A new reed?

I’m really hesitant to go messing around with the setup of my pipes soon before a competition: no rehemping, retaping, no re-anything preferably, so I was pretty hesitant to go for a brand new chanter reed two days before my next competition.

I’ve been playing a Soutar reed in my Kron chanter, but have recently found it to be a bit too bright for my drones (which are very mellow apparently). So when I went to visit the Tone Czar this afternoon he suggested a new reed, so I went for another Soutar. It’s very mellow.

I gave the new guy some good playing time tonight, and I’m quite pleased with it. The pitched seemed to vary a bit toward the end of my playing (about 40 minutes continuously), but I think it will be fine on Saturday since I don’t plan to play that long at any point during the day.

I’ll give it another go tomorrow to try to settle it a bit more. I’ll let you know how it goes.