Melvin Pipe Chanter Reeds - Standard, Solo, and B♭ - Set Up & Review!

[@tristanperry7255]

I love Melvin reeds, I'm playing them in my Roddy Macleod chanter and I'm finding that they really compliment each other especially on the high hand.

[@captainnibby]

Jon at The Piper's Hut recommended the Melvin reed for my McCallum chanter. I'm still relearning, but initial test made good sounds and wasn't overly difficult for me. I think I'm going to like them.

[@matthewdenty7760]

Watching you wash rinse and repeat really clears the understanding on some high pitch tweaking ... awesome

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

Ha! Wash, rinse repeat... That's funny. I don't understand why so many pipers play dry reeds. Dry reeds sound thin and terrible. But that's just my opinion...

[@jimpomac]

My band plays Melvin reeds. They are pretty much plug-n-play . Love mine !

[@davidslobod5726]

I just bought a Melvin Easy+ and it’s terrific in both my standard McCallum and Colin Kyo chanters. Thanks for this review.

[@Goetterdaemmerung86]

I have a couple Solo reeds on "Back up" right now, excited to try them out on my ABW Naill chanter when the time comes

[@marklatham2417]

I appreciate the Temp/RH data.

[@gunnsmoke357]

“Grow in swamps”. Lol. That’s beautiful !

[@loymedic]

In Colorado, (dry air, high altitude) the high G will always need near to half the hole taped. It would be nice to have your conditions in that respect.

[@dougdraper4892]

I love my easy-medium Melivns.

[@kevinrowe1101]

What does “poke” mean? Opening the staple?

[@jameslee9985]

Have you ever threaded a reed seat? I did it and it makes tuning so much easier without having a campbell tunable

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

I've never threaded one myself, though I do have chanters with threaded seat (including the Campbell). I think they should all the threaded...

[@matthewdenty7760]

Went thru at least 300 comments... highland fling was the one with highland laddie lol... worth the look though

[@benkuiper9562]

Question to Matt: Have you reviewed carbon fiber reeds? Curious what the difference in sound is.

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

I have not reviewed carbon fiber reeds on this channel... In some pipes, they make excellent bass drone reed (I have a Kinnaird old school carbon fiber in my Robbies), but I don't generally like them as tenor drones. To my ears, they are a bit dull while also being often times loud. But that's just my opinion, plenty of other folks love them in their tenors.

[@dane5896]

I bought five of the standard easy reeds. Sound good, but haven't lasted as long as the Warnock reeds.

[@daviddebroux4708]

21:30 - 21:37 My sentiments *exactly*! Says the guy who owns a full set of 60s Hardies.

[@gapdragon01]

Does "got a few reeds going" mean they're in a chanter on a more or less daily basis? For your reeds that aren't being used that much, how do you store them?

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

I have several chanters, so it's easy to "have several going" as I just use different chanters each day. I'm actually down to 2 at the moment and have been just a bit too busy to get another couple more reeds/chanters up and running. But I need to. You shouldn't bank on one reed. Too many things can happen.

[@traildogisla]

@@MattWillisBagpiper Hi Matt, as a piper with one chanter, what is the best way of managing 2 or 3 chanter reeds? Switch to another one on each practice session?

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

@@traildogisla Yes, I'd switch daily. But you could get a used poly chanter for around $100 which makes keeping two reeds going easier.

[@carfix2000ca]

Question Matt. Do you try to have every hole set to the exact same pitch on a chanter? Say if your low A is 480, do you try to have every not set there?

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

Well, 480Hz in the pitch of Low A. If every note registered at 480, you'd only have Low A. The tuners are calibrated to show you if the others notes are in tune relative to the 480Hz Low A (or whatever your chanter's Low A is tuning to). At 480, for example, E is actually 720Hz (as E is 3/2 of Low A).

[@carfix2000ca]

@@MattWillisBagpiper On the Blair bagpipe calibrated ready tuner it shows each note. So say I have an exactly balanced high a with low a it will register as a at 480. Same with b. Will show b at 480. It’s more the f and g. It might sound nice but shows 500. Or 509 or something. I watched the videos on the Braw tuner and such and it registers differently than a Blair. Or even a korg.

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

The bagpipes do not tune to a standard equal tempered scale, but instead tune to a version of the just tempered scale. You'd need to use a tuner that has a bagpipe setting.

[@carfix2000ca]

@@MattWillisBagpiper I purchased the iStroboSoft with the bagpipe enhancement. Can you do something that shows how to set these up?

