Make a Pressure-Stable Artificial Drone Reed for Any Bagpipe

The basic steps to make an artificial drone reed for any bagpipe, using the 2-bend system for maximum pressure stability. It can tolerate up to 40-50% pressure variation with zero pitch change on a high quality uilleann pipe drone. The 2-bend system replicates traditional natural cane behavior. Next drone reed video covers fine-tuning of tone and performance, voicing of individual drones, and voicing the combined stand.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• uilleann
• uilllean
• uilean
• bagpipe
• Irish bagpipe
• Irish pipes
• smallpipes
• drone
• drone reed
• reed making

[pianoman9876]

What are you using for the plastic tounge?

[Dayepipes]

@pianoman9876 It's ordinary styrene plastic sheet, 0.015" thick, sold at hobby shops for model railroading. The manufacturer is Evergreen Plastics and you can find them on the web. For my Highland pipe artificial drone reeds I use natural cane for the tubes, and the tongues for those pipes I make from 0.20" thick plastic because of the higher pressure of the bagpipe. When you use the 2-bend method, the artificial reeds strike-in exactly like natural cane reeds and are extremely stable.

[kurt1698]

is that only for scottish small pipes

[Dayepipes]

@kurt1698 I use this for Irish uilleann pipes because they play in 2 octaves, which is done by increasing the pressure, so it's more important for them to be stable in changing pressures than for Highland or smallpipes. But the 2-bend method works for any type of drone. It makes reeds with these small plastic tongues strike-in and stabilize just like old fashioned cane reeds with the long tongues.

[PuYanHui]

Would you please film yourself making a GHB reed? Awesome vid.

[Dayepipes]

@PuYanHui You know, in 44 years of playing I've never made a GHB reed, never found the need for it. I visited P/M Sandy Hain's reed shop in the Cleveland Ohio area years ago; he had a number of metal dies and jigs so he could make them in a batch process. They were all made of identical dimensions so it was a matter of chance which pieces of cane best suited the process, unlike uilleann reeds which are tailored for each cane piece by hand all the way but cost so much more.

[PieTinPaul]

Thanks for this and your other videos David. Very informative.