Tuning regulators

[Bob Golden]

I've recently begun to make a concerted effort to learn to play the regulators. (A somewhat daunting endeavor for me in any event) For the most part the regulators stay in tune from one session to another but every now and then my tenor regulator sounds a bit out of tune with the baritone and bass. I've tried moving the tuning pin in and out but to my ear there doesn't seem to be much impact. Am I missing something? There's not much written on tuning regulators so I'm wondering if there are any suggestions/common techniques in general for tuning the regulators? They're hard enough to play when they're in tune but when out-of-tune forget about it. Thanks.

[djm]

Bob, the aggravators can be very pressure sensitive. Some makers say they're supposed to be that way. Really good pipers use this to their advantage. Listen to Ronan Browne using the regs on slow airs, as he gets a long slow swoop off the regs by intentionally modifying the pressure. For me, they're just a bitch.

Try playing them vveerrryyyy slowly and watch how you are changing the pressure as you play the chanter. Some people avoid the regs when they ae doing something on the chanter that takes more air, and would cause the regs to go out of whack. I really think the regs are an artform unto themselves.

djm

[Patrick D'Arcy]

I played a few tunes on Eric Rigler's Froment D set last Sunday and was very impressed by the regs. He had just received a new boxwood chanter in D from a guy in Monaghan named Curran I think (anyone know more about him?).. anyway... the chanter was very nice, in tune and a good tone.. aesthetically very 70's though.... 1970's that is.

Back to the regs though, they were unwavering... very steady and very in tune. Eric had spent the morning tuning them to the chanter and it showed, there was stuff going on there that I hadn't heard in a D set before... I'm not sure if Eric made the reeds in them or if Alain did... they sure worked though!

Patrick.

[glands]

Sooooooo.....Rigler doesn't know how to tune regulators....is that what you're tellin' us????

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Regulator reeds need to be steady. I take bad (dull, non octaving) flat pipe reeds and use them in the regulators. The staple needs to be smaller, or notes won't come in - the A on my tenor reg will wobble in pitch, for instance; and the smaller staple flattens the top notes into pitch, too, thus you don't need as much rush on the G of the middle, for instance, too much rush there and you can flatten the F# too much. Stuff like that. Instead of making new staples though, I just put a tube of brass foil in the bottom. Some put a wire in the staple, same thing.
The keys need to be airtight, and sprung strong enough to remain so. Pad the keys with white water kayak liner foam; Ted Anderson wrote a post on this forum about this stuff. Blowing smoke through the pipes will reveal any leaks. Denis Brook's tutor explains setting up and playing regulators.
I wrote an article for the Pipers' Review about using wires with strips of cane tied on them as rushes. You can move the rushes up and down and add string as needed to keep all the notes right on pitch. As the reeds weaken or become stronger the individual notes need more or less rushing, this allows you to adjust the flattening of each note individually, when everything is in place the pins can be used to tune the whole setup at once. This all depends on the pressure the chanter works at, too. The first thing I do when picking up the pipes is to make sure the chanter is playing at the pressure I prefer. By the way, I think Ronan Browne bends notes on the regulators by playing one bank of keys and sliding into the bank above it. If he were slacking off on the bag pressure the drones would be wavering like crazy and he'd lose the octave on the chanter.

[djm]

Kevin, the input on varying the pressure on the regs comes from Geoff Wooff. I didn't make it up. He was explaining why the regs are so damned hard to keep in tune - he says they're designed that way.

djm

[tommykleen]

I have a question about bronze reg reeds. I have made a few with some success! However, my tenor reed is kinda wonky sounding and the top note (Cnat) drops down when playing at full pressure. Can these reeds be adjusted at all?

[/i]

[djm]

Options of metal reeds are limited. They are already so thin that you don't have much latitude. You can sand them, move the reed head on the staple, maybe try a bridle, but they don't seem to take bridles well. Probably easier to make another one. The warbling/grunting seems to mean the reed is too weak for the pressure, i.e. that reed can no longer operate at the same pressure required to sound the chanter and the other regs. Time to make another reed and try again.

Metal reg reeds seem to be too sensitive. I have gone back to cane reeds on my regs, as they allow more latitude for sanding/scraping.

djm

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Dave Quinn had good things to say about the potential quietness of phosphor bronze reeds he was making, but I can't stand to see all these crap chanter reeds just go to waste...
A post on this forum, "quieting the pipes," mentioned putting Blu-Tak stick'em junk on reeds to quiet them down a bit. I've got to get off my butt and try this, the top banks of my D set are a bit too powerful. I notice that Blu-Tak is primarily used for erasing graphite pencil marks in drawings, that has founds heaps of other applications (mounting audio speakers? One site has a Blu-Tak art gallery), and that it originated in Australia, hence Geoff Wooff's inordinate fondness for it.

[tommykleen]

Thanks for the bronze reg tips. I might try trimming my wonky reed too. I saw Seth G. trim the livin' daylights out of one and it still worked. Also, in reference to Quinn's directions (Piper's Review) for burnishing the reed: I find that the curve he recommends (I think it is a 1" curve) leaves the reed lips too open. Anyone use a larger curve for the burnishing part of the operation?

Also, how do I paste my own glorious visage next to my messages...like KR and others have? Unfortunately, I did not star as the abusive drill sergeant in "Full Metal Jacket" like Kevin did, but I'm sure I can find something that says "me".

tommykleen

[eskin]

I'm also very interested in this subject... My B set regulators are very sensitive to pressure changes and require considerable precision if I'm to stay in tune with the chanter. The whole concept of pitch-stable regulators is almost beyond my comprehension...

[djm]

Also, how do I paste my own glorious visage next to my messages.

Tommy, when you log in, you'll notice that you have a button at the top that points to your Profile. At the bottom of the Profile page, there is a utility that allows you to upload a picture to the board called an "avatar". This is the image that appears to the left of your posts.

If you want your avatar to be a photo of yourself, you'll need to get someone to take a digital photo of you, or scan a regular photo of you, reduce the size of the picture to no more than 100 x 100 pixels, reduce the number of colours so that the file size is no more than 20 KB, and save it as either a gif or jpg type file. Use the avatar utility to upload the file from your PC.

djm
[/quote]

[skh]

Also, how do I paste my own glorious visage next to my messages...like KR and others have? Unfortunately, I did not star as the abusive drill sergeant in "Full Metal Jacket" like Kevin did, but I'm sure I can find something that says "me".

Go to the top of this page and click "Profile" (you need to be logged in). Go to the bottom of the profile page, there's a section called "Avatar control panel". Follow the directions there.

hope that helps,

Sonja