new maker ..or just new name for paki's

Check yourself:
http://uilleann.eu/products.php

Go on, make a guess.

Registrant Name Kamal Pasha
Organisation Navilive Private Limited
Language English
Address:

Suite 8525, 16-18 Circus Road, St. Johns Wood
NW8 6PG London UK
Phone: +44.8704867384

Email: info@softech.pk

“these products for our customer to attaract (sic) for quality.”

I don’t know whether this is of Pakistani origin or not, but the regs on the page header look very much like N. O’Grady’s work.

Their homepage allows directory browsing.

Look what I found.

Familiar?

Mukade

The drones look very much like Lynch copies (aesthetically speaking).

That’s because their modeled on a set of Kirk Lynch’s pipes (externally at any rate). It’s a shame because people see a real set of Lynch pipes and assume they’re junk made in Pakistan. Truth be told, Kirk Lynch makes great instruments.

Google turns up links that indicate that Mr. Kamal Pasha is associated with the Hakam Din company in Sialkot, Pakistan. In fact, there is a photo of Mr. Pasha here:

http://www.hakamdin.com/?lID=1&p=history

4 of the 5 photos, on the “Products” page, are of sets I made. Weird and unethical.

And the 5th is of a set Neil O’Grady made. :tomato:

Good eye. Have a look at Neil’s regs in this picture

http://home.thezone.net/~pipes/images/p4.jpg

  • they’re identical!! No wait, they ARE Neil’s regs!! I guess they take pictures of a relatively small maker’s work and hope no one will pick up on it. WRONG!!

Sean

edit: UPDATE. That’s the exact same friggin’ picture. Look at the image on the questionable site. Look closely at how the image appears to be cropped - like on what should be straight pieces of the pipes. See how they are jagged. Now look at the picture of Neil’s regs. See how the pipes are nestled in, what appears to be sheepskin. See how the fleece creates jagged edges on the pipes. Funny how they are identical!!

Buyer be careful.

Are there any pipes made in Pakistan that are worth bothering with? :confused:

I can only speak about the 5 or 6 Pakistani sets of uilleann pipes that I’ve seen up close. They were all rubbish.

To begin with they were badly assembled, with slide sections, mounts and ferrules literally falling off. Leaking bellows valves - in one case, the bellows had no hinge and in another, it had no valve! Drone switches that would require effort to open/close.

Chanter and drone reeds that were just plain useless - plastic chanter reeds in 2 sets and ‘cane’ chanter reeds in the others, but the cane was so hard it wouldn’t play. The drone reeds were unplayable. In one case, I re-reeded the chanter and got it playing in both octaves but it wasn’t in tune (the same reed played very well in my Thompson chanter).

One way I’ve found to distinguish between a set of Kirk’s (I’ve one of his half-sets) is that the bend radius on the bass drone bends is smaller than on the imitations. Aurally, it is much easier to distinguish the real thing vs. the sham.

dave boling

In a word: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: