They have quite and impressive catalogue: border pipes, Scottish smallpipes, English pipes, whistles, and rauschpfeife.
You can here these pipes on Horesplay’s CD “Roughshod.” Samples are on their MySpace. The band’s piper, Paul Martin, is involved in the pipe making. The bands flute player, Trish Winter, appears on C&F now and again.
I like the shut off ideas for the borderpipe drones, both the switch and the peg. Would be ( TOTALLY WRONG FORUM ALERT!!! ) interesting to see pegs on a set of UP’s, to turn on/off A or G drones.
hmm… yeah the sound sample is a little pesky and kind of rough quality (the piping is great though).
My Heriot & Allan border pipe drones have a low-tech shutt-off system… little plugs dangling by string from an eye-hook on the drone cap. Nothing fancy but they do the trick.
I’m partial to the look of the northumbrian style pin system, I think its the sexiest way to go about turning a drone on or off. The peg makes the most practical sence to me, as its close to the stock, and you don’t have to reach way out to the end of the drone to use it. The ‘pins/plugs’ on strings work really well, but are almost… too ‘low tech’ for me!
I found the page late at night, and had my volume way up. The guy in the room next to mine came over thump’n on my door to cut the rackett.
I should point out that making good pipes may not be conducive to making good websites, however I can personally endorse the quality of these intruments. The engineering/making is second to none. These are good guys the making and the playing of the instrument from this team is astonishingly good. They were instrumental too (forgive pun) in helping us set up for making flutes. Mainly with both their skill and kindness
It would be a bit more complicated to make northumbrian style shut off systems for border pipes due to the chambers inside the drones at the ends that most makers have. Not impossible certainly, but the shut-off plunger would have to pass through the bell shaped chamber and into the main part of the drone bore, I imagine. Where to put the exit hole in the side of the drone might be interesting too. I’ve thought about it, but I find most customers are looking for a “traditional” look to their pipes and there might have to be a three inch pin sticking out the end of the bass drone.
It’s funny this was brought up, because I just started making drone shut-off ends for my smallpipes that are based on the northumbrian style shut-off system. With mine though, the drone mount itself moves. When the drone mount is pushed down, it slides in a plunger inside the bore that shuts off the drone, covering and concealing the hole in the process, and when the mount is slid out it reveals the hole and the plunger moves out, allowing the drone to sound. It’s a bit hard to describe, but take a look at the pictures at the bottom of this page:
Speaking of horrible pipemaker websites , the pictures load fine on my computer, but I bet they’re all way too huge on others? I’m flying by the seat of my pants here. They’re smaller than they used to be.
BTW the flutes on that webpage are gorgeous. I love flute keys.