guys.........Matt McNeely

[brianc]

From Wally Charm's interview with Eric Rigler:

I noticed during your performance that you had an interesting mic set up. Would you tell us how your pipes are set up?

I think every musician, no matter what you play, wants to have his sound portrayed as best as it can be heard—for the beauty of the instrument. You want your instrument to sound like it sounds when it is acoustic in a room. You want a natural sound. As soon as you get up on stage you are at the mercy of the sound man, and you are hopeful that he is on your side, and you also hope that he has equipment that will make your pipes sound good. Sadly, it is usually not the case. It is my opinion the uilleann pipes are the most difficult of instruments to mic on stage so that the audience hears the true beauty of everything that is really going on. It is never going to be perfect. There will always be a compromise from what you get acoustically. I thought about this problematically for a couple of years trying to find the best way to get the sound that I wanted. I talked to rock and roll musicians, guitar people, sound engineers and sound designers, just to educate myself. I had seen Davy Spillane playing in Scotland. He was using a direct pick up—a Barcus Berry pickup on his chanter reed. It was actually a sax pickup. The sound he was getting, without the pickup, in the studio was amazing. He was always in tune and the pipes sounded beautiful. On stage he really compromises because he has a loud electric band. The pick up on the reed doesn’t sound very good to me. It sounds like a synthesizer. It doesn’t sound like pipes because the pickup that is stuck on the reed is only picking up the vibration of the reed. It is not picking up the acoustic sound. The good thing about this reed placement is that it won’t feed back. The bad thing is that it doesn’t sound like a chanter. What I did was kind of compromise. I have one of those on my chanter reed which I run at a very low level. Just a foundation so that the whole scale is being picked up. I also have an external mic, and I try to find the best sounding mic I can. This one picks up the acoustic sound, and the small head is placed outside the chanter stock a bit below the reed. I then mix the two sounds so that it is 80% acoustic and 20% is the reed pickup. I also have two little drone mics which are condenser mics, and they have little six inch goosenecks with a spring clip which I clip on to my drones. I put them close to the sound hole of the base and tenor drones. I then run those through a mixer. I have four lines going into the Irish pipes. I also mic the Highland pipes. They have drone mics. I usually don’t mic the chanter in small venues for the chanter is plenty loud, but for playing big halls or outdoors, I have to run an external mic so I can just walk up to it. All this goes into the mixer and I balance everything out, get the right sound I want, and add some reverb to make it sound more natural. I just sent a line out to the house board, and the sound man only has to deal with my level—loud or quiet. Everything is pre-mixed. All my drone levels are set, the chanter levels are set, and the EQ is set. All the sound man has to do is put me loud or soft with the rest of the band. All the pipes are pre-mixed for their volume.

Did you have this custom made, and are you satisfied with it?

I did it myself. Yes, I think I have gotten to the point where it is as good as it can get. Of course there will always be improvements in mic engineering yet I feel that I have covered everything that is needed at this time.

Would you list the equipment that you use?

I have an eight channel mixer which covers everything the pipes might need. The drone mics are EKG 409’s. For the condenser mics on the chanter I use a Barcus Berry saxophone reed pickup. This sits on the reed. For the external chanter mic I use an AKG 535, although I am still experimenting. The line from the reed pickup is run through the chanter cap. Remove the hemp from the part of the cap that fits into the chanter. File a groove on this part deep enough to hold the wire. Re-wrap the hemp and replace the chanter cap.

http://www.irishpipersclub.org/articles/Rigler.html