Hello to all, I want to buy good set of GHB bagpipe to start my piping carrier and heard from allot of peoples that Hakam Din i-d hakamdin make good quality bagpipes and beside that also heard that the pipes made in Pakistan are not good.. I am planning to buy Hakam Din’s J-52 Blackwood pipes.. Is any one on this forums playing Hakamdin pipes need your advice please. Thank you very much 
Moderator’s Note: The above poster is posting from Pakistan.
bagpiper3030 in all honesty you seem to be much closer to the HakamDin workshop than perhaps most of the pipers who frequent this forum.
My suggestion is to contact them directly and either ask to try a set out,
or find someone in your area with a set who is willing to let you have a go at them.
Seeing for yourself is better than asking on the internet.
Good Luck.
Have a look at this promotional video from a company in Sialkot:
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr34AFDbMp4&feature=PlayList&p=6E560D4728143670&playnext=1&index=2
If this is the type of sound you like, go ahead and buy.
As I know nothing about Pakistan’s musical tradition, I do not wish to say these sound bad, but the tuning(s) is/are very strange to my western-european ears and I’d strongly advice you not to attempt playing scottish music on an instrument like this.
COOOL! I think, two of 'em were even in tune - not with the others, but at least within themselves. 
And I really liked the “kilts” - what kinda tartan was THAT??? SOOO tastefull! 
I still think, it’s the cultural revenge for centuries of British opression…
hey, we’re discussin pipes here, comrade… 
What? You wanna say, these were not Pipes on the Videoclip? Don’t You think, THAT criticism is a BIT harsh??? 
Btw. - I’m no comrade! I refused to go to the army for reasons of faith, and chose civil-service instead. 
Oh, and I DO have a set of Hakam-din! They sent it to me as a sample of their quality, a so-called set of “Lowland-Pipes” (in fact: Smallpipes with a PC-reed). The wood isn’t blackwood, only whatever kinda wood painted black. The bag is leaking. The reeds don’t work properly. Well, the covers are pretty nice… 
Make of it, what You will… 
Please keep off-topic political opinions out of the music forums. Thank you.
It’s a pity, really. I have not very long ago cleaned off some ghastly black gunk off a set of pipes made in the British Raj sometimes before it became independent under the names of India and Pakistan. They were very well made pipes (at least the drones, the chanter was a Lawry). So the timber (which was the good old sheesham, but befor you throw up, consider that when I put the sticks on the lathe, they were running perfectly true, after soeme 50 or so years. That’s something not many types of wood will do.)is great, the craftmanship was there, it’s just that the present makers seem not to understand just what all this bagpiping business is all about. In terms of aesthetics, that is. They seem to take it that if you can play your native type of music satisfactorily, then so you can play Scottish music. Well, you can’t if the aesthetics differ considerably, as they do in this case. (Mr Din, take note. I’m not knocking any racial or other differences, but pointing out the deficiencies in the approach of your company, and others in Pakistan, also pointing the direction in which, if you take the advice, you should move to. Think of the Japanes, who started with products that were the byword for very bad quality, and they learnt. Look at Japanese products now.)
It’s not a question of different scales or types of music here. I have only little knowledge of Pakistani music, but the few recordings I do have show clearly, that there as well, instruments have to be in tune - to a different scale, but in tune, with themselves as with others. The video shows, these Pakistani bagpipes are NOT! If they’re not even in tune in Sialkot, that shows, it’s not a question of a different scale or type of music to play, but of poor quality… 
Btw. - Considering my remarks about the British: You don’t recognize irony, when You see it, Eh’? 
Of the many many Pakistani GHB’s I’ve heard/tested over the last 30 years, the HakamDin pipes are the best.
They have actually been sold as Canadian-made pipes (don’t ask, it’s a long story) and some fairly decent pipers are playing them and think highly of them.
For example, a pretty good piper around here plays them and really likes them. The drone tone is big, bold, and steady. He’s playing a Scottish-made chanter, though, and I don’t know what HakamDin chanters sound like. But the drones are good sounding, are made of ABW, and show decent craftsmanship. Few, when they see them and hear them, would guess their country of origin.
Don’t waste your money.
This article is worth your time: http://www.thebagpipeplace.com/museum/page279.html