You will find here, helpful information for every bagpipe player. Chris Apps has spent the last 30+ years helping pipers get the best sound from their bagpipe and bagpipe reeds. See video advice on reed selection, reed placement, softening bagpipe reeds, hemping, oiling, tuning a bagpipe effectively and so much more. If you don't find the answer you're seeking here try visiting appsreeds.com to check out the many articles Chris has written.
Hello Michael, I always play a McCallum chanter the same as this. It plays at around 453 but when I raised it in the reed seat it played at 440 nicely.
Very nice. It’s good to know that other people are waxing their pipes. I am not familiar with Johnson’s paste wax but it seems like a great product. I use renaissance wax with great results. I guess I’ll have to try this product.
I have a McCallum a 440 chanter. By the time you get it balanced, the whole thing pitches quite sharp as well. The trick I used as per Patrick McLaren recommendation, was to stick some wires inside up all of the holes and therefore making the bore smaller. I actually used pieces of old guitar string That I didn't care about, and that flattened the whole thing quite well. That, coupled with a sound supreme chanter reed, and a 440 drone reads made by Terry Ackland, allowed me to have a set of pipes in this configuration.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I've got pinched nerves in my neck, and it's made doublings impossible. It's heartbreaking as I spent years perfecting them, but I've found switching to the lowland and border style a life saver. I still feel sad at having to let doublings go, but it's fun exploring this new style.
Oh my Lord! If this works in Colorado’s high altitude with low humidity, that would be a MASSIVE change for us. We normally are taped to 50% of the high G, and the chirp is problematic. If this fixes it, I would be gobsmacked.
I use rare synthetic reeds with my Irish Bagpipe(Uilleann Pipe) chanter a lot. I find that I can pitch bend as I know techniques that I bring over from vessel flute playing and combining it with my Irish Bagpipe playing..so, I have never had to use tape on my chanters, although with traditional cane reeds for Uilleann Pipes, sometimes requires it for the hig d noted on the under side of the chanter
That's pretty much the process I was taught when I first learned to play. However for the novice it can be sometime difficult to know when the notes are too flat or sharp. More recently I have been using the Braw Bagpipe tuner which really speeds up yhe process of tuneing the chanter (and the drones )and I would recommend this to the novice as it will also help them to tune their ears.
I did a little experiment on how soft/easy the reed can be and still play a scale. Just a bit of fun ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CsNRjggA5lY.htmlsi=TyVM0ThPIsoHGulK