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

I prefer the Braw tuner for chanter tuning. I go into it all here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/emG3m52ngLdripYsi=baWEQcIT3EWAsrpM

[@cbasalt12754]

So what traits exactly define the reeds as being Standard, Solo, or Bb. Thanks as always for the groundbreaking content.

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

Good question! Not entirely certain what all he changes between reeds (other than wrapping color). I assume the staple length and/or diameter may be different, as well as where the ridge occurs on the ridge cut. But not sure. They did perform differently, so there are definitely different "specs" to them. Glad you found the channel!

[@franktalbot4102]

Hi Matt. Great videos. What would you classify as an easy, medium, or hard reed in terms of pressure on the gauge? Thanks

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

I've seen a few charts. I would generally say about... 25-28: Super easy 28-31: Easy 32-34: Medium 35+: Hard

[@franktalbot4102]

@@MattWillisBagpiperThanks Matt. Exactly what I wanted to know.

[@boberooatcomcast]

Matt, is the pressure gauge you used available someplace? It look like it could be a useful tool.

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

I got my gauge here: appsreeds.com/products/reed-pressure-gauge

[@adamsykora3037]

First off, great videos, extremely educational! Now to the question: I'm a fairly new beginner and have only been playing the practice chanter for a few months. I'm unfortunately not otherwise musically talented and don't have the ability to just listen and recognise notes, sharp vs flat, etc. I've found this video extremely interesting, but when I try my practice chanter and the two reeds I have I am seeing values way off of what you are getting. The low A I'm getting is around 243 Hz and since I'm on Android, I'm trying the Braw Bagpipe Tuner. I see the values you are getting for a low A are around 480 Hz, which is way off of where I am. What am I doing wrong? In the app I have set the Low A based on this average (243 Hz), but then the higher I go i.e. B, C, D, E etc. the more and more off the frequencies are. It's a bit hard to explain, but the B is a bit sharp, the C is even more sharp and so on. By the time I try playing the High G, it recognises it more as a High A. Considering my level and the condition I'm in, I'm not sure I'll solve this over a few messages, but I'd at least like to get some suggestions and feedback as to what I'm doing wrong. Thanks in advance.

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

Are you using your pipe chanter or a practice chanter? 243Hz sounds like the low A of a practice chanter. This is beyond the scope it sounds of a brief message here. Let me know if you'd like info on lessons where we could spend some time sorting this out. Cheers!

[@adamsykora3037]

I just have a practice chanter. Thanks, I'll message you regarding some lessons.

[@noahmittwer6972]

@@adamsykora3037 The 243Hz you are getting is for the practice chanter. When measuring pitch, multiplying a pitch in Hertz by 2 gets the octave. So IN THEORY if you multiply the pitch of low A by 2 you get the pitch of High A (This is not always true with the shenanigans some players pull on their high a). I know from experimenting that a low a on a practice chanter ideally pitches to that of a tenor drone which is an octave lower than a pipe chanter's low a. Dividing 480 in half to get the lower octave will get around 240 which is close to what you have. This is why you get the number you do when using the pipe tuner.

[@stephenwilkinson3677]

Matt- check out the Snowball mic. Has a 10db defeat that doesn't saturate. :)

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

I use an old original Blue Snowball mic, and it was on that setting. Still too close to the microphone, but was worried about not hearing my talking. Need to figure how to run multiple cameras/mics....

[@Reedc16]

Is it for practices reeds or just regular reeds

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

Pipe chanter reeds.

[@Reedc16]

@@MattWillisBagpiper I was confused there but thank you

[@Ian-sn8gk]

Was your tuner set to equal temperament?

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

I don't believe so... I didn't see me reset the "sweetener" when going to B♭

[@wavemotionpilot6035]

Great vid as usual! I’m learning and have learned so many things thanks to you. And we will keep learning. A video you should do is about Synthetic reeds such as McLaren, Clanrye or Surefire! Would be great! Thinking of buying some but can’t find any videos! Would be great if you did some! Also...great intro song! Sounds fairly simple! What song is it? Thanks Matt:)

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

Glad you found the channel! As for reviewing synthetic chanter reeds, I'm not against the idea, but I've tried two of the three above (ClanRye and McLaren) and they were, well, not good. Not for me. As for Surefire!, well, even I'll wait to see someone else review it. I'm not agains the concept (I love Legere reeds in my sax), but so far the synthetic highland chanter reeds I've tried didn't rise to the occasion. And the opening tune is "All the Blue Bonnets are Over the Border": bit.ly/BlueBonnets

[@Dexify_911]

When The Next Video?❤️

[@MattWillisBagpiper]

I post Tuesdays and Fridays most weeks.