Hewy guys. Merry Christmas to any other Christmas celebrators. We had the Josh Groban Christmas album playing in the living room, and I noticed that in the Little Drummer boy, theres some pipes that sound super nice. So now I'm curious. What type of pipes are these? This is one of my fav types of bagpipe sound.

Heres a link, timestamped
https://youtu.be/0e17FzgOacE?t=121

I'm pretty sure that is a flat set of uilleann pipes in B - played mostly up in the second octave.

I can't hear the pipes at all, in that link.

But yes the tune is in the key of E Major at that point so the tonic of the tune would be, on a B uilleann chanter, the note that's G on a Concert D uilleann chanter. I took out my B whistle and played along just fine.

But a B "flat set" couldn't play the tune up an octave (using the note that would be 2nd octave G on a D Concert chanter as the tonic) because then the tune goes up to F in the 3rd octave (reckoned on a D Concert chanter).

That is of course is the pipes are playing the tune, they could be doing any sort of part. I can't hear them.

We have to keep in mind that in a recording studio they could move any sort of bagpipe to any pitch or key they want.

I had a studio gig where they wanted me to play the Hawai'i Five-O theme twice, once in G and once in A, on the uilleann pipes.

I played it in G twice and they electronically moved the second playing up a full step.

_________________
Richard Cook
1978 Quinn uilleann pipes
1945 Starck Highland pipes
Goldie Low D whistle

They come in at 2:02, but arent super loud. I'm at least pretty sure those are a bagpipe, based on the ornamentation style. And they sound more bagpipe than not bagpipe haha. But yes you are totally right they could key change and adjust the tone and stuff in a studio setting so it might be impossible to know what they actually sound like pre studio.

Synth

Watch the making of the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdh1rMslaDk

When you cannot hear the grace notes and no credits to a known piper you can be pretty sure a synth was involved.

That's strange. Listening to it on my laptop, the pipes were really loud in the mix. Definitely quite prominent. At first I thought they sounded like lowland pipes, but the ornamentation seemed almost like a cross between what you'd get on uilleann pipes and what you might have on lowland pipes. Having said which, I was convinced that, at one point, there was another pipes track, doubling an octave below, so maybe there are two pipers somewhere in there. It's a bit of a mushy mix, so it's not too easy to hear everything that's going on.

Or synth, of course ...

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https://youtu.be/ezbWVysJAOY
https://tapm.bandcamp.com/

it always makes me sad when I figure out somethign was virtual instrument and not the real thing.

On the note of them being "synth" it was probobly a virtual imitation of an assorted bagpipe. Like virtual Uilleann pipes or something.