OK. I swapped the strings and moving the high string to the position
the low string had been in (i.e., from the closest to the player to
the furthest away) fixed the problem for that string. However, when I
moved the low string to the problem position, it acted up even worse
than the one that first showed the problem (I thought that might
happen, but it did confirm the problem to be fundamentally geometrical
as Scott surmised, and not a problem with the string itself). However,
when I adjusted the shimming (thus affecting pressure on the wheel),
it did not affect this problem at all: even when the pressure was so
heavy that the chanter sounded terrible the same thing happened. At
this point I tried popping out the nut and reseating it, for no
particular reason other than that the nut was near the area where the
problem occurred. The strange thing is that after I reseated the nut
in what was as far as I could tell the same position I took it out
from, the problem vanished entirely. Everything sounds as it should now.
So I can't confirm that the cause was what Scott explained, but it may
have been. Whatever the reason, I'm just glad the problem has left me
alone for now. I have no wisdom to report back to help others other
than to fiddle around with bits and pieces…
-Arle
