Hello,
I have recently acquired a lovely set of boxwood Moore SSP's in "A". I'm a GHB player presently undergoing the radical and mystifying experience of bellows piping.
The drone reeds are cane and they are making a whining/groaning sound as soon as a little air passes through and way before I can strike in. This situation is keeping me shut in a room alone whilst playing! The drones are tuning far enough out on the pins to preclude moving the bridle.
Thanks for any suggestions:)

I remember having this problem, though my drone reeds have plastic tongues; I think it gets better with time. As for the tuning pins, you might try a tiny dab of wax on the end of the reed; it will lower the pitch a bit and you don't need to be so far down the tuning pin - in fact, this might help the groan problem too.... if the drones are way out on the pins then there's an unusually large cavity in the overall drone bore which may be causing the groan problem. Juolian goodacre tells me that getting the wax to stay put may be tricky with cane; he uses a mix of beeswax and cobblers wax- cheese wax he say is a bit greasy - try testing it with a bit of blue tack any way you'll know pretty soon if it comes loose, and you'll have to fish it out of the bag ...
hope this helps

pete

refer to john liestman's excellent and comprehensive article on drone reed adjustments in common stock 16(2) 12/01. offhand i would say the reed needs to be opened slightly to resist that early groaning, and opening may decrease the pitch as well